Norway Mass-Murder Trial Is Months Away: Police

Norwegian police said it will take “several months” before terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik is brought to trial and that custody hearings should be held behind closed doors.

“I think most of the hearings during the investigation will not be open,” Police Prosecutor Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said at a press conference in Oslo today. “But it is for the court to decide.”

Breivik, 32, was first questioned last weekend after the July 22 shooting rampage at Utoeya island and bomb attack in Oslo and will be interrogated again over the next few days, Hjort Kraby said. Further interrogations will follow during his eight weeks of pre-trial detention, four of which will be in isolation, police said.

Norwegian police are contacting their counterparts across Europe as they step up the investigation into the attacks that killed at least 76 people. Norway is cooperating with intelligence services from Luxembourg to the U.K., as well as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, they said today.

Breivik, who earlier said he acted alone, told police during interrogation that there were “two cells in Norway and several cells around Europe and the Western world,” Geir Lippestad, his defense lawyer, said earlier this week. Breivik won’t discuss the terror cells, police said today.

In a 1,500-page manifesto posted on the Web hours before the killings, Breivik described nine years of planning for the attacks, which he said would form part of a crusade against “cultural Marxism” and rising “Islamization.”

Antigua Transfers

Police are looking into alleged money transfers made by Breivik to Antigua, which are mentioned in the manifesto. Hjort Kraby declined to comment on how the suspect financed the bombing and shootings.

While Breivik has admitted to carrying out the attacks, he has not pleaded guilty. He is being charged with two counts of acts of terror, which carries a maximum sentence of 21 years.

Police said they may seek to bring the country’s first charge of crimes against humanity against the suspect, with a maximum sentence of 30 years.

Oslo Police Chief of Staff Johan Fredriksen said today the security situation in Oslo was being normalized.

Armed with a pistol and semi-automatic rifle, Breivik killed 68 people at a Labor Party youth camp at Utoeya, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Oslo, and eight more in the Oslo car- bombing. The search for victims is still continuing in the waters around the island, police said today.

To contact the reporters on this story: Josiane Kremer in Oslo at jkremer4@bloomberg.net; Meera Bhatia at mbhatia2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tim Quinson at tquinson@bloomberg.net