THE GUARDIAN: Victims' relatives walk out as trial ends with killer demanding to be set free and asking court to reject insanity claimThe trial of Anders Behring Breivik has ended with the confessed mass killer demanding to be set free and vowing that history would exonerate him for a bomb and gun rampage that killed 77 people.
As the self-styled anti-Muslim militant spoke for the last time in the 10-week proceedings, around 30 relatives of his victims walked out of the courtroom as he spoke.
In a rambling statement, Breivik lashed out at everything he perceived to be wrong with the world, from non-ethnic Norwegians representing the country in the Eurovision song contest to the sexually liberated lifestyle of the characters in the American TV show Sex and the City.
He also claimed fellow rightwing extremists were behind a small amount of explosives found outside a Swedish nuclear plant this week. The Swedish police spokesman Tommy Nyman had no comment, adding "especially not if he says it".
While some of Breivik's comments prompted laughter in the Oslo court, gravity returned when he reiterated his motive for bombing a government building in Oslo, killing eight, and hunting down teenagers at the Labour party's youth camp on Utøya island. Sixty-nine people died and dozens more were injured in one of the worst peacetime shooting massacres by a single gunman.
"History shows that you have to commit a small barbarism to prevent a bigger barbarism," the 33-year-old Norwegian said.
"The attacks on July 22 were preventive attacks to defend the indigenous Norwegian people," he said. "I therefore demand to be acquitted."
Breivik claims the governing Labour party has betrayed the country by accepting Muslim immigrants and must be stopped before turning Norway into what he called a "multiculturalist hell". » | Associated Press in Oslo | Friday, June 22, 2012
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