EU to speed up chemicals sales restrictions after Norway attacks

The European Commission will speed up the introduction of new regulations on chemicals sales after a Norwegian extremist who killed 76 people in last week's bombing and shooting spree admitted he used fertilizers to make explosives, EC spokesman Michele Cercone said on Tuesday. The deadly attacks gave an impetus to reach a compromise on the draft regulations, Cercone told journalists in Brussels. The commission introduced a bill in September last year restricting the sale in Europe of chemicals that may be used to make explosives, including hydrogen peroxide. Anders Behring Breivik, 32, faces at least 21 years in jail on terrorism charges. He is accused of organizing the bomb attack in Oslo which killed eight people, and shooting dead 68 others at a youth camp on the island of Utoya on July 22. In his 1,500-page anti-Muslim manifesto that he published on the internet before going on his killing spree, Breivik wrote about purchasing fertilizers through his organic farm company and gave detailed instructions on how to use them to make a bomb. Representatives of the companies that sold chemicals to the suspected terrorist say the amounts of fertilizers purchased by Breivik did not exceed the average quantities needed by a typical farm. Breivik, who was arrested immediately after Friday's massacre, pleaded not guilty at yesterday's court hearing. Ahead of the trial, he denied criminal responsibility for the attacks, saying that they were "atrocious but necessary."