By Steve Rosenberg BBC News
For the families of his victims, and
survivors, the 10-week trial of Anders Breivik has been deeply painful. It's
also been a harrowing experience for the journalists.
On 22 July 2011, Anders Breivik killed 77 people.
The next morning I flew from Moscow to Oslo to cover the story. Once in
Norway, I drove to the shores of the stunningly beautiful Lake Tirifjorden.
A boatman took me out on the crystal clear waters and we sped towards the
tiny island of Utoeya. We couldn't land - there was a police cordon around the
island - but we got close enough to see the body bags which the police had yet
to remove.
Over the next few days I heard horrific stories from survivors, and witnessed
a nation in shock and in mourning.
Nine months later I was back in Oslo, sitting in a courtroom - just two
metres away from the man who'd carried out mass murder. It was the first day of
his trial.
I was in the front row of the press section; Anders Breivik was sitting with
his defence lawyers at a table right in front of me
Everyone in the courtroom that day was staring at
Breivik.
I stared too, partly out of disbelief that any human could do what he'd done
and, partly, in an attempt to understand what kind of a person this was. Was he
insane or simply evil?
I attended the trial again two weeks later; it was another opportunity to
watch Breivik close-up.
What I found difficult was connecting the picture in court with the crime. As
the smartly-dressed Breivik sat in the dock, responding calmly to prosecutors'
questions, he looked and sounded more like an insurance salesman than a mass
murderer.
He was trying to convince the court to buy his story that the slaughter had
been a political act. When he described his crimes, his voice contained no hint
of remorse. And when he listened to others recounting the bloodbath, his face
displayed no emotion.
From time to time he would sip water or scribble notes. Most of the time he
just stared into space. It was as if Breivik had built a giant wall inside his
mind to stop any feelings from squeezing through and making him crumble.
For the families of his victims, and for those who survived his attacks and
who've been present in court, this trial has been a deeply painful event.
It has been an emotional experience, too, for many of the journalists
covering it. I'll never forget what happened the day Breivik spoke about his
cold, calculated killing spree on Utoeya Island.
“The power of words. That's what I'll remember most about
this trial”
I'd left the courtroom and was watching his testimony on
a large video screen in the courthouse press centre, just along the corridor.
Breivik described what he admitted were "gruesome, barbaric acts".
He recalled how his victims had frozen in panic, unable to run, and how he'd
calmly reloaded his gun and shot them, and how he'd tricked other young people
out of their hiding places, then gunned them down too.
At that moment, I looked around the press centre. There were rows and rows of
reporters, their heads buried in their laptops as they hurried to reproduce
Breivik's words - and many of them were in tears at what they were having to
type.
Words. The power of words. That's what I'll remember most about this
trial.
Over 10 weeks, so many terrifying words have been spoken in Courtroom 250;
the words of coroners in the 77 autopsy reports; detailed descriptions of how
victims were hunted down and shot; words of pain from their families.
Words which journalists covering the trial have had to type, tweet, despatch
and broadcast to the world.
It was often the simplest words which proved to be the most upsetting. Like
the brief messages from victims' families which followed each coroner's
report.
"Daddy, YOU were the best in the world."
Or this one: "She could have done so much for her
family, her friends, her country. Now her dreams are buried deep in the
soil".
And this message from the relatives of a 15-year-old victim: "She was a
cheerful girl, always there for others. She was one of the last people killed on
Utoeya. In a mobile telephone call from there she'd told her family how much she
loved them."
I found that sometimes words from the Breivik trial would lie in my mind like
timebombs - and only later, back at the hotel, or back home, they were detonated
- and the full horror of what had been said and what had happened, would hit
home.
If they'd had that effect on me, I can hardly begin to imagine what effect
those words will have had on those Breivik had tried to kill, and on the
families of those he DID murder.
I remember that when the first week of the trial was over, and I'd finished
my reporting, I dashed off to the airport to fly back to Moscow.
Everything that day had been such a rush, there hadn't really been time for
me to digest the full horror of what Breivik had been saying.
I'd transcribed his words, of course, and reported them. But oddly enough it
was only once I'd made it to the airport, passed security and paused, that I was
hit by a sickening feeling about what I'd been listening to.
Suddenly I spotted a children's shop with a beautiful display of coloured
pencils outside. I walked up to the display and stood there, it must have been
five minutes - just looking at this little island of colour and beauty.
Anyone watching me must have thought I was mad. But at that moment I just
wanted to experience something nice, something positive, to restore my faith in
the world.
Now this trial is over and Norway awaits the final word - the judgement of
the Oslo District Court.
Will the judges declare Anders Breivik criminally insane and commit him to
long term psychiatric care? Or will they conclude he was mentally competent at
the time of the killings and send him to prison?
Either way, Anders Breivik is expected to be locked up for the rest of his
life. So does it matter where?
To Breivik it does. He maintains he's sane, he seeks a prison sentence, to
burnish his claims that he is a political prisoner.
So that HIS words, against multiculturalism and Muslim immigration, are not
dismissed as the words of a madman.
The Good Samaritan by William Hogarth
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
