Breivik Claims Innocence

Never forget… never forgive… this cold-hearted bastard killed in COLD BLOOD…

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Self-confessed Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik went on trial Monday for a deadly massacre last year that claimed 77 lives, pleaded not guilty, and said he acted in self-defence. At the hearing, he said, “I admit to the acts, but not criminal guilt”, he said at the hearing, adding that he was acting in self-defence. Breivik also rejected the authority of the court as he came in the courtroom to testify on the 22 July attacks that shocked peaceful Norway. Breivik said, when the court allowed him to comment, “I don’t recognise Norwegian courts because you get your mandate from the Norwegian political parties who support multiculturalism”.

Breivik, 33, faces charges of murdering eight people in a car bomb explosion in downtown Oslo on 22 July 2011, and then gunning down 69 others, mostly teenagers, at a summer camp on the island of Utøya. He claims the attacks were necessary to prevent Muslims from overrunning Norway. The anti-Muslim killer remained emotionless as Prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh read the list of victims, describing the details of each person’s death. The gunman however started crying when the court showed the video the killer uploaded to YouTube six hours before the bomb in the centre of Oslo went off. The 12-minute video, entitled Knights Templar 2083, features extracts from Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto where he expressed his extreme anti-Muslim political views and described the attacks that he later carried out.

Breivik also told the court he was a rebel fighter in a militant group created along the lines of the Knights Templar… a Western Christian military order that fought during the Crusades. The police found no trace of such an organisation. At the hearing, Prosecutor Svein Holden said, “In our opinion, there is no such network”. The self-confessed gunman may face a maximum 21-year sentence if found mentally stable, although the authorities could extend his imprisonment for as long as they consider him a menace to society. The trial will take place amid tightened security with some 100 police officers deployed around the court. Breivik, who has received threats to his life ever since his arrest, sat behind a bullet-proof screen at the hearing. Relatives of his victims can watch the trial in a specially built 200-seat courtroom.

16 April 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20120416/172854241.html

Editor’s Note:

Breivik’s crime fits the “Tsar Aleksandr” rule for the death penalty… it wasn’t treason, but it WAS a blow at society, similar to that of the Minsk Metro bombing, it wasn’t a mere criminal act. He attacked property and killed members of the Norwegian Labour Party, targeting them for their political views. Ergo, if there were justice in Norway, he’d get the “super” and he’d be “swimming with the fishies”. I’d hang his worthless carcass without a qualm… and sleep well afterwards. However, I think that he’ll never get out of the slam… he targeted the leadership of his country, and he’s going to pay, they’ll see to that. After all… Breivik killed THEIR kids… bad move…

BMD 

16 April 2012. Video. The Holy Fire… A Greek Presentation with English Subtitles

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16 April 2012. A Multimedia Presentation. “And the Band Played On…” Images of RMS Titanic from the Russian Web

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16 April 2012. “You Can Trust Your Car to the Man Who Wears the Star…” A TRUE Easter Tale…

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As we were driving home from Jordanville Easter Liturgy on US 20 (why take the Thruway? It’s a toll, and it doesn’t save you much time at all), rather LATE (or rather EARLY, depending on one’s point of view), we saw the flashing red n’ blue lights of John Law, otherwise known as the New York State Police, in our mirror. The copper came up to the window, he was rather polite, explained that he saw our car go over the white line a time or two, and that he was concerned. Frankly, he was trolling for drunks… it was after three in the morning on a weekend, after all. He could see that neither Nicky nor I were plastered, and we explained that we were at Easter liturgy at the monastery. He seemed to know the drill about it all, and he just “ran” Nicky’s licence, found nothing wrong, and returned it to him.

Oh, yes… he DID say, “Khristos Voskrese” as he left… some days, you DO hit the jackpot…

Thank you…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Monday 16 April 2012

Albany NY

16 April 2012. Something to Think About From Shel Silverstein…

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Death Becomes Us

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In recent weeks, the Russian media suddenly revived the topic of the death penalty… with both the likes of government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta and colourful TV host Arkady Mamontov weighing in. Since 1996, Russia has had a moratorium in place on the death penalty. A moratorium or an outright abolition of the death penalty is mandatory for all Council of Europe members… hence, the move to stop capital punishment. Nevertheless, popular opinion tends to be in favour of the death penalty… as most Russians aren’t particularly interested in what the Council of Europe wants, as it’s an amorphous alien body to them. Most Russians just take note of the heinous crimes happening all around them, become horrified, and cry out for vengeance.

One such heinous crime was the murder of baby Anya Shkaptsova, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. The case shocked the town of Bryansk and the whole of Russia. Anya “disappeared” from her stroller when her mother popped into a shop… and the authorities launched a massive search, only to halt it when Anya’s parents confessed to murdering the child and faking a kidnapping. Pictures of Anya’s mother, Svetlana, celebrating the 8 March International Women’s Day holiday seemingly without a care in the world just a few days after Anya was killed and her body burned, have made their rounds in the media… fully convincing the public that Svetlana and her boyfriend Aleksandr Kulagin, who was the one to kill the child, are monsters. In a video released by the police, Svetlana makes a statement in which she tries hard to make it seem as though Kulagin did not mean to hit Anya while he was, allegedly, in a drunken rage, saying, “He told me later that he didn’t even remember what had happened”. However, Aleksandr gave the police a detailed statement, even mentioning what kind of beer he was drinking at the time. It’s obvious from Svetlana’s own statement that she’s desperately trying to cover for her boyfriend.

A police officer who had been in the presence of baby Anya’s murderer told the audience on Spetsialny Korrespondent, a talk show hosted by the aforementioned Arkady Mamontov, “The people of Bryansk want blood”. There was a hot debate on the topic of the death penalty, with many of the guests referencing the United States, where 34 states have death penalty statutes and the majority of the population supports carrying out the death penalty in the case of murder. American author and journalist Jeffrey Tayler, who was a guest on the show, pointed up that the states that carry out the death penalty also tend to have higher rates of poverty and violence… but it seemed as though Mamontov wasn’t interested in the point that Jeffrey was trying to make. I believe that the point is that the death penalty doesn’t improve society and doesn’t rein in cold-blooded killers. To be specific, it isn’t a deterrent. Not only that, but there are theories that suggest that the death penalty makes society more brutal over time… if kids grow up seeing that the government has the right to take people’s lives, then, human life’s devalued in their eyes.

Again and again, studies have shown that most Russians, like most Americans, support the death penalty. Yet, studies also routinely show that Russians don’t trust law enforcement… in Moscow alone, two-thirds of the population mistrust the police. I believe that the recent scandal with sadists on the police force in Kazan only reinforced such views… in many ways, Kazan is only the tip of the iceberg. The horror that people experience when something as tragic as the murder of baby Anya occurs runs up against the terror people experience when they consider that many of the police officers charged with keeping them safe are corrupt and negligent. Add to that the fact that Russian criminal courts rarely exonerate individuals charged with crimes, introducing the death penalty seems like a sure recipe for disaster.

So, why do so many Russians still insist that capital punishment is the way to go? Personally, I think such insistence is a defence tactic. Russians know that popular opinion isn’t likely to sway the authorities on this issue any time soon… but people also need a way to blow off steam. There’s a sense of helplessness most of us feel when we encounter a situation in which a defenceless child such as Anya becomes the victim of a horrific crime and a cynical cover-up… and debating the death penalty at a time like this is a great means of wresting control back from the forces of evil. The banality of it all… the drunken fight, the broken body of a child, the rural bonfire in which Anya’s remains were destroyed, the cell phone pictures of the grinning mother just a few days afterwards, the residents of Bryansk screaming “give her to us, we’ll tear her apart!” as cops led the mother towards a police car… must be counteracted with a period of reflection.

The Lord said, “Vengeance is mine”. Like many people, I take comfort in that. I also take comfort in the existence of Bryansk police officer Vladimir Didenko. Vladimir lost his own child, Kirill, in a horrible January accident that shocked the country and shamed Bryansk officials tasked with keeping the infrastructure in decent condition… Kirill, a toddler, died in a pavement collapse that also nearly killed his mother. In the wake of his personal tragedy, Vladimir Didenko hasn’t given up on people. He was among the hundreds who searched for Anya when we thought that she might still be alive.

13 April 2012

Natalia Antonova

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/columnists/20120413/172807698.html

Editor’s Note:

As for me, I believe that we should reserve the death penalty for crimes against society and/or the state, not individuals. Tsar Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, no weak sister he, routinely commuted all the death sentences of murderers that crossed his desk. However, he never commuted the death penalty in cases of treason or political assassins (such as the killers of his father)… ergo, the recent execution of the Minsk Metro bombers was in accordance with such a tradition. Russia isn’t Texas… and it shouldn’t start copying it. Thank God, Vladimir Putin isn’t Rick Perry… he isn’t a hangman…

BMD