Man accused over mass murder of 77 people gives little away after pleading not guilty at start of 10-week trial
A taped phone call went some of the way to establish the full horror of what Anders Behring Breivik did in just three hours one afternoon last summer. "He's coming, he's coming," said Renate Taarnes in a terrified whisper. The room at Oslo's central criminal court was silent as she explained to the telephone operator that she had barricaded herself in a toilet in the cafe on the island of Utøya after hearing shooting. By the time the 22-year-old emerged from her hiding place 12 of her friends were lying dead on the cafe floor.
Taarnes's emergency call was deemed too harrowing to be broadcast on the live TV feed which was covering the first day of Breivik's 10-week trial. But as the recording played inside the courtroom the defendant appeared untroubled. He knew it was he who fired those shots, he who prompted those screams. His face gave little away.
Breivik's small, narrow eyes stared straight ahead. His jaw, framed by a thin, angular beard, did not drop. It was only the bulge of his Adam's apple as he gulped down saliva which suggested he was finding the experience emotionally taxing.
From the moment he entered the court, Breivik appeared defiant. After being released from his handcuffs the 33-year-old greeted waiting photographers with a closed fist salute. Asked to enter a plea, he admitted he had indeed planted the enormous car bomb which killed eight people in Oslo's government district on 22 July last year. And he accepted that he gone on to murder 69 others, mostly teenagers, when he made his way to Utøya where the Norwegian Labour party was holding a youth camp. But he was not ready to accept his guilt.
"I acknowledge the acts," said Breivik, to a courtroom packed with many of those who managed to dodge his bullets and bombs, as well as the families of some who didn't. "But I do not plead guilty." His justification? "I did it in self-defence."
He had already announced that he did not recognise the Norwegian court – because, he said, it received its mandate "from political parties who support multiculturalism".
Details gave an insight into Breivik's calculated mind. He programmed the satnav in his hire car before leaving his mother's flat to take him from Oslo's government district – where he planted his lethal fertiliser bomb – to Utvika, the village opposite the island of Utøya. Arriving at Utvika, he called up the island administration and told them they needed to send a boat to pick him up: he was a police officer, he assured them, and had been dispatched to reassure the campers following bombings in Oslo.
He plotted the attacks from a single bedroom at his mother's flat, using a computer on which the prosecution claimed he once spent a whole year playing the World of Warcraft game "full time".
In court he showed no remorse. The only time he appeared to show any emotion was when prosecutors played a 12-minute propaganda video he had posted on YouTube shortly before carrying out the attacks. He wiped away tears as he watched the film, which purported to show the threat of "the rise of cultural Marxism in western Europe" and "the Islamic colonisation" of Norway and beyond. This amateur film spliced together still images, including a cover of the Spectator magazine, a cartoon of a headscarved woman with bomb in place of a pregnant belly, and at least half a dozen scenes showing knights wearing the St George's flag.
England cropped up a number of times during the prosecution's opening statements. A photo Breivik took of himself in what appeared to be a Swat uniform, featured a badge which he had photoshopped to read: "Marxist hunter: Norway multiculti traitor hunting permit." The original version apparently had England in place of Norway. Breivik claimed to have visited London in 2002 for the founding meeting of an anti-Islamist network called the Knights Templar – an organisation the prosecution said "does not exist", at least not in the way Breivik describes.
Breivik has liked to give the impression he was a key cog in a mighty clockwork rather than a lone extremist. The court was played the final call he made to police just before his arrest, when he introduced himself as "Anders Behring Breivik – I'm commander of the Norwegian Resistance Movement."
When asked by the operator to elaborate, he said he was commander of the Knights Templar Europe – "we are organised in the anti-communistic and Norwegian resistance movement against she Islamisation of Europe and Norway. I have just carried out an operation on behalf of the Knights Templar Europe and Norway and, since the operation has now been completed, it's acceptable to surrender to Delta [the Norwegian elite forces]."
The five-strong panel of judges – two professionals, joined by a hairdresser, a civil servant and a teacher sitting as lay judges – have to decide whether this call was made by a man of sound mind.
The first forensic psychiatrists assigned to assessing Breivik thought not. In a report last November, two experts declared him to have been insane and suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he carried out the attacks. But a second report, carried out by different psychiatrists, came to the opposite conclusion.
If deemed mentally competent Breivik would face a maximum prison sentence of 21 years or an alternate custody arrangement where the sentence is prolonged for as long as an inmate is deemed a danger to society. If the judges find him criminally insane, he will be detained indefinitely in a secure psychiatric institution.
Breivik insists he knew exactly what he was doing when he planned and carried out the massacres. His lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told the judges that he would be calling witnesses to testify to his client's sanity: "The defendant's wish is to be sentenced as a legally sane person. Our evidence will support that claim."
Breivik will attempt to convince the judges of his sanity as he gives evidence on Tuesday. Judicial authorities decided to ban the broadcast of his testimony, expected to last five days, as it risked giving him a platform for his extremist views.
Breivik has always been clear that a public trial was part of his master plan. "Your arrest will mark the initiation of the propaganda phase," he wrote in the 1,801-page manifesto he posted online before his killing spree. "Your trial offers you a stage to the world."
Many people in Norway and beyond feel angry that Breivik is being allowed to make his arguments. Lippestad said his team "can fully appreciate the bereaved parties' point of view and also those who were injured that they do not want this court case to be like a pulpit for the defendant".
There are many more who believe it is wrong for the media to report his justifications. But some of those who survived his attacks think differently.
Bjørn Magnus Jacobsen Ihler, 20, managed to hide from Breivik on Utøya. Outside the courtroom, he said: "I think it's very important to hear what he has to say. I think it's very important to listen to him because these ideas aren't just Breivik's ideas. He shares them with a lot of people ... it's important to look at these societies and break into them and get new ideas into them. We have to do whatever we can to fight future extremism from all political sides."
Key facts in the case
• Breivik is charged with terrorism and premeditated murder for a bombing in Oslo's government district which killed eight, and a shooting attack at a political youth camp which killed 69. He admits the attacks but has pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted he faces a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison, though sentences can be extended if a criminal is considered a menace to society. If declared insane by the court he would be committed to psychiatric care. Both sides can appeal against the ruling.
• Following Monday's opening arguments five days have been set aside for Breivik's testimony. Forensic experts and coroners will then testify for the prosecution, as well as survivors and witnesses from the bomb scene and Utøya. The defence plans to call radical Islamists and rightwing extremists to the stand in an attempt to show that Breivik is not alone with his world view. Psychiatrists who examined Breivik will testify on his mental health.
• Less than half of the roughly 200 seats in the court room have been set aside for survivors and relatives of the victims. Many more will be able to watch the proceedings through a live video link at more than a dozen courthouses around Norway.
• On Tuesday Breivik will begin his evidence. It will not be broadcast for fear of giving him a platform to espouse his extremist views.
• Breivik's mother will be called by the prosecution to give evidence against him. A number of the teenagers who hid from Breivik on Utøya will testify against him, including Renate Taarnes, whose anguished emergency call was played to the court on Monday.
• Among the defence witnesses is Mullah Krekar, an Islamic leader sentenced to five years for making repeated death threats against Norwegian politicians. Peder Nøstvold Jensen, a blogger who went under the pseudonym "Fjordman", is also expected to appear for the defence. Jensen was held up by Breivik as a role model.
• The case is scheduled to last 10 weeks. At its conclusion the five judges will reserve their judgment for at least a week.