Norwegian police are searching for more victims and a possible second gunman after a suspected right-wing zealot killed up to 98 people in a shooting spree and bomb attack that have traumatised the country.
32-year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik was arrested after yesterday’s massacre of young people on Utoeya island that was hosting the annual summer camp for the youth wing of Norway's ruling Labour party.
Breivik was also charged for the bombing of Oslo's government district that killed seven people hours earlier.
If convicted on the terrorism charges, he would face a maximum of 21 years in jail, police said.
Speaking on Norwegian television this evening, a lawyer for Breivik said his client had ‘admitted responsibility’ for his actions.
Geir Lippestad said Breivik believed his actions were ‘atrocious’ but ‘necessary’ and was willing to explain himself in court on Monday.
Breivik had belonged to an anti-immigration party and wrote blogs attacking multiculturalism and Islam, but police said he had been unknown to them and that his internet activity traced so far included no calls for violence.
Witnesses said the gunman, wearing a police uniform, went on a prolonged shooting spree on Utoeya island northwest of Oslo, picking off his prey unchallenged as youngsters scattered in panic or jumped in the lake to swim for the mainland.
A police SWAT team eventually arrived from Oslo, 30km away, to seize Breivik after nearly 90 minutes of firing, acting police chief Sveinung Sponheim told a news conference.
‘We don't know yet’ if he acted alone, Mr Sponheim said, adding that Breivik had surrendered immediately and had confessed.
Mr Sponheim said 85 people were known to have died in the shooting and seven in the Oslo bomb blast. The overall death toll could rise as there are still people missing.
Police gave no figure for the number wounded in Norway's worst violence since World War II.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, sharing the shocked mood in this normally safe, quiet country of 4.8 million, said: ‘A paradise island has been transformed into a hell.’
Labour Party youth member Erik Kursetgjerde described the panic on Utoeya when the gunman began shooting.
‘I heard screams. I heard people begging for their lives and I heard shots. He just blew them away. I was certain I was going to die,’ Mr Kursetgjerde, 18, said outside a hotel in the nearby town of Sundvollen, where many survivors were taken.
‘People ran everywhere. They panicked and climbed into trees. People got trampled.’
The killer would tell people to come over, saying: 'It's OK, you're safe, we're coming to help you.' And then I saw about 20 people come towards him and he shot them at close range,’ he said.
Mr Kursetgjerde said he ran and hid between cliffs, then swam into the lake and nearly drowned. ‘Someone (in a boat) rescued me. They saved my life.’
Norwegian NRK television showed blurred pictures taken from a helicopter of a man, apparently in police uniform, standing with his arm outstretched amid numerous victims.
'This lasted for hours,' Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference, describing the killings on the island northwest of Oslo where about 600 young people had gathered.
The bloodbath was believed to be the deadliest attack by a lone gunman anywhere in modern times.
Police combed the island and the lake, even using a mini-submarine to search the water, police inspector Bjoerne Erik Sem-Jacobsen said. ‘We don't know how many people were on the island, therefore we have to search further.'
The suspect, tall and blond, owned an organic farming company called Breivik Geofarm, which a supply firm said he had used to buy fertiliser - possibly to make the Oslo bomb.
It was not clear if Breivik, a gun club member according to local media, had more than one weapon or whether he had stocked ammunition on Utoeya, where police found explosives.
Initial speculation after the Oslo blast had focused on Islamist militant groups, but it appears that only Breivik - and perhaps unidentified associates - was involved.
Far-right views
Officials pointed to Breivik's far-right views. ‘I think it's appropriate to underline that politically motivated violence that Norway has seen in the modern age has come from the extreme rightist side,’ Mr Stoere, the foreign minister, said.
Home-grown anti-government militants have struck elsewhere in the past, notably in the US, where Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people with a truck bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Mr Breivik's Facebook page was blocked, but a cached version describes a conservative Christian from Oslo.
The profile veers between references to lofty political philosophers and gory popular films, television shows and video games. The Facebook account appears to have been set up on 17 July. The site lists no ‘friends’ or social connections.
Breivik's profile lists interests including hunting, political and stock analysis, with tastes in music ranging from classical to trance.
The Norwegian daily Verdens Gang quoted a friend as saying Breivik became a right-wing extremist in his late 20s. It said he expressed strong nationalistic views in online debates and had been a strong opponent of multiculturalism.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and many world leaders, condemned the Norway attacks. ‘This tragedy strikes right at the heart of the soul of a peaceful people,’ she said.
Condolences
The Department of Foreign Affairs says there are no reports of Irish casualties following the attacks.
President Mary McAleese has sent her condolences to King Harald of Norway on behalf of the Irish people.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs has described the attacks as a 'huge tragedy for the people of Norway'.
Eamon Gilmore signed a book of condolence this afternoon, opened by Labour Youth, at the Labour Party's headquarters in Dublin.
He invited others to sign the book online on Labour Youth's website or at the headquarters on Ely Place from Monday.
Mr Gilmore said he had conveyed his sympathies on behalf of the Government to the Norwegian Prime Minister.
