View the Cho video

Anger is growing that a disturbing, obscenity-laden video manifesto left by the gunman who shot dead 32 people on an American university campus on Monday has been aired on primetime US television.

In a tape and document posted to NBC News in the middle of his killing spree, Cho Seung Hui compares himself to a crucified Jesus, and says that he has been driven to kill in order to champion the downtrodden.

He expresses disgust at the debauchery and hedonism he thought he saw on campus at Virginia Tech university, where he was studying English. "You have vandalised my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," he intones in the video.

Expert View

Watching just a few minutes of the rambling manifesto of paranoia answers the question which the US has asked itself for three days: why did he do it?

Bronwen Maddox

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Parts of the video were aired on NBC last night, and watched in stunned silence by students on the Virginia Tech campus in the Virginia town of Blacksberg.

But soon a backlash began, and anger was voiced at NBC for running the images. At a press conference today, Colonel Steven Flaherty of Virginia State Police criticised the broadcaster.

"What I am concerned about is that a lot of folks saw images that really were very disturbing, things that people in my walk of life usually have to contend with," said Colonel Flaherty.

"I just hate that a lot of people who aren't seeing that kind of image were exposed to it... We are rather disappointed in the editorial decision to broadcast those disturbing images."

Family members of victims cancelled plans to appear on NBC's Today show to protest at the airing of the video, saying that they found it very upsetting. Students decided to stop writing about Cho or even using his name on college websites, in order to deny him publicity.

An FBI expert said that he didn't think any part of the video should have been shown at all. "This is what this guy wants," said Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI profiler. "He wants to be able to reach his hand out of the grave and grab us by the throat and make us listen to him one last time."

Mardi Horowitz, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco, agreed, adding that airing the video could even be dangerous. "The unfortunate thing is, he was seeking publicity and he got it.

"There's a danger of all kinds of copy-cat people looking for media glory... The important thing is not letting these vile acts contribute to the cycle of revenge. That's the disease we are trying to cure."

Today NBC acknowledged that the decision to broadcast was controversial. "There were big differences of opinion within NBC News about whether any of the material should be aired at all," said Matt Lauer, the host of Today.

"We’ve made the decision because by showing some of this material, perhaps it will make us understand or answer the question why, why did it happen."

Lauer added that NBC felt that "this is not some kind of video that we need to run in some kind of endless loop," and that the channel would "severely limit" what it airs.

The final part of the video is shot in Cho's car - after he had shot his first two victims in a dormitory, but before he entered a classroom block and murdered a further 30 people. The envelope is postmarked 9.01am, minutes before the second phase of his killing spree.

The package was delayed in the post until yesterday because Cho had wrongly addressed it, putting six digits instead of five in the zip code. The parcel was identified as important before it was even delivered, after an alert post worker spotted that it came from Blacksburg and that the return address was to A Ismail - similar to the words 'Ismail Ax' that the gunman had written on his arm in red ink.

A document in the package includes references to paedophilia, a key theme of Cho's other writings. Parts are a litany of blame against an anonymous "you" who has destroyed Cho's life. It is not clear if this "you" is one specific person, or a general cry of hatred against the all the people he knew.

Elsewhere in the 23-page printed document that arrived with the video, Cho poses in images reminiscent of martial arts films. Film buffs claimed that Cho must have been influenced by Oldboy, an ultra-gory South Korean film. Col Flaherty said however that he wasn't aware of a link.

Another image shows a cluster of hollow point bullets - a type of ammunition that causes massive, deadly exit wounds - arranged on a table in artistic focus. The page is captioned: "All the **** you've given me, right back at you with hollow points. Don't you just wish you finished me off when you had the chance? Don't you just wish you killed me?"

Detectives are believed to be investigating whether Cho had any help in recording the video and taking the photographs, and last night asked for parts of the document to be withheld from publication.

Today, however, they were playing down the importance of the video and 23-page document as evidence, saying that they held "nothing new".

Students who knew the killer say they are stunned that the sinister, silent youth who was notorious for refusing to participate in his classes and victimising women students should have had so much to say. Former flatmates said the 23-year-old South Korean spoke so little they assumed that his English was poor.

"He just goes on and on - that has got to be more than he's spoken, ever," said Nick Jeremiah, 34, a graduate student. "I thought - well, he does talk."

All the students killed in the rampage will be awarded posthumous degrees, a university spokesman said today. Counselling services and legal advice have been laid on for the victim's families and the survivors.

The campus authorities were already aware that Cho had mental health issues. On December 13 2005, Special Judge Paul Barnett made a temporary detention order confining Cho to a mental institution for his own safety, after accusations that he had been stalking a female student led him to threaten suicide.

But the incident was not followed up. Cho was released the following day, and the two women students who accused him of pestering them did not press charges at the university disciplinary tribunal.

The hospital treating the injured students of Virginia Tech said tonight that eight students were still being treated there for their injuries.

A total of 17 were originally taken to Montgomery Regional Hospital, near the campus, after the shootings on Monday and four were given major surgery on that day while two were given minor surgery, Dr Demian Yakel said.

Speaking at a press conference, Dr Yakel said: "The big challenge was the number that came in at the time. All available staff came down to the emergency room, and we acted as a team. That was the most major challenge."

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