Christian fundamentalist leaning ‘to the right’
His Facebook profile says he is “conservative”, “Christian”, and “single”, interested in hunting and video games like World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2.
Local media have identified him as Anders Behring Breivik, whose picture on his Facebook page shows a man with longish blonde hair and piercing eyes.
The posting lists his religion as “fundamentalist Christian” and his political opinions lean “to the right”, police said.
The Facebook account appears to have been set up on July 17. The site lists no “friends” or social connections.
The 32-year-old, previously unknown to police, was arrested Friday following a bomb explosion in central Oslo and a shooting rampage at a youth camp near the capital, where at least 84 people were killed and scores wounded.
Police chief Sveinung Sponheim said his internet postings “suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views”.
While the motive remains mysterious, a picture of the suspect in the double attacks is emerging as that of a Christian organic farmer, who has flirted with the political far-right.
“It is too early to say if that was the motive for his actions,” police commissioner Sevinung Sponheim told public television NRK.
In under two hours, the suspect allegedly carried out two attacks that appear to target the ruling Labour party, reports AFP.
Norwegian media have been describing him as belonging to a far-right movement, nationalist or a “Freemason”, who owned several firearms including an automatic rifle.
“In comparison with other countries, I would not say that we have major problems with right-wing extremists in Norway,” Stoltenberg said yesterday in response to questions about the radical right in the Scandinavian country.
On his Twitter account, Behring Breivik posted only one message, dated July 17, in English based on a quote from British philosopher John Stuart Mill: “One person with a belief is equal to a force of 100,000 who have only interests.”
The Norwegian daily Verdens Gang quoted a friend as saying he 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 multi-cultural ism.
He had no military background except for ordinary national service and no criminal record, it seems.
Breivik is believed to have grown up in Oslo, and studied at the Oslo School of Management, which offers degrees and post-graduate courses, reports BBC.
He later appears to have moved out of the city and established Breivik Geofarm, a company Norwegian media is describing as a farming sole proprietorship set up to cultivate vegetables, melons, roots and tubers.
About 10 policemen were outside Breivik’s registered address in a four-storey red brick building in west Oslo.
The head of the populist right-wing Progress Party (FrP) confirmed that Behring Breivik had been a party member between 1999 and 2006 and for several years a leader in its youth movement.
“Those who knew the suspect when he was a member of the party say that he seemed like a modest person that seldom engaged himself in the political discussions,” Siv Jensen said in a statement on the party’s website.
Anti-fascist monitors meanwhile said Behring Breivik was also a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi Internet forum named Nordisk, which hosts discussions ranging from white power music to political strategies to crush democracy.
FERTILISER
The suspect says he is the manager of an organic farm, Breivik Geofarm, which would have given him access to chemical products that could be used to make explosives.
Tax records, which are open to the public in Norway, show that the suspect listed no income for 2009 and modest sums in the previous years.
A supply company has come forward to say that it delivered six tonnes of fertiliser to this company in May — an ingredient used in bomb-making.
Norwegian media say the Oslo bomb was made of fertiliser.
“These are goods that were delivered on May 4,” Oddny Estenstad, a spokeswoman at agricultural supply chain Felleskjoepet Agri, told Reuters, without giving the exact type of fertiliser purchased.
-With The Daily Star input
