Assumption College Student Writes Letters Of Support To Norway Massacre Killer
WORCESTER (CBS) - A Worcester college student claims he has been writing letters of support to the man who admitted to killing 77 people last year in Norway.
Norwegian newspaper VG published an interview with Kevin Forts, who, according to his Facebook page, is from Shrewsbury and attends Assumption College.
"I decided that what I would want to do is try to help him ideologically by sending him letters showing support that I believe that he is a nationalist and a patriot and not the terrorist neo-Nazi that the media portrays him to be," Forts told VG.
In the interview, Forts defends the views of Anders Behring Breivik, who is currently on trial for committing last year's massacre.
Breivik is accused of setting up a bomb that killed eight people in central Oslo and then shooting 69 others to death on the island of Utoya at a political youth camp. Most of those killed at the camp were teenagers. It was the worst peacetime atrocity in Norway's history and one of the deadliest shooting sprees in modern history.
Breivik has claimed self-defense, saying that he rejected the authority of the court because they get their mandates from "Norwegian political parties who support multiculturalism." Breivik claims to be part of a militant nationalist group fighting a Muslim colonization of Europe.
In the interview, Forts defends Breivik's killing of children as "necessary."
"It was a necessary political sacrifice that is not necessary again," Forts told his Norwegian interviewer. "I believe that it was atrocious but necessary in that it's raised awareness."
Assumption College has issued a statement on the interview.
"Kevin Forts has expressed his personal opinion on the Breivik case, and as a U.S. citizen, he is afforded that right. As a Catholic liberal arts institution dedicated to the moral, intellectual and spiritual integrity of the human person, Assumption College condemns the violence that occurred in Norway last July and does not support the opinions expressed by Mr. Forts. The College extends its sympathy to the victims of the violence and their families."
