Norway police to interview gunman Friday on new leads (AFP)

OSLO (AFP) – Norwegian police said they will question Anders Behring Breivik again on Friday after new information emerged relating to his killing spree, as prosecutors warned he would not go on trial before 2012.

Friday's interrogation will be only the second time police have quizzed the far-right extremist since Saturday, the morning after his shooting rampage on Utoeya island and the bomb blast in downtown Oslo that together killed 76 people.

Police official Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said officers will question Behring Breivik on "the information received over the last few days -- which is a lot," although he did not reveal the nature of the information.

European counter-terrorism experts met in Brussels to look at wider lessons that can be drawn from the attacks, and an Oslo gun club said Behring Breivik had been a member since 2005.

But as the depth and complexity of the investigation spread, the Norwegian king's prosecutor general Tor Aksel Busch -- the country's highest legal officer -- said time would be required to sift through the evidence.

"We hope that we can conduct the court trial in the course of next year," he said, adding that Behring Breivik's indictment "will not be ready before the end of the year."

The possibility that the killer had been working with anyone else was receding, officials said, despite an international intelligence probe.

That possibility "has become weaker over time," police spokesman Henning Holtaas told AFP, although "we are checking all his communications."

He did not confirm that Behring Breivik was carrying the walkie-talkie radio on Utoeya island, where he shot 68 mostly young people dead, but two witnesses have said he was.

"He was dressed like a policeman. He had all the equipment -- the walkie-talkie, the arms, everything," 15-year-old survivor Jo Granli Kallset told AFP.

A functioning walkie-talkie would not reach much further than the mainland as little as half a mile away.

Locals have cast doubt on whether the device would be anything more than a prop as part of his disguise as a police officer.

Behring Breivik boasted before the attack in a 1,500-page manifesto that he was one of up to 80 "solo martyr cells" recruited across western Europe to topple governments tolerant of Islam.

Norway's intelligence service has been liaising with counterparts across Europe and in the United States but has found nothing so far to verify the gunman's claims of active cells forming a terror "organisation," made during a court hearing and in the tract.

Norway's intelligence services chief Janne Kristiansen said in an interview with AFP that the possibility the killer had acted as a "lone wolf" could make it more difficult for police to uncover his trail.

"He has done this very carefully and meticulously and so far he has succeeded in avoiding any radar, or radar of the secret services."

European Union terrorism experts meeting in Brussels warned that the bloodbath in Norway, which they said was almost "impossible to prevent", simply underlined the need for stronger European counter-terrorism action, both against "lone wolves" and all forms of extremism.

Police are still searching the waters around Utoeya and the bomb site in downtown Oslo for missing persons, although they said Thursday that the land search on the island had ended.

Officials did not revise their tolls from the two attacks. Eight people died in an initial car bomb blast in central Oslo that also sowed confusion among the police before the shooting spree.

Norwegian police on Thursday released the identities of 24 more people, aged between 14 and 30, all but one of whom were killed on Utoeya island.

The list included one Georgian, and brought the total number of confirmed dead whose names have been made public to 41.

Survivor Emma Martinovic told in a blog entry how "I heard the bastard laugh, I heard him shout 'you won't get away'," testimonials emerged to a lost generation of future Norwegian political leaders so brutally cut down.

These included Anders Kristiansen, an 18-year-old whose mother said he "dreamed of becoming prime minister since the age of five," and whose shining talent was lauded by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in the national press.

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Norway suspect's lawyer warns gunman may be 'insane' (AFP)

OSLO (AFP) – The lawyer for the Norwegian gunman who has claimed responsibility for killing 76 people in twin attacks last week said Tuesday that everything about his client's case indicates he is "insane".

"This whole case indicates that he's insane," Geir Lippestad told journalists of Anders Behring Breivik, adding that a medical evaluation would take place to establish his psychiatric condition.

"He believes that he's in a war and he believes that when you're in a war you can do things like that without pleading guilty," the lawyer said of the 32-year-old Norwegian who claims to be trying to bring about an anti-Muslim revolution.

Asked about the implications of his client being adjudged medically insane after blowing up the government centre in Oslo and shooting dead 68 people on a nearby island, Lippestad said: "He can't be punished in a jail."

Also Tuesday, Norwegian authorities indicated they may charge the suspect with crimes against humanity as the government rose to the defence of police following criticism of the response to the island shooting spree.

Lippestad, appearing to pave the way for a defence that could see his client escape prison, after medical experts acceptable to the prosecution are found, said Behring Breivik "has a view on reality that is very, very difficult to explain."

He said his client used unspecified drugs to make himself "strong, efficient, to keep him awake" going into Friday's rampage.

"He thought he'd be killed after the bombing, after the action on the island, and he also thought he'd be killed at trial," Lippestad said.

In fact, "he was a little bit surprised that he succeeded, that in his mind he succeeded," Lippestad added.

Asked whether Behring Breivik had shown any empathy for his mainly young victims, Lippestad said: "No."

Behring Breivik wrote and published a 1,500-page manifesto immediately before starting his bombing and shooting spree.

"He believes this war will continue for 60 years and in 60 years this war will be won," Lippestad said of the events he believes he has triggered, preparations for which are painstakingly chronicled in the tract.

In Oslo, the head of the Labour Party's youth movement vowed to restore its summer camp on the island.

"We are sending a clear message: we are going to reclaim the island," party youth leader Eskil Andersen said.

A Norwegian businessman already having pledged around 600,000 euros (870,000 dollars) to redevelop the island, 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Oslo.

Authorities said earlier they were considering charging Behring Breivik with crimes against humanity over the massacre in Norway as the government leapt to the defence of the police over its handling of the tragedy.

Faced with the worst crimes on its territory since World War II, many in Norway have been dismayed by the prospect that the perpetrator could serve just 21 years behind bars -- the maximum sentence allowed for the terrorism charges that Behring Breivik currently faces.

But prosecutor Christian Hatlo told the Aftenposten newspaper that police are now envisaging charging him with crimes against humanity for the bombing of Oslo's government district and a shooting bloodbath on a nearby island.

"Police have so far cited... the law on terrorism but seeking other charges has not been excluded," police spokesman Sturla Henreiksboe told AFP.

"No final decision has yet been taken," he said.

Behring Breivik admitted carrying out the attacks at his first court appearance on Monday when he was remanded in custody for eight weeks.

He says he was on a Crusade to save Norway and Western Europe from a Muslim invasion and that the attacks targeting the Labour Party-led government and its youth wing were "cruel" but "necessary".

Police said they would start releasing the names of those killed, many of them children, at 6.00 pm (1600 GMT) on Tuesday.

The police have come in for heavy criticism over the time it took them to reach Utoeya island where Behring Breivik shot dead 68 of his victims in a spree that lasted around 90 minutes.

It also emerged on Monday that police investigated Behring Breivik in March for a purchase of chemicals, but the probe was dropped.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Norway's Justice Minister Knut Storberget rejected criticism of a delay in police getting to the Utoeya island, saying the force had "delivered extremely well" with "fantastic" work.

The manifesto saw Behring Breivik boast that he was one of up to 80 "solo martyr cells" recruited across Western Europe to topple governments tolerant of Islam.

Police are probing his claim that he is part of a network with more active cells.

Lippestad said that one of the reasons Behring Breivik's first court appearance on Monday was behind closed doors was for fear he would send coded signals to other cells.

His client was disappointed that the hearing was not open to the public, Lippestad added.

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Police: Mich. gunman targeted 2 ex-girlfriends (AP)

By TOM COYNE and JOHN FLESHER, Associated Press Tom Coyne And John Flesher, Associated Press – 34?mins?ago

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – An ex-convict who went on a deadly shooting spree targeted two ex-girlfriends, fatally shooting both of them and five members of their families, including his own 12-year-old daughter, police said Friday.

At the start of his hours-long rampage, Rodrick Shonte Dantzler tracked down his daughter and her mother and killed them, along with the mother's own parents. He then went to a different house and killed another former girlfriend, plus her sister and 10-year-old niece.

Dantzler "went out hunting" his victims, Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk said. He said the gunman used cocaine and alcohol sometime on the day of the slayings.

The 34-year-old former prison inmate began the spree Thursday afternoon before leading police on a high-speed chase through downtown Grand Rapids. He crashed his car and took several hostages in a stranger's home, then killed himself with a shot to the head late that night.

Investigators did not know what triggered the attack, but the police chief said Dantzler appeared to be "mentally unstable."

"I don't have a clinical diagnosis," Belk said. "Clearly he was a very troubled individual."

Records show Dantzler was released from state prison in 2005, after serving time for assault less than murder. A spokesman for the prison system said Dantzler had not been under state supervision since then.

After getting a 911 call that a man had acknowledged killing several people, police went to Dantzler's home, but he wasn't there.

Authorities soon got a call from a woman who said her relatives had been shot. Next came a call about someone finding four gunshot victims at another house.

Officers found three bodies in a home on Plainfield Avenue. An hour later, they discovered the other four across town in a house on a cul-de-sac called Brynell Court.

"It makes no sense to try to rationalize it, what the motives were," Belk said. "You just cannot come up with a logical reason why someone takes seven peoples' lives."

While police were investigating the seven slayings, Belk said, officers received a report of a "road rage" shooting.

Dantzler had apparently shot at a man through the rear window of the vehicle he was driving. Police spotted him, and began a chase that included Dantzler crashing into a patrol car downtown and exchanging gunfire with officers. A female bystander was shot in the shoulder.

Karissa Swanson, 18, said her mother was the woman who was shot, and that she had known Dantzler for many years.

Swanson said her mother, 35-year-old April Swanson, was driving and chatting on her cellphone when Dantzler suddenly pulled up beside her.

"My mom turned her head and he was right there, yelling her name, like, `April, April, I gotta talk, I gotta talk to you,'" Swanson said. "So my mom hung up the phone and called the police and was like, `He's right next to me.'"

The daughter said Dantzler chased her mother until they got caught at a stoplight, when he shot at her car.

Pickup driver Robert Poore, who also was shot during the chase, told police that the bullet ricocheted off a titanium plate that had been inserted in his nose during cancer treatment when he was a child, according to WOOD-TV. Poore suffered only minor injuries.

Dantzler drove a sport utility vehicle north from downtown and onto Interstate 96, crossing a grassy median and heading the wrong way down the highway while more than a dozen squad cars pursued him.

He eventually crashed the vehicle while driving down an embankment into a wooded area.

Dantzler then made his way toward a nearby home, firing several shots as he forced his way inside and took hostages he did not know, police said. Dozens of officers with guns drawn cordoned off the neighborhood in the northern part of the city.

That was around 7:30 p.m. Over the next five hours, Dantzler alternately threatened to shoot the hostages and pleaded with police to take him out, even asking negotiators whether there were snipers outside the home and where he should stand. He sometimes fired his gun at officers and inside the home, Belk said.

Authorities identified the dead as: 29-year-old Jennifer Marie Heeren, an ex-girlfriend; 12-year-old Kamrie Deann Heeren-Dantzler, Dantzler's daughter; 52-year-old Rebecca Lynn Heeren, Jennifer Heeren's mother; 51-year-old Thomas Heeren, her father; 23-year-old Kimberlee Ann Emkens, a woman Dantzler had previously dated; 27-year-old Amanda Renee Emkens, Kimberlee Emkens' sister; and 10-year-old Marissa Lynn Emkens, Amanda Emkens' daughter.

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Associated Press writers Kathy Barks Hoffman in Grand Rapids, and Corey Williams, Jeff Karoub and David N. Goodman in Detroit contributed to this report.

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