22 July

Judge Wenche Arntzen: Can you tell us what happened to you on Utøya, Viljar?

Viljar: Yes.

[has a flashback in his head]

Viljar: He tried to... he tried to kill me. I remember... seeing him... and then running away... trying to find somewhere to hide, and protecting my little brother. I remember being shot. Five times. When I was lying on the beach, I was... all alone. In a kind of pain I couldn't imagine.

Judge Wenche Arntzen: But now you are here.

Viljar: But everything's different. I've had to relearn how to use my body. Learn how to walk again. How to feed myself again. I have little use of my left arm, and I'm... I'm blind on one eye. But that's, uh... that's a relief.

Judge Wenche Arntzen: A relief. How do you mean?

Viljar: [laughs shakily] A relief, in a way that at least now I don't have to look at him.

[some of the people in the audience laugh briefly]

Viljar: But of course it's not that simple. I... I have a fragment of his bullet lodged in my brain that could kill me at any time. And I don't look like the person I used to anymore, I... My body, it's... it's broken. And the worst is that he... he killed Anders and Simon, my best friends. Stopping them from making their mark on the world, and... and they would have made it a better place. And I... I miss them every day. I'm sorry, I... I didn't... I didn't want to cry. I so much didn't want to cry in front of him. I... I wanted to stay strong. Because I do this for them. So they will not be forgotten. And when you shot them and left me alone on the beach, I didn't know if I was living or dying. And I've been stuck there ever since. But now... I realize that I got a choice. Because I still have a family... and friends... and memories. Dreams. Hope. And love. And he doesn't. He's... completely alone. And he's going to rot there in prison, whereas I... I survived. And I choose to live.