Norway has never had a Timothy McVeigh or a Columbine, the kind of peacetime atrocity that makes a culture wonder what has gone wrong with its soul. Now, however, its desire to understand the motivations of Anders Behring Breivik, 33 -- and why the self-styled anti-Islamic militant killed 77 -- risks handing him the platform he obviously craves for what is expected to be a 10-week process. He is being tried for a gruesome sequence of events last July that shocked not only his country but the world: one in which he is accused of killing eight in a car bomb in the center of the Norwegian capital before driving to nearby Utoya Island and shooting 69, mostly teenage, members of the Youth Wing of the country's Labour Party.
Breivik clearly relished his first moments on center stage -- though confrontation would eventually start to erode his self-confidence. On Tuesday morning, he was given half an hour to read out a prepared statement. He took over an hour, arguing five times with the judge that the 13-page tract, which raged against multi-culturalism and likened his teenage victims to Hitler Youth, was the most crucial piece of evidence the court would hear. He declared, "I am a member of the Norwegian resistance movement, and as a representative I speak on behalf of Norwegians, Scandinavians and Europeans. We demand that our ethnic rights not be taken away from us."
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He has admitted the killings, claiming they were necessary to prevent the Islamic colonisation of Europe. But though he demanded acquittal, both defense and prosecution agree that his guilt is a formality. This case hinges instead on the gunman's mental health at the time of the attacks.
Breivik, however, wishes to be considered sane. He bragged that he had carried out "the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack in Europe since the Second World War." But he said he had carried it out in self-defence like the U.S. military planners who dropped the atom bomb on Japan in 1945. "I did this out of goodness not evil," he said. "I would do it again."
The day before his hour-long, calmly delivered opening statement, Breivik had listened impassively as one of the prosecutors read out the names and grisly circumstances behind the deaths of his 77 victims, the youngest just 14. He then openly wept as the court was forced to watch a 12-minute propaganda video Breivik had made himself, and posted on YouTube on the day of his attacks.
In the grisliest part of his speech, he compared that holiday island of Utoya to a Hitler Youth indoctrination camp, and told bereaved families and survivors that his victims were complicit in their deaths. ""They were not innocent, non-political children. These were young people who worked to actively uphold multicultural positions," he said.
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Many people in Norway had hoped to bury the ghosts of July 22, 2011. The more than two months of the trial, however, is going to wrack the country's soul in the name of justice. "This is Norway. We believe in openness and everybody being treated the same," said Kjersti Narud, a psychiatrist, following proceedings inside the court. With two court-ordered psychiatric reports already having reached contradictory conclusions, she admits her profession is also in the dock. The decision of the five judges who have to make the ruling on his sanity, will have a profound effect on the judgment meted out.
If Breivik is found to have been sane when he carried out the killings, he can be sentenced to up to 21 years in prison, with a provision to keep him behind bars longer if he is still considered dangerous. If not he will be held in forced psychiatric care for as long as doctors consider him unwell. Despite his extreme opinions, Breivik's strategy appeared to be to rein in the more fanciful ideas that peppered the 1,500 page "manifesto" he sent to 8,000 email addresses on the morning of the attacks, removing any mention of the Knights Templar group -- an incarnation of the moribund religious groups disbanded in the 14th century -- he claims to have co-founded in 2002.
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But his confidence faltered. For three days in a row, Brievik had entered the court and issued the same fist clenched salute, with his right arm stretched out in front of him. But, after the prosecution began its arguments, his bravado vanished and he looked up and down from his papers nervously, as prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh read out a section from his manifesto, in which he claimed to have been sought out by the revived Knights Templar because of his particular gifts.
The prosecution's strategy has been to depict Breivik as a loser and a fantasist. They have said they do not believe that the Knights Templar exists, and confronted him with sections within his manifesto that talk about trips to Liberia to meet a Serbian war hero, and to London to found the militant organisation. The counter-argument appears to have left him sweating and squirming, "We can just skip this and go to the conclusion," he said. "The police don't think there is a Serb. They don't believe in my British mentor."
As Engh pressed him on why he liked to wear a uniform, and confronted him with excerpts from the manifesto which claimed he had been chosen to found the Knights Templar because he was "gifted", Breivik said: "Before you continue, I hope that you will try to ridicule me less and concentrate on the case more."
He fidgeted and sweated as he was forced again and again to admit that the manifesto was "pompous" and badly written. "If I may ask, what is the purpose of this? What are you doing now? What do you want to arrive at? What is the purpose? Your intention is to try to sow doubt into whether this network exists. That is your purpose," said Breivik.
After a lunch break on day three, Breivik changed his strategy, refusing to answer many of the questions which hinted at lies in his manifesto. "You have chosen a de-legitimization strategy in order to retract credibility from me," said Breivik. "I don't want to make your de-legitimization strategy any simpler."
Norway will have nine more weeks of this tug-of-war with reason.
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