Norway suspect's father 'in shock'

The father of the young man suspected of single-handedly killing 93 people in Norway's worst post-war tragedy told a newspaper he was in a state of shock. "I was reading the news on the Internet and suddenly I saw his name and picture," Anders Behring Breivik's retired father told Norway's Verdens Gang paper.

"I am in a state of shock, it's absolutely horrific to hear that," said Jens Breivik, who currently lives in France.

The suspect mentions his father in the tract, who he says was a diplomat posted to London and Paris and who remarried after his birth, while his mother married a soldier who became his stepfather. He wrote that his biological father and his wife had asked for custody of the boy but were prevented by the Norwegian courts.

"I had a good relationship with him and his new wife until I was 15," he wrote.

Their contact then ended, with Breivik writing that his father "didn't much like my graffiti period between the ages of 13 and 16."

In the manifesto he said his biological parents were both Labour Party supporters.

AFP