Norway killer says he learned from Al Qaeda

Oslo, April 21 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Norwegian killer Anders Breivik has told a court in Oslo that he picked up strategies from the Al Qaeda and said it could serve as inspiration to European far-right militants.

Breivik said he had been closely following Al Qaeda since 2006 and studied each of their actions. "(Al Qaeda is) the most successful revolutionary movement in the world," he said.

The 33-year-old said he had read more than 600 internet bomb-making guides.

When prosecutors Friday asked Breivik whether he felt empathy for others, the killer said he taught himself to dull all emotions - "from happiness to sorrow, despair, hopelessness, anxiety, fear" through meditation.

"You ask if I have empathy and emotion. ... You could say I was pretty normal until 2006 when I started training ... desensitizing myself through meditation," CNN quoted Breivik as saying.

The extremist confirmed he was still doing meditation in prison to deal with the trial, The Guardian reported.

Breivik also said Friday that voices in his head told him not to kill people in the Utoya island youth summer camp.

"Hundreds of voices in my head told me 'don't do this, don't do this!' But I was already surrounded. There were people around me, so I took the pistol and said to myself: it's now or never," said Breivik.

The killer set off a bomb in Oslo July 22 last year before travelling to the youth camp on Utoya island. A total of 77 people died in the massacre, including 69 on the island.

He said he got to the camp by telling a boatman he needed to get to the island immediately to inform its management about the Oslo car bomb explosion, which killed eight people.

"In the tent camp I planned to scare as many people as possible with my shots, so that they jumped into the water and drowned. That was the plan," he said.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

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