The shooting followed what police said was an “Oklahoma City-type’’ bombing in Oslo’s downtown: it targeted a government building, was allegedly committed by a homegrown assailant and used the same mix of fertilizer and fuel that blew up a federal building in the United States in 1995.
In all, at least 92 people were killed in the twin attacks that police are blaming on the same suspect, 32-year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik.
“He has confessed to the factual circumstances,’’ Breivik’s defense lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told public broadcaster NRK. Lippestad said his client had also made some comments about his motives.
“He’s said some things about that but I don’t want to talk about it now,’’ the lawyer told NRK.
Norwegian news agency NTB said the suspect wrote a 1,500-page manifesto before the attack in which he attacked multiculturalism and Muslim immigration. The manifesto also described how to acquire explosives and contained pictures of Breivik, NTB said. Oslo police declined to comment on the report.
A SWAT team was dispatched to the island more than 50 minutes after people vacationing at a campground said they heard shooting across the lake, according to Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim. The drive to the lake took about 20 minutes, and once there, the team took another 20 minutes to find a boat.
Footage filmed from a helicopter that showed the gunman firing into the water added to the impression that police were slow to the scene. They chose to drive, Sponheim said, because their helicopter wasn’t on standby.
“There were problems with transport to Utoya,’’ where the youth-wing of Norway’s left-leaning Labor Party was holding a retreat, Sponheim said. “It was difficult to get hold of boats.’’
At least 85 people were killed on the island, but police said four or five people were still missing.
Divers have been searching the surrounding waters, and Sponheim said the missing may have drowned. Police earlier said there was still an unexploded device on the island, but it later turned out to be fake.
