After refusing to explain himself last week, Espen Andersen Bråthen (38) returned to the witness box in Hokksund District Court.
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Bråthen starts his free explanation on Wednesday by continuing where he left off last week.
– I apologize to everyone I have shot an arrow at and thrown a knife at, he says.
He continues again to tell that two years ago he had a fear of going blind, and that he then began to think of rebirth, and that he had to kill to achieve this.
So far, the prosecution has provided evidence what happened at the Coop store in Kongsberg that evening, and on Wednesday the presentation of evidence for the murders will start in Hyttegata.
Bråthen explains about his actions that night, including how he tried to get in with three students, and about the killings he has admitted to having committed.
Bråthen explains in court that he understands at one point that he has not killed anyone with a bow and arrow.
– So then I think I have to go into housing, he says.
Five killed
He explains in detail about the way he took the life of Gun Marith Madsen (78), Hanne Merethe Englund (56), Andréa Meyer (52), Liv Berit Borge (75) and Gunnar Erling Sauve (75).
Read more here: These were killed on Kongsberg
Bråthen is calm in his voice and tells chronologically about his actions that night.
He says that he crossed the road after killing Liv Berit Borge and Gunnar Erling Sauve to look for more open doors, and that the police then appeared.
– So I throw a knife at them, and I should go to go in another door and then there comes a warning shot. Then I fall to the ground, and then in a way I surrender, he says.
Asks questions about monitoring
The prosecuting authority has announced that they will file a claim for compulsory mental health care because they believe that Bråthen was mentally ill and insane during the attack.
During defender Fredrik Neumann’s interrogation, Bråthen explains that he got off to a bad start in life. He also says that he felt monitored by the landlord he rented from and by the neighbors on Kongsberg.
– If I were to ventilate and open the windows, then I think I heard someone walk by and scream, to say something to me, he explains.
Bråthen also believes that someone followed him when he went to the store, and that if he went to the kitchen, someone came from upstairs and knocked on the floor.
Bråthen carried out the attack on Kongsberg in the plinth. When asked by Neumann why he did not put on shoes, he says that those who monitored the apartment would have caught up with him if he had put them on.
Neumann refers from the first interrogation that was taken by Bråthen the same night, where Bråthen is said to have explained that he chose to go to the Coop store that night because he did not have food.
– It was five days until I got money, so then I chose to go to the Coop, he says in court on Wednesday.
The defender points out that pictures have been taken of his refrigerator which show that he had food.
No connection with Islam
Early in the investigation, the police linked Bråthen’s actions in connection with his conversion to Islam. That hypothesis was quickly dismissed, and the hypothesis of disease became the leading one.
Neumann asks Bråthen why he called the attack on Kongsberg Jihad.
– That was the closest I came to explaining what I have done, the murder accused answers.
Bråthen also says that what he did that night has nothing to do with his conversion to Islam. The defender asks what he thinks about this now.
– See that there are just a lot of weird thoughts, that it’s just nonsense, says Bråthen.
Bråthen is charged with five murders, eleven attempted murders and 13 cases of serious threats committed on 13 October last year. Several of the killings took place indoors, at the victims’ homes.
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