Massacre in Norway could’ve been prevented

An independent panel investigating how Norwegian authorities dealt with the twin attacks that killed 77 people in July 2011 said the Oslo blast could have been prevented and the killer arrested sooner. “The attack on the government complex on July 22 could have been prevented through effective implementation of already adopted security measures,” the commission said in a report submitted to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. “The perpetrator (Anders Behring Breivik) could have been stopped earlier on July 22,” it said. “The authorities’ ability to protect the people on Utoeya Island failed. A more rapid police operation was a realistic possibility,” it concluded in reference to the second attack. On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people, before going to Utoeya, northwest of the capital, where he spent more than an hour gunning down another 69 people, mostly teenagers, and wounding others. The victims, the youngest of whom had just celebrated her 14th birthday, had been attending a summer camp hosted by the governing Labour Party’s youth organisation.