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Lisa Bjurwald and Maik Baumgärtner: Norway Killer's Bosnian Link

Lisa Bjurwald, based in Stockholm, is a freelance writer specialising in Europe's right-wing populist parties. Maik Baumgärtner is a Berlin-based freelance journalist and author specialising in right-wing extremism.

The trial of the right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik has been a field day in the international media, with Breivik's ice-cold bearing and callous statements playing to the headlines. For many of the journalists inside the courtroom, however, the first couple of days in Oslo were disappointing in terms of actual information.

The accused appeared to have no reason to worry about a gruelling cross examination. Often, the prosecution's questions resembled those that would be asked by psychologists, inquiring after his mental state. Although Breivik is one of the worst terrorists in Europe since the Second World War, perhaps the need to understand his actions has been greater than the urge to hold him accountable.

But as the trial resumed on Friday, news broke that the Bosnian investigative weekly Sloboda Bosna had named Breivik's mystery Serbian contact as Milorad Pelemis, a war criminal who participated in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. Should this connection turn out to be true, it would be a vital piece of the puzzle of Breivik's international connections and the ideological underpinnings of the murders of 77 people in Oslo and Utoya in July... 

Read entire article at The National (UAE)