Breivik – Oslo bombing and Utoya massacre
On 22 July 2011, a fertiliser car bomb exploded in Oslo's government quarter at 15:26, killing eight people and injuring 209. Anders Behring Breivik, dressed as a police officer, then went to a Labour Party youth camp on Utøya island, where he killed 69 people and wounded 33 before surrendering to police. In August 2012 an Oslo court found him sane and convicted him of terrorism and premeditated murder. He received the maximum 21-year sentence as "preventive detention", which can be extended if he is still considered a danger to society. The BBC reported that he said the attacks were needed to stop the "Islamisation" of Norway.
Australian response: on 23 July 2011 (AEST), Prime Minister Julia Gillard said "Australia condemns the brutal and shocking attacks which occurred in Norway overnight." DFAT said no Australians were known to have been killed or injured.
Link to Christchurch: Brenton Tarrant, whom the New Zealand High Court, at his sentencing, described as "a 29-year-old Australian man", murdered 51 people at two Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019. SMH (republishing the Washington Post) reported that the manifesto Tarrant posted named Breivik as his "true inspiration". It quoted the manifesto: "I have only had brief contact with Knight Justiciar Breivik, receiving a blessing for my mission after contacting his brother knights". Breivik's lawyer and prison officials doubted any contact had happened.
In December 2021, New Zealand's Classification Office banned Breivik's manifesto. It said the Royal Commission report into the Christchurch attack "highlighted the influence of the Oslo Manifesto in relation to that attack". The Royal Commission's report also noted that a warning about semi-automatic firearms in New Zealand "followed a terrorist attack conducted in Oslo and on Utøya Island in Norway in 2011, in which a semi-automatic rifle was used."
More sources:
