Brother of victim throws shoe at Norwegian killer

Attacker disrupts court, shouting at Breivik, ‘Go to hell’

He looked right into my eyes. I felt that he had understood my message HAYDER MUSTAFA

QASIM

The brother of a man gunned down by Anders Behring Breivik hurled a shoe at the mass killer in court on Friday, shouting “Go to hell, go to hell, you killed my brother.”

The outburst followed days of harrowing testimony from survivors of Norway’s worst peacetime massacre.

The shoe missed Breivik but struck his co-defence lawyer, Vibeke Hein Baera, who was seated closest to the public gallery, during the presentation of an autopsy report.

Police said the attacker, who was quickly escorted from the court, was a brother of one of the 69 people Breivik methodically shot dead on the small island of Utoeya last July during a youth camp organized by the ruling Labour party.

Breivik admits the killings but denies criminal responsibility, saying he was defending Norwegian ethnic purity from Muslim immigration and the multiculturalism policies of the government

The aftenposten newspaper named them an who threw the shoe as Hayder Mustafa Qasim, an Iraqi whose asylum-seeking brother was killed on the island by Breivik.

“I took off my shoe, stood up, shouted at the killer, got eye contact with him and threw the shoe,” Qasim told Aftenposten. “‘Go to hell, killer!’ I shouted. He looked right into my eyes. I felt that he had understood my message.

“My brother was killed on Utoeya. He was alone in Norway, without family. The killer took his life. And he ruined my life and my family’s life.”

Some in the courtroom applauded Qasim’s gesture, some said “finally” and others started to cry.

Police removed him from the court and increased their presence to avoid further interruptions of the trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks.

Local media quoted Breivik, 33, as saying after the incident: “If anyone wants to throw something, you can throw it at me when I’m entering or leaving the court.

“Don’t throw things at my lawyers.”

Friday’s outburst was the first interruption of proceedings.

Many observers have been surprised by the cool Nordic civility on display in the courtroom despite a killing spree that traumatized this country of five million.

Friday’s incident came at the end of a week of disturbing testimony from survivors of Breivik’s killing spree.

As well as those shot dead, eight others died in a massive car bomb Breivik detonated outside the prime minister’s offices in central Oslo.

Police played down the shoethrowing incident.

Heiko Junge, The Associated Press The trial of Anders Breivik was interrupted Friday when the brother of one of his 77 victims hurled a shoe at the confessed mass killer, hitting his lawyer, before the man was escorted from the court, police said.