Few people have anything good to say about Anders Behring Breivik, the confessed perpetrator of the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway that killed 77 people.
However, 23-year-old Massachusetts native Kevin Forts has publicly announced his support for Breivik, and striking up a penpal relationship with the mass-murderer.
In an interview with Norway's VGTV (video above), Forts stated:
I believe that it [Breivik's attack on Utoya Island] demonstrates a sense of nationalism and a moral conscience. He's fighting against cultural Marxism and the Islamization of Norway and he found that the most rational way to accomplish that was through terrorist actions on Utoya and in Oslo.
All reports of Forts' interaction with Breivik hinge on the interview he granted to VG, Norway's most-read tabloid newspaper. Whether Forts is sincere in his views, or engaged in some kind of trolling, is unclear.
Asked how he could support an attack that killed children, Forts replied: "It was a necessary political sacrifice."
Not content with admiring Breivik from Afar, Forts explained to VGTV why he wrote letters to the imprisoned Breivik:
I decided that I wanted to contact [Breivik's] legal team to see if there was anything I could do, in the form of support. He said that all money would go to the victims' funds. So I decided what I would want to do is try to help him ideologically by sending him letters, showing him support, that I believe that he is a nationalist and patriot, not the terrorist neo-Nazi that the media portrays him to be.
Forts has received at least one response from Breivik. HyperVocal quotes the letter from Breivik to Forts: "I have received letters from supporters in 20 countries, but you appear to be someone who can write well. Yes, I am absolutely interested in discussing ideological issues with you and am thinking about how we can work together."
Forts' support for Breivik appears to come from his shared belief that, as Truthdig puts it, "Muslims are invading Western nations with help from sympathetic multiculturalists and that they will impose Shariah law if given the chance."
Germany's Der Spiegel quotes psychological expert Terje Tørrissen, who has examined Breivik, as saying that the terrorist has received more than a hundred letters from supporters. They “use the same language, the same terminology as Breivik. And some say they have been inspired by him and will be more extreme.”
Breivik himself claims to have taken inspiration from another violent right-wing group, the "Knights Templar," according to The Telegraph. A British blogger living in Malta who went by the name "Lionheart" admitted, "I do worry that he has taken what I say and overreacted to it," suggesting Brevik may have tried to connect with him via Facebook.
For his part, Forts is quoted by the paper as saying that he "dreams of meeting Breivik," or one day talking to him on the phone.