Norway gunman remanded during court appearance, claims cells

Oslo: A court in Oslo remanded Anders Behring Breivik in custody by for eight weeks today after he admitted being the gunman behind last week’s massacre in Norway but refused to acknowledge guilt. Judge Kim Heger told reporters that the 32-year-old suspect had been refused permission to appear in a uniform as he made his first appearance in an Oslo court which was ordered to be held behind closed doors. [caption id=“attachment_48014” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Berg-Jacobsen/Reuters”] [/caption] The judge also ruled Behring Breivik be held in solitary confinement for the first four weeks of an eight-week period in custody, with a ban on all communication with the outside world in a bid to aid a police investigation. The suspect also told the court hearing he had “two further cells” in his organisation, according to the court registrar. Behring Breivik’s brief appearance came around an hour after the country had marked a minute’s silence for the victims of last Friday’s bomb and shooting spree which left around people dead. He arrived and left in an armoured Mercedes via a back entrance to the courthouse in downtown Oslo. TV2 television showed grainy images of the shaven- headed suspect wearing a red top being taken from the court, almost unrecognisable as the man with a mop of blond hair featured in photographs in his own lengthy internet manifesto. People waiting to catch a glimpse of him cried “traitor” and “bloody killer,” Norway’s NTB agency said. Behring Breivik’s lawyer, Geir Lippestad, came in through the main entrance, having to force a passage through hundreds of journalists waiting since early morning. The country’s train stations closed and the stock market halted trading. Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland also held a minute’s silence and flew national flags at half-mast. “It was an attack against the very values that our countries are built upon. It was an attack against all of us,” said Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen. Before the attack Breivik wrote a 1500-page manifesto, datelined London. He boasted he was one of up to 80 “solo martyr cells” recruited across Western Europe to topple governments tolerant of Islam, it said, adding Scotland Yard was now trying to establish if he had recently visited London. At least seven people died in an initial car bombing outside the prime minister’s office, in a calculated distraction for police allowing Breivik to shoot scores of youngsters attending a summer camp on the island of Utoeya, 40 kilometres away. The toll from the island currently stands at 86 although police have said figure could be revised downwards. Names and photographs are to be released shortly of those who died, including offspring of senior ruling party figures. An emotional Stoltenberg said at a memorial service yesterday that the full extent of the “evil” perpetrated Friday would emerge when the victims’ names and their photographs are released. But the attacks have triggered calls for Norway to reinstate the death penalty. The maximum prison sentence in Norway is 21 years, meaning — if found guilty — the accused could be awarded just 82 days per killing. Behring Breivik acknowledged in his tract that he would be deemed a “monster,” but said it was designed to end a centuries-long Muslim colonisation of Europe. Although he told investigators he acted alone, prosecutors stressed they had yet to uncover a motive — despite the manifesto claims. Part diary, bomb-making manual and Islamophobic rant, the tract details the self-styled Knight Templar’s “martyrdom operation” including a call for believers to spawn as many children as possible in order to generate a pool of future fighters in a Christian war he likens to a medieval crusade. During weekend interrogation, Behring Breivik told police that Europe’s deadliest attacks since the 2004 Madrid bombings, were “cruel” but “necessary”. Nevertheless, lawyer Lippestad said his client felt he had done “nothing reprehensible.” Police have faced loud criticism over the hour it took them to reach the island, during which victims — some shot again in the head to make sure they were dead, according to witnesses — died at a rate of more than one per minute. AFP