Police Say Oslo Suspect Admits ‘Facts’ in Massacre

OSLO — The Norwegian man charged the with attacks in and near Oslo that killed over 90 people has admitted “to the facts” of the case, the police and his lawyer said on Sunday, and says he acted alone in a strike eerily foretold in a detailed manifesto calling for a Christian war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination.

Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Women wept at a memorial service at Oslo Cathedral on Sunday for the victims of the attacks in and near Oslo

But “he is not admitting criminal guilt,” the acting police chief in Oslo, Sveinung Sponheim, told a news conference, and his claim to have acted alone contrasted with “some of the witness statements,” Reuters reported.
The attacks on Friday — a bombing in central Oslo closely followed by a bloody rampage against young people on nearby Utoya Island — was the deadliest attack in this Nordic nation since World War II, and it stunned many in a population of about five million who consider their country to be a haven of peace.
The police said on Sunday that the number of fatalities had risen to 93 from 92 with the death of one of the 97 people who had been reported as injured. Most of the bodies were found on Utoya Island, where young people from the governing Labor Party had gathered for an annual camp.
The police identified the suspect as Anders Behring Breivik, 32, a right-wing fundamentalist Christian. Acquaintances described him as a gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threats of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration.
Police divers were still searching the lake around Utoya Island for bodies, and said there were fears the death toll could rise again. “We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” a police official, Roger Andresen, said Saturday. “What we know is that he is right wing and a Christian fundamentalist.”
Armed officers raided a location in eastern Oslo on Sunday and briefly detained several people before releasing them. Nothing had been found linking them to terrorism, the police said.
On Sunday, muted and shaken by the magnitude of the killings, many people gathered at the Lutheran cathedral here in Oslo to mourn. King Harald V and Queen Sonja, both dabbing tears, joined Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and other dignitaries for a service inside.
“We are crying with you; we feel for you,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. The two days since the killings “feels like an eternity — hours and days and nights filled with shock and angst and weeping,” he said.
“Each and every one of those who has left us is a tragedy,” he added. “Together, it is a national tragedy.”
A minister told mourners packed into the pews under the cathedral’s chandeliered ceiling that “hate cannot triumph over love.” Hundreds of others gathered on a rain-swept plaza outside, where they left carpets of flowers and candles. “That is why we are holding one another today,” the minister said.
Tured Mong, a pensioner, said she had driven 40 miles with her husband to bring flowers from her garden and a candle she wanted to light. “I only want to lay them down here,” Ms. Mong said outside the cathedral. “I am sorry for all the parents waiting to find some news who don’t know about their children.”
Evy Andersen, from Oslo, brought a sunflower from her garden. “I have a niece who has been to this camp twice, and she has many friends who are missing. She is wondering about them. I did this for her and for myself.”
News reports spoke of immigrants arriving at the cathedral before the service to show respect for the dead. Lemeo Le, a refugee from Vietnam 21 years ago, said: “Norway helped the Vietnamese people to come here. They were very welcoming. I have a job and a family, and I wanted to come. It is very sad for all the young people.”
Borge Wilhemsen, a Labor Party activist, said he drove for five hours to be at the memorial service and brought his 6-year-old daughter. “You can’t take them away from everything,” he said, referring to his daughter. “They have to learn that life is sometimes hard. I have not told her everything. I told her that there were two big accidents.”
In video footage broadcast by Norwegian television stations on Sunday, Geir Lippestad, Mr. Breivik’s lawyer, said his client would address a court hearing on Monday about what he had done. “He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary,” the lawyer said. Mr. Breivik has “admitted his guilt to the actual facts,” the lawyer said, declining to go into detail. He added, “This is an action that has been planned for some time.”