Terror trial of anti-Muslim killer begins in Norway

The terror trial against an anti-Muslim fanatic who confessed to killing 77 people in Norway starts today amid worries that he will use the proceedings to showcase his radical views.

After opening statements, Anders Behring Breivik is set to testify for five days, explaining why he set off a bomb in downtown Oslo, killing eight, and then shot to death 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoya island, outside Oslo.

Since Breivik has confessed to the July 22 attacks — claiming they were necessary to protect Norway from being taken over by Muslims — the key issue that remains unresolved is his mental health.

The 33-year-old Norwegian was found insane in one examination that recommended committing him to compulsory psychiatric care, while a second assessment found him mentally competent to be sent to prison. It’s up to the judges in Oslo’s district court to decide which diagnosis they find most believable. If deemed mentally competent, he would face a maximum prison term of 21 years or an alternate custody arrangement under which the sentence is prolonged for as long as he is deemed a danger to society.

Those who survived the shooting massacre are bracing for the horror to return during the trial.

“I do not know how I will react, I do not think you can prepare for it,” said Stine Renate Haaheim, a 27-year-old Labour Party lawmaker who survived the Utoya massacre by swimming away from the island.

Haaheim said, although she is curious about what snapped inside Breivik to turn him into a mass killer, “I don’t think it will give any meaning to what has happened.”

Police will seal off streets around the court building, where journalists, survivors and relatives of victims can watch the proceedings in a 200-seat courtroom built specifically for the trial. Thick glass partitions have been put up to separate victims and their families from the defendant.

NRK television will broadcast parts of the trial, but is not allowed to show Breivik’s testimony.

In a manifesto published online before the attacks, Breivik wrote, “patriotic resistance fighters” should use trials “as a platform to further our cause”.