Breivik planned to kill leading politicians

THE right-wing extremist who killed dozens of teenagers in Norway told police he had originally planned to execute leading Labour Party politicians whom he viewed as traitors.

The Norwegian VG tabloid, citing leaked police interrogations with Anders Behring Breivik, reported that Breivik’s aim was to kill former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere or Eskil Pedersen, head of the Labour Party’s youth wing.

But only Pedersen was present when the 32-year-old Norwegian arrived on July 22 at the Labour Party youth camp after setting off a bomb that killed eight people in Oslo. Pedersen survived Breivik’s attack but 69 other people were killed at the Utoya Island camp.

VG said Breivik’s initial plan was to take one of the party officials hostage at Utoya and read a death sentence before carrying out an execution.

Gahr Stoere had visited Utoya the day before, while Brundtland had left the island just hours before Breivik arrived.

VG executives declined to say how the paper obtained the interrogation details.

Police, however, released a statement calling it “unfortunate” that classified documents from the investigation had been leaked. It said the documents had been made available to police, defence lawyers and lawyers representing survivors and the families of victims.

Police attorney Pal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby added “this is not information that to a large extent will harm the investigation” and said police would investigate the leak.

Breivik, who surrendered to a SWAT team on Utoya, has confessed to the attacks, but pleaded not guilty to terror charges, claiming he was in a state of war and therefore not criminally liable.

At his first public court hearing on Monday, he declared himself a military commander of a Norwegian resistance movement before the judge cut him off.

In a 1,500-page document posted online before the attacks, Breivik laid out a blueprint for a nationalist revolution to overthrow governments he claims have let their countries down by allowing Muslim immigrants to settle in Europe.

Investigators believe Breivik plotted and carried out the attacks on his own and have not found any evidence supporting his claims of belonging to a militant network.

VG said Breivik sent his online manifesto to 1,003 recipients from his mother’s apartment before driving a van packed with a 950kg fertiliser bomb to downtown Oslo.

He parked the van outside the main government building, ignited the fuse with a lighter, locked the car and walked away.

“I was very nervous at the moment when I lit up, and thought that there is no way back and that I possibly would die in two seconds,” VG quoted Breivik telling police.

He went to a getaway car a few blocks away in which he had at least 500 rounds of ammunition, a flak jacket, plastic handcuffs and two devices for quick loading of gun clips.

Breivik did not hear the bomb go off but heard about it later on the radio, according to VG’s account.

Disappointed that the building had not collapsed, he began the second part of his plan, driving toward Utoya, 40km from Oslo.

At the lake dock, he told the guard to summon the ferry, saying he was a police officer who needed to brief Labour members about the Oslo bomb. Hundreds of people, including teenagers from across Norway, had gathered on the island for an annual summer retreat.

As he arrived, Breivik briefly thought about calling the attack off, VG said.

Instead he opened fire on guards on the shore, but spared the boat crew because he did not know if they were linked to the Labour Party.