Breivik 'wanted to behead ex-PM''

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19 April 2012

Confessed mass killer Anders Breivik says he was planning to capture and decapitate former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland during his shooting massacre on Utoya island. Breivik told a court that he planned to film the beheading and post the video on the internet.

Brundtland had already left the Labour Party's youth camp on Utoya when Breivik arrived on July 22.

The far-right fanatic said he also planned to kill many more than the 69 people who died on the island. There were nearly 600 people there. Breivik said, "the goal was to kill them all".

He also said his original plans for a terror attack were for three bombings, possibly including the Norwegian royal palace. He planned to bomb Oslo's government district and the Labour Party's office. The three bombs would be followed by several shooting massacres, if he survived.

He had several options for the third target. "I settled on the palace in a setting where the royal family wouldn't be hurt," he said. "Most nationalists and cultural conservatives are supporters of the monarchy, including myself."

He decided against multiple bombs because building one was "much more difficult than I thought".

The anti-Muslim extremist set off a bomb in the government district on July 22 last year before travelling to a youth camp on Utoya island, where he shot dead 69 people. Breivik has confessed to the bomb and shooting rampage, but rejects criminal guilt saying he was acting to protect Norway and Europe. A total of 77 died in his attacks.

He said he played the computer game Modern Warfare for 16 months starting in January 2010, primarily to get a feel for how to use rifle sights. Breivik said he decided already in 2006 to carry out what he expected to be a "suicide" operation. First he took a "sabbatical year" fully devoted to play another computer game, World of Warcraft, for 16 hours a day.

The key issue of the trial is to establish whether he is criminally insane.

If found sane, Breivik could face a maximum 21-year prison sentence or an alternate custody arrangement that would keep him locked up as long as he is considered a menace to society. If declared insane, he would be committed to psychiatric care for as long as he's considered ill.

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