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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Victim's brother hurls shoe
Yells 'go to hell' at Norway killer
Heiko Junge / The Associated Press Anders Behring Breivik reacts after a shoe was thrown at him. (CP)
OSLO, Norway -- An Iraqi man whose brother was killed in Norway's worst peacetime massacre hurled a shoe at the confessed killer and urged him to "go to hell" in a rare outburst Friday that briefly interrupted the terror trial of Anders Behring Breivik.
The incident was the first display of anger in the normally subdued courtroom where the far-right fanatic is being tried for bomb and shooting attacks that left 77 people dead on July 22.
Hayder Mustafa Qasim, 20, travelled to Norway from Baghdad this week to attend the proceedings against Breivik in Oslo's district court, said Kari Nessa Nordtun, his lawyer.
His brother Karar Mustafa Qasim, a 19-year-old who had moved to Norway as an asylum-seeker, was among the victims of Breivik's shooting rampage at a youth camp, Nordtun said.
"I took off my shoe, got up, shouted at the killer, got eye contact with him and threw the shoe," Qasim was quoted as saying by Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.
"He was alone in Norway, without family," Qasim said of his brother. "The killer took his life, and he ruined the life for me and the family. I have travelled from Iraq to Norway to be in court, and it has made an enormous impression on me."
Throwing shoes has long been a form of protest in many countries, but the practice gained widespread attention when an Iraqi threw his shoes at then-U.S. president George W. Bush at a televised news conference in Baghdad in 2008 during the Iraq war.
Witnesses said forensic experts were going through autopsy reports when a man in the second row suddenly stood up and threw a shoe at a desk where Breivik and his lawyers were seated.
"He shouted, 'You killer, go to hell,' and repeated it several times" in English, said Mikaela Akerman, a Swedish journalist who was in the courtroom.
The shoe hit one of Breivik's defence lawyers, but she was not hurt.
Breivik remained calm and "smiled a little" as he watched security guards apprehend the man and take him out of the courtroom, Akerman said.
"He keeps shouting and is crying heavily as he's being led out," Akerman said. "Some of the spectators clapped their hands. Some yelled 'Bravo.' Many others started crying."
Breivik addressed the court after a 10-minute break. "If someone wants to throw something at me, you can do it when I walk in or when I leave, thank you," he said, reported Akerman.
Police operations leader Rune Bjoersvik downplayed the outburst, calling it a "spontaneous and emotional reaction" that didn't pose a "serious security risk." The man was taken away from the court in an ambulance, he said.
Qasim's lawyer said the outburst was unplanned. He had listened quietly to his brother's autopsy report Thursday, but after hearing several more Friday, he couldn't hold back, Nordtun said.
"There was such a stifling atmosphere in the court. Afterward people clapped. The tension that was in the room was released."
Three guards were at the front of the gallery as the trial resumed.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 12, 2012 A31
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