(사진제공=AP통신)
(사진제공=AP통신)
(사진제공=AP통신)
(사진제공=AP통신)
(사진제공=AP통신)
[오슬로=AP/KNS뉴스통신] AP통신은 오타야 섬에서 발생한 총기난사 사건에 대한 노르웨이 경찰의 초기 대응이 너무 늦어서 더 많은 사망자가 발생한 것으로 비난를 받고 있다고 전했다.
노르웨이 경찰특별기동대에 헬리콥터가 지원되지 않아 총격사건 현장까지 40km를 자동차로 이동하고 일분 걸리는 섬으로 건너가는 도중 보트의 엔진이 꺼져 민간인의 구조를 받아야 할 정도로 상상하기 힘든 대응태세를 보였다.
총기난사 사건의 범인인 안데르스 베링 브레이빅 조차도 경찰의 늦은 대응에 놀랐다고 말하면서 자신은 수 분 안에 경찰에 진압당할 것으로 예상했다고 진술한 것으로 밝혀졌다.
총격연쇄살인이 시작되고 범인은 무려 90분 동안 아무런 제지를 받지 않고 그 많은 사람을 살해한 사건에 대해 경찰은 오슬로 시내 폭발현장의 수습으로 총격사건에 대응이 늦었다고 변명을 늘어놓고 있다.
(영문기사 원문)
Norway police slammed for slow response to rampage
OSLO, Norway (AP) — When Anders Behring Breivik launched his assault on the youth campers of Utoya Island, he expected Norway's special forces to swoop down and stop him at any minute.
Instead, Delta Force police officers made the 25-mile journey by car — they have no helicopter — then had to be rescued by a civilian craft when their boat broke down as it tried to navigate a one-minute hop to the island.
It took police more than 90 minutes to reach the gunman, who by then had mortally wounded 68 people. Breivik immediately dropped his guns and surrendered, having exceeded his wildest murderous expectations.
As Oslo's police force sounds an increasingly defensive note, international experts said Tuesday that Norway's government and security forces must learn stark lessons from a massacre made worse by a lackadaisical approach to planning for terror.
"Children were being slaughtered for an hour and a half and the police should have stopped it much sooner," said Mads Andenas, a law professor at the University of Oslo whose niece was on the island and survived by hiding in the bushes. One of his students was killed.
"Even taking all the extenuating circumstances into account, it is unforgivable," he said.
These include the fact that Breivik preceded his one-man assault on the island with a car bomb in the heart of Oslo's government center. Authorities were focused on helping survivors from that blast as the first frantic calls came in from campers hiding from the gunman on Utoya, northwest of Oslo.
Survivors said they struggled to get their panicked pleas heard because operators on emergency lines were rejecting calls not connected to the Oslo bomb. When police finally realized a gunman was shooting teens and 20-somethings attending a youth retreat on the island, Breivik had already been hunting them down for half an hour.
In a final act of bungling, police on Monday revised the island death toll down to 68, after initially miscounting the corpses at 86.
Breivik's lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said Tuesday his client was surprised he even made it onto the island without being stopped by police, never mind that he was left to fire his assault rifle and handgun for so long.
The island's lone part-time security guard was among the first people he killed.
Police spokesman Johan Fredriksen rebuffed criticism Tuesday of the planning and equipment failures, calling such comments "unworthy."
"We can take a lot, we're professional, but we are also human beings," he said.
International experts said Norway must take a hard look at a response system apparently premised on the assumption that the country didn't face a credible risk of terrorist attack, much less a back-to-back bombing and gun rampage.
김희광 기자 april4241@naver.com
