Breivik victim revisits shooting-island of Utoeya

2012-04-10 103

(ROUGH CUT ONLY - NO REPORTER NARRATION AND CLEAR WITNESS ACCOUNT)

She last saw Anders Behring Breivik on the shore of Norway's Utoeya Island when he looked straight at her, raised his rifle towards her and pulled the trigger, calmly.

Now, 18-year-old Alexandra-Maeva Norya Peltre is about to face him in court as he stands trial for killing 77 people that summer's day.

The trial of anti-Islam fanatic Breivik is due to start on April 16 and Peltre is one of several called on to testify.

She recalls the order of the chilling events for us.

"I called my mum and then I told her that I love her and I hung up and I started to run because I heard some more shooting," she told Reuters as she relived the events of the July afternoon of last year during a trip to the little wooded island where Breivik killed 69 people and maimed 33 at a Labour Party summer camp for youths.

As she walked across the island, she pointed out the various places she had taken as hiding spots.

She said there was a kind of pattern. First there were screams and then there was shooting and it all seemed to go on forever.

Earlier that day Breivik had set off a fertiliser bomb at government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight and injuring nine.

Peltre was one of the last people shot on the island.

By the time Breivik aimed his Ruger semi-automatic rifle at Alexandra, he had prowled Utoeya island in a police uniform for almost an hour, repeatedly luring youngsters by saying he had come to save them.

She ran from hiding place to hiding place with a small group, shushing those who cried aloud and veering around bodies.

When her moment with Breivik finally came she believed most of her 563 campmates were dead and had no idea why.

"He pulled out his gun and I saw him right in the eyes, actually, when he pulled out the gun. He was looking right at me and then I just remember poof", she said standing at the place where she was shot.

She jumped into the cold Tyri Fjord, almost a kilometre from the far shore. She held her face above water, but no more bullets came her way.

"I had a hole in my leg and I started running to the water and then I started swimming in the water just so I could go to like a place where I had water to right over my eyes so if I was standing on my toes I could see something, but if I wasn't standing on my toes I could hide," she said.

Breivik surrendered to police less than 100 metres away, seemingly proud of the day's carnage.

An officer applied a tourniquet to Alexandra's thigh that may have saved her life.

Court-appointed psychiatrists have declared Breivik psychotic and a second opinion is expected on Tuesday (April 10).

But to Alexandra it doesn't matter what the diagnosis is.

"For me, that's the same, if he's insane or not, as long as he can't do the same thing that he did to some other innocent people," she said.