Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people last July, said Monday he wanted to apologise for killing “innocent” people in his Oslo bombing, but offered no similar apology for the Utoeya massacre.
He also insisted that not only his victims and their families had their lives ruined on July 22: “I also lost everything,” he lamented to the court.
For the first time since his trial started on April 16, the 33-year-old right-wing extremist voiced a small ounce of regret for his actions.
“I would like to offer a large apology” to those who were injured or killed in the bombing of an Oslo government building as they were just passing by and had no political connections, he said.
“They are not defined as legitimate targets.”
But when prosecutor Enga Bejer Engh asked if he wanted to say the same to any of the 69 people — mainly teens — slaughtered in his shooting massacre on the nearby island of Utoeya after the bombing, Breivik said: “No, I do not.”
He reiterated that youngsters attending a summer camp hosted by the ruling Labour Party’s youth wing were “legitimate targets”, as “political activists” working for the “deconstruction of Norwegian society” through the multiculturalism he insists is leading to a “Muslim invasion” of the country.
Instead, he insisted that “everyone who is linked to the (government) and the Labour Party … should issue a large apology” to the Norwegian people.
In his own apology, Breivik mentioned in particular Kai Hauge, a 32-year-old man who was killed as he walked past the government building when it was bombed.
Hauge’s mother Soelvi rejected the apology. “It is of course not enough,” she told the Aftenposten daily’s online edition, adding: “We will never get Kai back.”
Jon Hestnes, who represents survivors and family of the victims of the Oslo bombing, described Breivik’s apology as surprising and insincere.
Breivik continued Monday giving his account of events on Utoeya, providing chilling details of how he calmly walked across the island, picking off his victims one by one, shooting most of them point-blank in the head.
On the sixth day of his trial, he faced cross-examination from the prosecution and questions from his own defence about the deadliest massacre ever committed by a sole gunman, which he insists was “cruel but necessary.”
He stressed the shooting spree had been a “gruesome” experience for him as well, and that he had to force himself to carry it out since it felt so “against human nature.”
It was almost like “being asked to eat a plate of excrement,” he said, acknowledging though that “it was probably more gruesome for the people I was hunting.”
