Norway’s PM says deadly attacks changed him
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview published on Sunday that the July killing spree by a right-wing extremist that left 77 people dead had changed him profoundly.
“The attack has become part of my identity. I value democratic values today more than before – freedom of speech, the freedom to be able to be an active politician,” he told Bild am Sonntag in comments published in German.
He said those values were attacked on July 22nd, when anti-immigration extremist Anders Behring Breivik set off a bomb at Labour government offices in Oslo and then embarked on a shooting massacre at a Labour youth summer camp on an island near the capital.
“Whenever I feel sorry for myself, I recall that my concerns are very small, they are nothing compared to those of the victims,” the Labour prime minister said.
He said he had “not the slightest need” to see Behring Breivik to discuss his motives.
“He killed people in my office, people whom I knew well. My wish is to leave it up to the Norwegian justice system,” he said.
Prosecutors on Tuesday declared the 32-year-old criminally insane when he carried out the deadly rampage after two psychiatrists who examined him concluded that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. (via The Local)
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