InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
OSLO - A man set himself on fire on Tuesday outside the Oslo courthouse where Anders Behring Breivik is on trial for killing 77 people last year, but there was no evidence the two events were linked, police said.
The man, whose identity was not known, suffered serious injuries, Norwegian police said.
"The man crossed the street and set himself on fire," Kjell Jan Kverme, head of police security operations outside the courthouse, told AFP. "Police officers pulled off his clothes and put out the fire."
Commercial broadcaster TV2 quoted witnesses as saying the man had shouted in Swedish: "Shoot me! Shoot me!"
The incident took place outside the large security tents equipped with metal detectors set up outside the Oslo district court for the 10-week duration of Breivik's trial.
In a video published on the website of the Verdens Gang tabloid, a man can be seen spraying himself, probably with a flammable liquid, before running with his head and sweater on fire towards one of the tents.
Police officers can been seen tackling him and pulling off his sweater which continues to burn on the ground, not far from the man who is howling in pain.
Police, who said they believed the man was a Norwegian citizen, confirmed that he had shouted something but could not confirm what he had said.
Kverme said the man was seriously injured, adding that his motive was not known and that there was no evidence so far to say it was linked to the Breivik trial.
Inside the courthouse, on the 19th day of the trial of the self-confessed killer, young people wounded in his massacre were testifying about Breivik's shooting spree on the island of Utoeya on July 22.
Breivik has been charged with committing terrorist acts when he bombed a government building in Oslo, killing eight people, before shooting dead another 69 in his rampage on Utoeya.
The victims were on the island for a summer camp of the ruling Labour Party's youth wing, and the youngest had just celebrated her 14th birthday.
Breivik has confessed to the killings but has refused to plead guilty, insisting the shootings were "cruel but necessary" to stop the Labour Party's "multicultural experiment" and the "Muslim invasion" of Norway and Europe.
