Police had orders to kill Norwegian.
Criticized for being an hour late arriving on Utoya island, agents pointed their weapons at Anders Behring Breivik, who surrendered with his hands up.
247 - Norwegian police had orders to shoot, even kill, the perpetrator of the double bombing in Norway, according to reports today from the local agency NTB. Security forces from the elite unit that landed on the island – where a meeting of young social democrats was taking place – even pointed their weapons at Anders Behring Breivik. However, the order was cancelled at the last minute after one of the officers confirmed that Breivik was unarmed.
The fact that the perpetrator of the massacre, who approached the security forces with his hands up, was not carrying any explosives strapped to his body, was also crucial in removing the order, according to the police. NTB further states that immediately after his arrest, Breivik attempted to negotiate with the police. Before the security forces transferred him to headquarters in Oslo, he was detained for several hours in a house on the small island.
The revelations come after the police's work on the day of the attacks was heavily criticized. Officers took an hour to reach the island of Utoya, while young people were being indiscriminately shot by Breivik. A police spokesperson said the lack of a boat capable of transporting the necessary personnel was responsible for the delay.
The police also couldn't use the helicopter to reach the scene more quickly. Due to financial difficulties, the police reduced the annual operating time of the force's only helicopter to 900 hours this year, less than three hours a day on average. In 2006, when the security forces acquired it, the equipment and technical personnel to pilot it were available 24 hours a day.
The newspaper Aftenposten reported that the police had already identified Breivik, even before the shooting on the island, as the perpetrator of the explosion in Oslo's government district, thanks to surveillance cameras.