Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old far-right extremist who perpetrated the horrifying attacks in Norway last weekend, was inspired partially by a neo–Knights Templar movement in England run by a man named Paul Ray. Ray runs a “Richard the Lionhearted” blog which is thought to have heavily influenced Breivik’s insane 1,500-page manifesto. He’s a former activist for the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant English Defence League (EDL), who had to move to Malta after being accused of using his blog to provoke racial discord. He’s clearly an unsavory kind of guy, and even he was disgusted by Breivik’s crimes (or claims halfheartedly to be); Ray told the Times of London that he was “being implicated” as Breivik’s mentor but that, despite the fact that “he has given me a platform and a profile,” his attacks were “pure evil.”
