TORONTO – The trial of Anders Behring Breivik 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. Now Norway’s prime minister has apologized in Parliament for flaws in the response to Breivik’s attack, and pledged sweeping measures to improve terror preparedness.
Global News takes a look back at the Norway attacks and the details as they unfold during the trial of self-proclaimed Norway massacre killer, Anders Behring Breivik.
July 22, 2011: At 3:22 p.m. a car bomb goes off outside the offices of Norway’s parliament, killing eight people and sending terrified workers into the glass and debris covered streets of central Oslo.
The bomb detonation is followed by a massacre at a youth camp on an island outside the capital.
Breivik shoots dead 69 others, most of them teenagers.
July 24, 2011: A national day of mourning is held in Norway for the victims.
July 25, 2011: It emerges that a 1,500-page manifesto was published online prior to the attacks. The manifesto reveals Breivik styles himself as a Christian conservative, patriot and nationalist. Despite his own anti-Muslim views, he looks down on neo-Nazis as “underprivileged racist skinheads with a short temper.”
On the same day, Breivik admits to setting off the bomb outside the government headquarters in Oslo and to opening fire at a Labor Party youth camp on Utoya island, outside the capital.
Breivik, however, denies he is criminally responsibility for the deaths.
July 29, 2011: One week later, Norway begins burying the dead.
At a memorial service in Oslo, Labor Party youth-wing leader Eskil Pedersen says the attack “will not destroy Norway’s commitment to democracy, tolerance and fighting racism.”
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August 2011: Investigators reveal they believe Breivik acted alone in the attacks and say they have searched his computer and cell phone records for any signs of contact with other right-wing extremists who may have helped or influenced him.
October 3, 2011: Ten weeks after the massacre, Utoya opens the island to journalists.
November 29, 2011: Breivik is deemed not fit to stand trial. A psychiatric assessment concludes Breivik is insane and will be sentenced to treatment at a psychiatric hospital.
February 6, 2012: Breivik tells court he deserves a medal of honour for the bloodshed and demands to be set free.
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April 10, 2012: A new psychiatric examination finds Breivik not insane, contradicting an earlier examination.
The new assessment is made by psychiatrists Terje Toerrissen and Agnar Aspaas on a request from the court after widespread criticism against the first diagnosis.
“Our conclusion is that he is not psychotic at the time of the actions of terrorism and he is not psychotic now,” Toerrissen told The Associated Press.
The full report was confidential and the psychiatrists declined to give details on why they reached a different conclusion than the first team of experts that examined Breivik.
April 16, 2012: The trial for Breivik begins. Dressed in dark suit, Breivik smiles as a guard removes his handcuffs in a crowded court room. He flashes a closed-fist salute before shaking hands with prosecutors and court officials.
“I admit to the acts, but not criminal guilt,” he tells the court, insisting he had acted in self-defence.
April 17, 2012: Breivik defends his massacre of 77 people, insisting Tuesday he would do it all again. Reading a prepared statement in court, he lashes out at Norwegian and European governments for embracing immigration and multiculturalism.
April 18, 2012: Breivik says the logical punishment for his massacre of 77 people would be either the death penalty or an acquittal and calls the maximum prison term in Norway of 21 years is “pathetic.”
April 20, 2012: Breivik tells the court he acquired the knowledge to carry out a bombing and shooting rampage on the Internet, studying case studies of al-Qaida and other attacks and reading more than 600 bomb-making guides.
April 23, 2012: Anxious to prove he’s not insane, Breivik says that questions about his mental health are part of “racist” plot to discredit his extreme anti-Muslim ideology.
April 24, 2012: A police official describes the chaos that reigned in Oslo after a bomb exploded outside the government headquarters on July 22, allowing Breivik to slip away and carry out his massacre.
April 25, 2012: Breivik slams a psychiatric report that declared him insane as based on “evil fabrications” meant to portray him as irrational and unintelligent.
April 27, 2012: A man who lost his left foot in the bombing of Oslo’s government district says he only found out three weeks later that the attack was followed by shootings at a youth camp that left 69 people dead.
May 3, 2012: Witnesses describe in chilling detail how Breivik tricked them into believing he was a policeman on the ferry to Utoya island.
Jon Olson, captain of the MS Thorbjoern ferry, tells the Oslo District Court about his “angst and full panic” as he desperately tried to contact police about the attack on the island after his ferry docked at Utoya.
Transport Ministry employee Tore Raasok was hospitalized after the blast that killed eight people on July 22.
May 4, 2012: Families of Breivik’s victims seek to balance the technical details of how they died with testimony of how they lived before Breivik unleashed a shooting spree on an island youth camp.
“We will fight for your ideals, we will see each other again,” the family of 17-year-old Lejla Selaci said in a statement read to the court by their lawyer, Thomas Benestad.
May 9, 2012: Breivik shouted with joy as he fired off round after round on Utøya island, a survivor of the massacre in Norway last July that left 69 people dead tells an Oslo court.
May 11, 2012: An Iraqi man whose brother was killed in Norway’s worst peacetime massacre hurls a shoe at the confessed killer and urged him to “go to hell” in a rare outburst that briefly interrupted the terror trial of Breivik.
May 15, 2012: Police say a man has set himself on fire outside the court where Breivik is being tried.
May 24, 2012: Breivik says he won’t appeal the court’s verdict if he’s deemed sane.
Two psychological examinations have reached opposite conclusions on whether Breivik is psychotic.
If found guilty and sane, he would face 21 years in prison — if he’s declared insane, he would be committed to psychiatric care.
May 30, 2012: Norwegian police say they are confident Breivik acted on his own in terror attacks last year that killed 77 people.
June 5, 2012: The Norwegian court hearing the case of Breivik says the verdict won’t be expected until at least one month after the trial has ended.
The Oslo District Court posts a brief statement on its website saying a ruling “cannot be expected sooner than 20 July. Another possible date for the judgment is 24 August.”
June 21, 2012: Prosecutors say there are enough doubts about Breivik’s sanity that he should be committed to compulsory psychiatric care instead of prison.
June 22, 2012: Breivik demands to be set free and vowing that history would exonerate him for a bomb-and-gun rampage that killed 77 people.
The self-styled anti-Muslim militant got the final word in the 10-week proceedings, but it’s unclear whether it helped the main point of his defence: trying to prove that he is sane.
In a rambling statement, Breivik lashes out at everything he finds 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.”
August 24, 2012: A Norwegian court sentenced Anders Behring Breivik to prison on Friday, denying prosecutors the insanity ruling they hoped would show that his massacre of 77 people was the work of a madman, not part of an anti-Muslim crusade.
August 28, 2012: Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg apologized for flaws in the response to Breivik’s attack and pledged sweeping measures to improve terror preparedness.
– With files from The Associated Press
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