Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik trial: day three live

12.02pm Court resumes after lunch and Breivik has once again danced
around the question of what exactly happened at the meeting in London. “Were
you ordained?” asked the prosecutor. “In retrospect, I see that
incident as being ordained,” said Breivik, who thought up a whole
ceremony for ordaining “Knights Templar”. The prosecution are
doubtful over whether this London meeting actually amounted to anything, or
whether Breivik’s imagination is at work once again.

11.34am Here is a video from this morning of the prosecution team
outlining the areas they intend to question Breivik on this week.

11.24am More detail is emerging on the wires about Breivik’s cross
examination regarding his alleged Knights Templar meeting in London.

AP report:

QuoteBreivik also refused to give details on what he claims was the founding
session of the “Knights Templar” in London in 2002. He conceded,
however, that he embellished somewhat in the manifesto when he described the
other three members at the founding session as “brilliant political and
military tacticians of Europe.”

Breivik testified that he had used “pompous” language and
described them instead as “four people with great integrity.”

Bejer Engh challenged him on whether the meeting had taken place at all.

“Yes, there was a meeting in London,” Breivik insisted.

“It’s not something you have made up?” Engh countered.

“I haven’t made up anything. What is in the compendium is correct,”
he said.

Later, he answered with more nuance.

“There is nothing that is made up, but you have to see what is written
in a context. It is a glorification of certain ideals,” Breivik said.

11.09am Our man in the courtroom David Blair sums up the last
hour of questioning:

We now have a lot of detail about this meeting in London, which took place
either on 30 April or 1 May 2002 (Breivik says he can’t remember). Richard,
the “English mentor”, was the host, but he was a bit of a “keyboard
warrior”, so Breivik was given the task of producing the group’s
manifesto. He danced around the question of whether this meeting included a
ritual where they were all “ordained” as “Knights Templar”,
but from his evasiveness, it seems most likely that they were. That will
have involved a ceremony of Breivik’s own design involving white gloves,
soft lights etc.

There is little doubt that Breivik was in London at the time in question –
his credit card was used in a cafe there – but the prosecution appear to
believe that the “Knights Templar” network might still be a
figment of his imagination.

11.05am Our blogger Dan
Hodges
has written this piece on the Breivik trial and what
he sees as “the
tragedy of justice
“.

QuoteOver the past couple of days I’ve been asked to do a number of interviews
and write several articles on the wisdom of allowing Breivik his grotesque
day in the sun. Should his trial be televised? Should he have been allowed
to read out his rambling statement of self-justification? I’ve tried to
answer sensibly. The appropriate interface between the media and the
judicial process. Striking a balance over allowing a legitimate defence and
political grandstanding. And all the time I’ve been thinking: “I wish they’d
just killed him.”

It is of course a ridiculous thought. The Norwegian police officers who
apprehended the perpetrator of the worst crime in their nation’s history
showed immeasurable self-restraint. And suprajudicial assassinations are not
the basis upon which secure and civilised societies are constructed. But I
wish they’d shot him all the same.

10.55am Lunch has been called. Court breaks for one hour.

10.36am We have written a number of stories over the past year
regarding this man “Richard” that Breivik referred to in
his manifesto. In July The Telegraph broke the story that EDL
member Paul Ray admitted he may have been Anders Breivik’s inspiration

though he denied ever meeting him. Paul Ray blogged using the name “Lionheart”
and called for a revival of the Knights Templar movement. He
travelled to Norway for questioning
.

Paul Ray (L) fears he may be the “Richard” Breivik is referring
to

10.22am The court has heard that the “English mentor” who Breivik
claims to have met in London is called “Richard”.

10.19am The court is now seeing Breivik’s statement to the
police. He describes the three men he met in London – including the “English
mentor” – as “some of the most brilliant political and military
tacticians” in Europe. Together, they came up with a “detailed
long term plan on how to seize power in Western Europe”.

10.10am David Blair has more on the alleged “inaugural meeting”
of the Knights Templar in London:

One of the most interesting revelations so far: Breivik claims to have had
an “English mentor” who hosted the “inaugural meeting”
of the “Knights Templar” in London on 1 May 2002. A list of
attendees describes this man as an “English Protestant”. Breivik
adamantly refuses to name him or say anything more.

10.04am The questioning has now turned to claims in Breivik’s
manifesto about an alleged meeting of the “Knights Templar” in
London in May 2002. He is largely refusing to comment, but some details are
emerging.

9.52am More from David Blair, inside the courtroom:

The court is back in session and Breivik has immediately complained about
the prosecutor’s questioning. “I know your strategy,” he said. “You
have chosen a delegitimisation strategy to strip me of credibility.”
The prosecutor responded with complete courtesy that she was only conducting
a cross examination. She is showing remarkable patience.

9.48am The court is back in session, with discussions turning to how to
deal with the fact that Breivik doesn’t want to answer certain
questions.

9.23am The court has risen for a 20 minute recess. Breivik has revealed
that he posed as a Unicef aid worker when he travelled to Liberia. Smiling
broadly, he remembered how he told the airport officials at Monrovia that he
was a “bleeding heart”. To back up his story, he visited the
Unicef offices in Oslo beforehand and picked up a selection of brochures.
But it turns out that he needn’t have bothered. The Liberian airport
officials “didn’t care if I was bringing heroin as I long as I gave
them some money.”

The prosecution suspect that this whole trip was imaginary. Our chief foreign
correspondent David Blair says that his brief account of the
political situation in Liberia in April 2002 was entirely accurate.

9.19am More from David Blair on this line of questioning:


The prosecutor is expertly needling Breivik. “I understand if you are
annoyed,” she says gently. “I’m not annoyed!” Breivik fires
back. There is a serious point here: the prosecutor is trying to get him to
talk about his supposed network of ultra-nationalists. He claims he can’t
because he doesn’t want to expose his comrades to arrest. But the
prosecution think the real reason is that the whole idea that a secret
network exists is a figment of Breivik’s imagination.

9.12am Breivik is being very cagey with regards to answering questions
about his alleged trip to Liberia, but he does say that he used two cover
stories to get into the country:

He is also warned by the judge that his failure to answer questions might be
used against him.

9.01am Breivik delivers a little exposition on the subject of female
revolutionaries. “If you look at revolutionary activists around the
world, only 1 in 10 is a woman,” he declares.

This leads to his conclusion that only “1 in 10” women could have
carried out the murderous attack he perpetrated on 22 July last year. He is,
of course, being cross questioned by an extremely astute female prosecutor.
You sense that he is discomfited by being put on the spot by a woman.

8.55am Sky News reporter Trygve Sorvaag says Breivik appears
less comfortable in court today.

8.45am A number of British observers to these proceedings have noted
culturual differences between the British and Norwegian court system. David
Blair
highlights another interesting illustration of this from this
morning.

Breivik halts the cross examination to ask the prosecutor “what is
the purpose of your questioning?” At this point, a British judge would
probably have intervened to say “you answer questions, you don’t get to
ask them”. Here in Oslo, the prosecutor replies seriously and politely
that she is trying to establish that the ultra-nationalist network Breivik
claims to belong to does not, in fact, exist at all.

8.38am The Serb nationalists with whom Breivik was in contact
were considering “several hundred” individuals throughout Europe
for a “training course”, David Blair reports.

He describes this as “transferring knowledge or physical exercise”.
He is serioulsy discomfited by this line of questioning. He clearly fears
giving away his comrades in the struggle. As for what the training might
have involved, he says he “doesn’t want to say any more”, before
adding that it might have included “production of bombs”.

Breivik in court this morning

8.31am David Blair on Breivik’s trip to Liberia:

Breivik’s journey to Liberia in April 2002 would have been an
extraordinary undertaking.

As it happens, I went there in 2005 and even then it was a pretty dangerous
place to visit. In 2002, the country was in the grip of civil war and
mainstream airlines would not go near the place. Breivik must have flown
there via a nearby country, possibly Ghana. I guess the Serbian nationalist
he met in Liberia would have regarded his willingness to make the journey as
a key test of his dedication to the cause.

8.21am Breivik is not naming the Serbian he went to meet, as The
Guardian’s Helen Pidd reports:

8.20am We’re now learning about an extraordinary journey that Breivik
made to Liberia in West Africa in 2002. The aim was to meet a Serb
ultra-nationalist who was in hiding from war crimes charges. Or, as Breivik
put it, for “defending his country.”

8.13am The day begins with Breivik being cross examined on his
contacts with other ultra-nationalists across Europe, David Blair
reports from inside the courtoom.


He is proving far more reticient than normal, declining to go into detail. For
a moment, we are getting a glimpse of the subterranean world of far right
militants. “My impression was that most were monitored by police,”
said Breivik.

8.02am The trial is underway, Breivik began the day the same way
he began the previous two, with a fist salute.

7.47am The courtroom is filling up as we approach the start of day
three, as this picture from Sky News reporter Trygve Sorvaag shows.

7.40am Randi Johansen Perreau, who lost one son in Breivik’s rampage
and had another seriously injured, spoke yesterday about what it felt like
seeing the killer in court:

7.34am During questioning yesterday Breivik explained
his tears
during the screening in court of his 12-minute Islamophobic
video broadcast on the internet on the day of the attacks. He said:

QuoteBecause
my country is in the process of dying – it was the sorrow over seeing my
country … deconstructed. Especially the songs, combined with the message”
that brought tears to his eyes. It was my first YouTube video.

Engh also asked Breivik why he had toned down his rhetoric when he read a
73-minute statement to the court on Tuesday, as per the judge’s
instructions. He replied:

Quote
I had no choice … I had to or be sent to a crazy asylum

7.22am A lay judge in the trial Thomas Indreboe was yesterday
dismissed after it emerged that last year he wrote on a Norwegian
newspaper’s Facebook page that he believed Breivik deserved the death
penalty. More on that here

.

Thomas Indreboe, one of the lay magistrates. before he was relieved of
his duties

7.20am Breivik’s testimony is expected to last another four days,
though unlike the rest of the trial is not being televised over concerns it
would give the killer a “platform” to extol his world view.

Breivik is led into led into court yesterday

7.17am Yesterday saw Anders Behring Breivik take the stand for
the first time. Our chief foreign correspondent David Blair, who is
in court in Oslo, has written
this piece for today’s Telegraph
on the latest developments:

Anders Behring Breivik, flushed with boastful self righteousness, claimed
that “goodness not evil” had caused him to murder 77 Norwegians,
declaring: “I would have done it again.”

The far Right killer showed not a shred of contrition or humility when the
court in Oslo allowed him 65 minutes to read a personal statement on the
second day of his trial.

Breivik came close to arguing that he killed 67 members of the youth wing
of the Norwegian Labour party, most of them teenagers, out of justified
retribution. They were “not innocent”, he said, but “young
people who were actively working to uphold multiculturalism”. Their
organisation was comparable “to the Hitler Youth”.

Yet the man who said his crimes were designed to save Europe from
destruction at the hands of radical Islam came out as an admirer of
al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden’s creation was the “most successful
revolutionary force in the world”, said Breivik, and European
ultra-nationalists had much to learn from its cell structure and “cult
of martyrdom”.

7.15am Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the third day
of the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, the far-Right extremist who
confessed to killing 77 people in Norway
on July 22. The day is due to start at 7am GMT (8am BST, 9am Norway). For a
reminder of those horrific events, and the aftermath the following week, our
live coverage from July is below. You can also see our coverage of day one
of the trial as it happened here
and day two here.

Norway shootings: July 29 as it happened

Norway shootings: July 28 as it happened

Norway shootings: July 27 as it happened

Norway shootings: July 26 as it happened

Norway shootings: July 25 as it happened

Norway shootings: July 24 as it happened

Norway terrorist attacks: July 23 as it happened

Oslo explosion: July 22 as it happened

Views: 0

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes