Norwegian killer says he would do it all again

The gunman behind last year's Norway massacres said he would "do it again" as he took the stand at his trial on Tuesday, after a judge who called for him to face the death penalty was dismissed.

Granted clearance to deliver a lengthy address to the court, Anders Behring Breivik described his killing of 77 people as a "preventive" attack to defend ethnic Norwegians and avoid a European culture war with Muslims.

And after describing Christians as "a persecuted minority," the 33-year-old asked the court to free him while making clear he had no remorse over last July's bomb attack in central Oslo and shooting spree on a nearby island.

"Yes, I would have done it again," Breivik told the court on the second day of the trial, adding that spending his life in prison or dying for his people would be "the biggest honour."

On July 22 last year, Breivik first killed eight people when he set off a bomb in a van parked at the foot of buildings housing the offices of Labour Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who was not present at the time.

He then travelled to Utoeya island where, dressed as a police officer, he spent more than an hour methodically shooting at hundreds of people attending a ruling Labour Party youth summer camp.

The shooting spree claimed the lives of 69 people, mostly teens trapped on the small heart-shaped island surrounded by icy waters. It was the deadliest massacre ever committed by a lone gunman.

Breivik on Tuesday evoked the idea of accomplices, telling the court that two other one-person "cells" existed.

"I am a self-run and independent cell, and I am connected to two others," he told the Oslo District Court.

In his address to the judges, Breivik compared the Labour Party's youth wing AUF to the Hitler Youth, saying he targetted them on Utoeya because "most AUFs are naive and indoctrinated."

"These were not innocent children, but political activists," Breivik argued, as survivors and relatives of the victims shook their heads in disbelief and grew impatient for him to finish.

Television and radio were banned from broadcasting his words as there had been widespread concerns prior to the trial that Breivik would use his testimony as a platform to spread his ideology to the masses.

Breivik described his attacks as "the most spectacular operation conducted by a militant nationalist this century" and claimed that "rivers of blood caused by Muslims" are now flowing in European cities.

"Multiculturalism is a self-destructive ideology," he said, expressing disdain for Norway's generous immigration policy.

The chief judge Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen interrupted his testimony after he spent his allotted 30 minutes presenting his Islamophobic and anti-immigration ideology. At one stage, Arntzen warned Breivik to tone down his rhetoric.

The day's proceedings were delayed for around 30 minutes at the start of the day after it emerged one of the five judges had posted a message on a website the day after the killings suggesting Breivik should be sentenced to death.

"The death penalty is the only fair outcome in this case!!!!," Thomas Indreboe, one of the two lay judges on the panel, wrote on July 23 last year.

Following a submission from both the defence and prosecution teams, Indreboe was deemed unfit and replaced by one of two substitute judges, Anne Elisabeth Wisloeff, already present in court.

"The lay judge himself has acknowledged that he made these comments on July 23," Arntzen told the court.

The death penalty does not exist in Norway.

If he is found sane, Breivik risks a 21-year jail term, which could then be extended indefinitely if he is still considered a threat to society. If he is found insane he could be sentenced to closed psychiatric care, possibly for life.

Two psychiatric evaluations have drawn contradictory conclusions on his sanity, and ultimately it will be up to the judges to rule on them when they hand down the verdict sometime in mid-July.

On the first day of the trial on Monday, Breivik confessed to the attacks but entered a plea of "not guilty."

He showed no emotion as the prosecution presented graphic surveillance footage of his Oslo bombing and a desperate emergency call from a young woman hiding in a bathroom as he went on his shooting rampage on Utoeya island.

He did however tear up as the court viewed a 12-minute anti-Islam film he made summarising his manifesto.

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