Anders Behring Breivik trial live: friends of killer give evidence 9.20am Few revelations from Prosecutor Engh's questions about Breivik's mother (a statement from whom we will hear latest today). I have the impression that he has had a good relationship with his mother. I don't feel that anything has been lacking in his home. He loved his mother. He lived with his mother but he spent all his time in the boy's room, so he wasn't sociable with her. We would talk to him saying that he spent his time with his mother. He would say we only ever eat together and the rest of the time I spend in my room. 9.14am The witness didn't have much interest in politics and so never spoke to Breivik about his involvement with Norway's anti-immigration Progress Party. He said he didn't think his views were any more extreme than those of an average Oslo taxi driver. 9.10am Richard Orange writes this from Oslo: Now we're getting closer to July 22, when Breivik carried out his massacre. Breivik organised a barbecue for his friends back in April 2011. Breivik didn't talk about his book any more but said he wanted to move to a farm in Rena, two hours from Oslo to grow sugar beet. "I thought it was good that he move out of his mother's home," his friend tells told court. He said his friends were worried that he used to "sit at home and rot." We tried to make him come out and see some sunshine and to be sociable. 9.04am More now on how Breivik changed from 2008, when he was living with his mother. Perhaps he was a bit more quiet. I remember he had shaven his head, his hair of which he was so proud, and you could see he had been sitting inside for a long time. He was paler. He didn't use make up, he wasn't focused on clothing. I remember that the hair was gone, and I reacted to that because he had been very fussy about his hair, trying to preserve it for a long time, and perhaps he looked a bit tired. But by 2010, he said Breivik became more normal. I felt he was more or less the same guy. Then he had worked out, he had done his hair, he had fixed his beard. I felt in 2010, he was bit back to his old self, where he was more sociable, and it was nice to be in a cafe and meet us. 9.01am When he returned to Sweden permanently from Australia in 2008, the friend says he rarely saw Breivik, just once or twice a year, and that his he had become increasingly strange. He was a part of the group, but it seemed like he didn't want to participate, and then I heard that he was writing a book. I guess we also knew what it was supposed to be about, and we were all a bit quizzical, and I was asking myself what this could be. I heard that it was a collection of works of anti-Islamic content. I didn't really understand where this was coming from. I felt there was no reason to write this. We were somewhat critical of him, saying, 'You can't go on like this'. 8.51am More on Breivik's lack of violence: He was not violent I cannot remember there being any incidents of violence related to him. The friend recalls that Breivik hit his headmaster in lower secondary school, and said that surprised him. Interestingly, his friend says he cannot remember the incident Breivik recalls in his manifesto, where he had his nose broken in a fight with Pakistanis. He also cannot remember the other two incidents where Breivik claims the two of them were robbed and threatened by immigrants, as the Lars Bevanger writes: The friend adds he cannot remember Breivik making any racist or anti-immigrant comments before the witness left for Australia for five years in 2003. 8.48am Although not a violent person, we are hearing a lot about what would best be described Breivik's eccentricities. Richard Orange writes from the courtroom: The friend told the court: "He's been a bit peculiar, for example in the way he dresses. He would think certain things are really cool, which the rest of us thought not, so he would wear a certain jacket, or he would wear sunglasses when we went out at night. And he had his won ways of doing certain things, for example when we were playing pool he would hold the cue with the other way with the hand. It worked fine, but he had certain issues. 8.44am Again, it is reiterated that Breivik was non-violent growing up. He became more eager to make money and to work in a more targeted way towards that. If he decides to do something he's very determined. He was quite tolerant and he would never start a fight. 8.43am Questioning moves on to Breivik's nose surgery, which has been reported as being to give him an "Aryan nose." We thought perhaps it was a bit vain. We let him hear it. He did have some self-irony, so we teased him about it a bit, and he tolerated that. There was the powder he put on his face, which I found a bit odd for a guy. 8.38am What's interesting about this testimony is the lack of any outward sign of abnormality in Breivik in his late-teenage and early 20s. The friend says Breivik was better than average at school, but then left school early to join the tele-sales company, where he rose to be a team leader, a job he seemed to have carried out quite well. "I've always seen him as an industrious person if assigned tasks," he said. Prosecutor Inga Behr Engh has got to nub, asking him directly what kind of a person Breivik was. I perceived him as a rather smart, intelligent person, towards me he's always been kind. He's been nice to me. If he wasn't we wouldn't have liked to hang out with him. he was focused on his appearance. He was interested on how he dressed. The BBC's Lars Bevanger adds: 8.28am Richard Orange has this: Breivik's friends are now describing Breivik's graffiti obsession when he was 15 or 16. "He was rather dedicated to tagging," he said. I was partly involved in the tagging, but to a far less extent. The times that I did it was probably when I went along with him. It seems that Breivik got into less trouble for graffiti than what he described in his manifesto. I personally remember that we were stopped by the police once. Anders was included and I personally said that I had done it and I had to clean it up, that's it. He did not participate in the cleaning up work. Prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh is treating the first witness very gently, asking factual questions about Breivik's teenage partying and friendships, but not directly referring to his horrific killings. 8.20am In his manifesto, Breivik described the first friend who is speaking as a lady-killer. The man, who is a fireman, does seem rather smooth in a smart blazer and open-necked shirt and designer stubble. The friend, who'd known Breivik since he was 11, says that Breivik was an absolutely normal child, his best friend at that time, and was neither particularly extrovert or introvert. "He didn't stand out in any way," he says. Prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh asks him if he thought Breivik was "a cool person." He says he was. 8.12am Breivik has now left the courtroom. Marius Kirkenes, a fire officer who Breivik has known since he was 11 years old has now taken the stand. 8.09am The prosecutor is asking for Breivik to leave the courtroom when his four friends, three men and one woman, give evidence. He has also said that the four people wish to remain anonymous. The prosecution also says that new evidence has come up, which will require them to ask Breivik additional questions regarding his activities in the online game World of Warcraft. The judge says this will take place on June 6, when Breivik wants to give more commentary on his ideology. 7.58am In the Oslo courtroom for The Telegraph today is Richard Orange. He sends this: It's likely to be quite an ordeal for the four friends, as Breivik included some embarrassing passages about them in the manifesto he posted online on the day of his massacre. The court appearance will be particularly difficult for Axel Borg, who works as a lawyer for the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. Breivik in his manifesto claimed to have convinced Axel, a supporter of a left wing party, of his anti-Islamic views. "I am happy to see that Axel is finally coming to his senses regarding his views on the Islamisation of Europe, and I expect him to use his vote on the only anti-multiculturalist party during the election in a year's time," he wrote. 7.50am Four of Anders Breivik's closest friends are due to appear in the court today. This brings the trial into a new phase after three weeks of heart-rending descriptions from survivors of the Norwegian mass killer's massacre on the island of Utoya. There's a bit of a buzz among the Norwegian press in the courtroom, as none of the four have so far agreed to be interviewed. The friends are Peter Khart, who Breivik described as his "closest friend," Marius Kirkenes, who the killer had known since he was 11 years old, and Axel Borg, who he see as an intellectual sparring partner, despite his left-wing views. A statement from Breivik's mother, Wenche Behring, will also be read out. She has been excused from appearing in court for health reasons, a lucky escape for Breivik who described his mother as his "Achilles heel" and "the only one who can make me emotionally unstable," 7.45am Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, the far-Right extremist who confessed to killing 77 people in Norway on July 22. The day is due to start at 7am GMT (8am BST, 9am Norway). For a reminder of those horrific events, and the aftermath the following week, our live coverage from July is below. Norway shootings: July 29 as it happened Norway shootings: July 28 as it happened Norway shootings: July 27 as it happened Norway shootings: July 26 as it happened Norway shootings: July 25 as it happened Norway shootings: July 24 as it happened Norway terrorist attacks: July 23 as it happened Oslo explosion: July 22 as it happened