Norwegian says ruling party’s lenient treatment of Muslims provoked him

He also told a court he killed scores of youngsters attending a Labor Party youth camp “to induce the greatest possible loss to the Labor Party to limit new recruits.”

“The Labor Party failed the country and the price of its treason” was the carnage he carried out last Friday, he said. 

Police on Monday revised downward the death toll from Mr. Breivik’s rampage from the 90s to 76. They said eight people died in a car bombing outside government offices and 68 at the youth camp on Utoeya island. There was no explanation as to why the earlier figures were so much higher. 

Norwegian Judge Kim Heger refused to allow Mr. Breivik to use the courtroom as a propaganda platform to express his views before a worldwide television audience—press and public were barred--but the judge summarized his statement to the court after an initial hearing. 

The 32-year-old mass killer was remanded in custody for eight weeks and the court ruled he would be held in prison in complete isolation for the first four weeks, with no access to letters or visitors, including family members, and no access to newspapers or broadcasters. 

If found guilty at a subsequent trial, Mr. Breivik could be sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum under Norwegian law. But if a court at the end of that period found him a continuing danger to the public, the sentence could be extended indefinitely, at five-year intervals. 

Mr. Breivik has told police throughout their investigation that he acted alone in the bombing and shooting, but his reference to “two further cells” was his first indication that he had accomplices. The judge said police would investigate that claim.

Mr. Breivik had asked to appear in court in military uniform but Judge Heger denied that. He was photographed in a police car wearing a red sweater.

Mr. Breivik told the court he had acted “to save Norway and Western Europe” from a Muslim and Marxist takeover, something he had stated in a 1,500-page manifesto he published online on Friday morning just before he began the killings. It was quickly taken down by police, but not until many people had downloaded it.

His aim, he said, was not to kill as many people as possible but to give a “strong signal” that as long as the Labor Party was “importing more Muslims” it had to accept responsibility for its actions. No country, he said, could allow itself to be colonized by Muslims. 

Normally criminal defendants are held in custody for four weeks pending investigation but the court acceded to a prosecution request for eight weeks in this case. 

The court hearing lasted 35 minutes, then Mr. Breivik was whisked back to prison in an armed convoy of police cars. Just before the hearing, the country came to a halt for a minute of silence at midday as requested by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Shops closed, traffic stopped moving, the stock market halted trading and train stations closed. Many people gathered with bowed heads outside the Oslo cathedral, where mourners had left a carpet of flowers and lighted candles for victims of the carnage.

Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland also held a minute’s silence and flew national flags at half staff. 

Mr. Stoltenberg opened a book of condolences at the Oslo university. 

In the town of Couranel in southern France, French police searched Mr. Breivik’s father’s home on Monday. News reports have said the father, Jens Breivik, has not been in touch with his son for many years. 

Norway’s royal court said Monday that among those killed by Mr. Breivik was the stepbrother of Crown Princess Mette-Marit. He was an off-duty police officer working on the island as a security guard. 

Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, said Mr. Breivik told investigators he had hoped to reach the island while Gro Harlem Brundtland, a three-time former prime minister, was visiting the youth camp, but got there after she left. The newspaper gave no source for the report. 

Dr. Colin Poole, head of surgery at Ringriket Hospital near Oslo, told the Associated Press that Mr. Breivik had used dum-dum bullets, designed to disintegrate inside the bodies of victims and cause maximum internal damage. 

“It’s caused us all kinds of extra problems in dealing with the wounds they cause, with very strange trajectories,” he said. 

In London, the British government’s National Security Council met and discussed comments Mr. Breivik made in his manifesto about links with the far-right English Defense League, something the League has denied.

Prime Minister David Cameron said British police were investigating the claims. “We take these things extremely seriously,” he said.