Norwegian police investigating the twin attacks on July 22 that killed 77 people said today they would question a former member of the far-right English Defence League (EDL), described by the confessed killer as his "mentor".

Briton Paul Ray, who is resident in Malta, "wants to explain himself to police and the police want to hear his explanations," Oslo police spokeswoman Unni Turid Groendal told AFP.

"He is set to come to Norway tomorrow (Wednesday )today and will be questioned by police the same day," she added.

Ray is widely considered to be the unnamed "mentor" mentioned by Anders Behring Breivik in the 1,500-page manifesto he posted online shortly before carrying out his deadly attacks.

Describing himself as a crusader at war against multiculturalism and Islam, Behring Breivik, 32, explained in the document that he had had "a relatively close relationship" with an Englishman he gave the pseudonym "Richard", "who became my mentor."

Ray, who heads the "Knights Templar" movement and runs a "Richard the Lionhearted" blog, has said he recognised himself in the Norwegian rightwing extremist's description.

Ray has called the July 22 attacks "pure evil" in an interview with the Times, and had told Norwegian media he planned to come to the Scandinavian country to clear his name, insisting he did not know the Norwegian killer.

Behring Breivik has confessed to setting off a bomb outside government offices in Oslo killing eight people, before going on a shooting rampage on the nearby island of Utoeya, where the ruling Labour Party's youth wing was hosting a summer camp, killing 69 others, many of them teenagers.

He is currently being held in solitary confinement at a high-security prison near Oslo, and has claimed he acted alone.

See: The extremists in our midst

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110731/local/The-extremists-in-our-midst.378042