Accused Norway Gunman Says Who He Hoped to Attack

The Norwegian man accused of killing more than 90 people in Friday’s bombing and shooting spree told police he had planned to attack former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, the local Aftenposten newspaper said on Monday.

Police say that 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik is the only suspect in the car bombing in Oslo, which killed seven people, and the attack on the Labor Party youth camp on the island of Utoya in which at least 86 people were killed, RIA Novosti reports.

Brundtland, Norway’s Prime Minister for the Labor Party for three terms between 1981 and 1996 and the head of World Health Organization between 1998 and 2003, left the island shortly before Breivik arrived, Aftenposten reported.

Breivik said he was planning to arrive at the island earlier, but was late for unspecified reasons, the newspaper said, quoting unidentified sources.

A stepbrother of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette Marit, police officer Trond Berntsen, was one of the victims shot dead by the gunman, who fired at random during his attack, Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet said. The police officer, who was reported missing following the shooting, became one of the gunman’s first victims when he tried to stop him, the paper said.

Breivik will appear in court later on Monday on terrorism charges over the shooting and the car bombing of a government headquarters in downtown Oslo, which took place hours before the Utoya massacre.

The explosion in Oslo rocked the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who was absent at the time.

Media report that Breivik’s lawyer said he has admitted to the killings, but he has not accepted criminal responsibility for them.

Police have requested that the hearing is held behind the closed doors to prevent media from spreading the suspect’s extremist ideology.

The suspected terrorist faces up to 21 years in prison if found guilty. The maximum prison term allowed under Norwegian law can be extended, however, if the individual is considered a threat to society.

Hours before Friday’s shooting spree, Breivik posted a 1,500-page “manifesto” and a video on the internet exposing his anti-Muslim views and calling for a “conservative revolution” against multiculturalism, which is described in his writings as a “threat to Western civilization.”