Survivors tell of Breivik’s ‘battle cry’ in massacre

Anders Behring Breivik screamed a “battle cry” and appeared both angry and joyous as he shot his victims one by one, survivors of the Norwegian far-right killer’s massacre told a court yesterday.

“I heard screaming but I couldn’t make out the words,” Ingvild Leren Stensrud, 17, who was shot in the leg and shoulder, said.

Ms Stensrud, who survived after another victim fell on her, knocking her to the floor and thus creating the impression that she was dead, said she initially thought Breivik was not acting alone.

“I thought they (the attackers) were exchanging messages but realising he was alone, I think the scream was actually a battle cry,” she testified. Breivik made sure that his victims were dead by delivering a control shot to their heads one by one, she added.

Breivik killed 77 people on July 22, first detonating a car bomb outside government buildings in central Oslo, which killed eight, and then shooting 69 people, most of them teenagers, at the ruling Labor Party’s summer camp on Utoeya Island.

He admits the killings but denies criminal guilt, arguing the killings were necessary since his victims were “traitors” who promoted Muslim immigration and multiculturalism.

Ms Stensrud said she sought refuge in the summer camp’s cafe, hiding behind a piano, only to get trapped as Breivik walked from room to room in the small building, killing over a dozen people.

Another survivor Glenn Martin Waldenstroem said Breivik appeared both joyous and angry.

“His face looked distorted,” said Waldenstroem, 20. “He looked angry and smiled simultaneously,” he added, after asking the court to escort Breivik out of the room, saying he was unable to testify with him present.

Five judges will take a decision on Breivik’s sanity at the end of the trial.