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Norway seeks "return to normality" - minister Eds: updates with justice minister

Other News Materials 26 July 2011 15:33 (UTC +04:00)
Norway was bracing for more pain Tuesday as police said they would start revealing the names of the 68 people shot dead at a Labour party youth camp on Utoya island last week.
Norway seeks "return to normality" - minister Eds: updates with justice minister

Norway was bracing for more pain Tuesday as police said they would start revealing the names of the 68 people shot dead at a Labour party youth camp on Utoya island last week, dpa reported.

However, the country was committed to "returning to normality," the Justice Minister Knut Storberget said.

"We must slowly, but surely return to normality," Storberget said after meeting with Oslo police to get an update on developments since Friday's twin attacks.

Prior to the island shooting, another 8 people were killed in a bomb attack targeting the prime minister's office in Oslo, which also destroyed the Justice Ministry's offices.

Storberget said it was important to remain on the alert.

Anders Behring Breivik, the man charged in last week's attacks, was remanded in custody Monday and is to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

The prosecution said the acts constituted terrorism since they were aimed at instilling fear in the public at large.

Police and prosecution were also considering whether Breivik could be charged with crimes against humanity, prosecutor Christian Hatlo was quoted as telling Oslo daily Aftenposten. The maximum sentence for such crimes is a 30-year prison term.

Storberget was unwilling to comment on the possible move, underlining the independence of law enforcement agencies. But he said he had been in the justice department when the legislation was drafted a few years ago.

"It was aimed at those who take many civilian lives," Storberget told broadcaster TV2, saying Norway needed to have legislation in line with other countries.

Breivik had "acknowledged the bomb explosion ... and the shooting at Utoya" in police interviews and to the court, Judge Kim Heger said after Monday's closed-door session.

Details of Breivik's plans to target the youth camp at Utoya continued to emerge Tuesday. The prime target appeared to be former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, according to police sources quoted by the online edition of daily Dagbladet.

Labour member Brundtland, who was prime minister for three terms between 1981 and 1996, was Friday on Utoya to give a presentation but had left the island before the massacre.

Breivik said Brundtland had a "greater symbolic role" and in a historical perspective would have greater importance compared to incumbent Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg or the foreign minister.

Police said they were continuing to search for people still unaccounted for and said the death toll of 76 could change.

Aftenposten reported that 57 of the 68 dead at Utoya were found on the island while 10 were found in the waters near it or on the mainland. One of the wounded victims died in an Oslo hospital.

On Monday the country held a minute of silence and in the evening hundreds of thousands of Norwegians packed city centres across the country in a mass vigil the like of which has not been seen in the country since the end of World War II.

"This evening the streets are filled with love," Crown Prince Haakon said at the square in front of Oslo City Hall.

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