OSLO (AP) – Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik belongs in psychiatric care instead of prison, prosecutors in Norway said Tuesday after a mental evaluation declared him legally insane during a bomb-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people. "After having read the documents of the case, the conclusion did not come as a surprise," Prosecutor Svein Holden told AP.
Breivik, 32, has confessed to setting off a bomb that ripped through Oslo's government district, killing eight people, then opening fire at the summer camp of the governing Labor Party's youth wing. Sixty-nine people died in the mayhem at Utoya island, outside the Norwegian capital, before Breivik surrendered to a SWAT team. He denies criminal guilt, saying he's a commander of a resistance movement aiming to overthrow European governments and replace them with "patriotic" regimes that will deport Muslim immigrants. Investigators have found no sign of such a movement and say Breivik most likely plotted and carried out the attacks on his own. "The conclusion of the forensic experts is that Anders Behring Breivik was insane" and that he, during an extended period, "developed the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia, which has changed him and made him into the person he is today."
In Norway, an insanity defense requires that a defendant be in a state of psychosis while committing the crime. That means the defendant has lost contact with reality to the point that he's no longer in control of his own actions.
The 243-page report will be reviewed by a panel from the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine, which could ask for additional information and add its own opinions. The head of the panel, Dr. Tarjei Rygnestad, called the conclusions "interesting."
Stine Renate Haaheim, a 27-year-old Labor Party lawmaker who survived the Utoya shootings, said she believes in Norway's legal tradition of not punishing criminals who are declared mentally ill. "But at the same time society has to protect itself," she added.
In neighboring Sweden, the forensic psychiatrist who examined the man who killed Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in 2003, expressed doubts about Breivik's diagnosis, given his extensive planning and the gruesome efficiency with which he slaughtered youth at Utoya. Disguised as a police officer, Breivik lured youths from their hiding places, then executed them. He also reportedly had calculated how many victims he would be able to kill before being arrested.
"It is difficult to see this as criminal insanity," Anders Forsman told AP. "He seems to have carried out the killings in a rational way. He is an efficient killing machine."
Holden said Breivik claims he committed the atrocities "out of love for his people" and describes himself as a crusader knight with special powers to decide "who is to live and who is to die." Breivik considers himself a future ruler of Norway and was planning to establish "breeding projects" for Norwegians, Holden said.
Yep, Breivik was/is stone cold crazy, or he is highly intelligent; capable of establishing an elaborate insanity defense to match the intricate execution of his 77 targets.
Breivik's trial is set to begin in April. If declared mentally fit and convicted of terrorism, he would face up to 21 years in prison or an alternative custody arrangement that could keep him behind bars indefinitely.
Execute him? I believe killing Breivik would establish a mortal sin for the executioner, if we are to uphold "Thou shalt not kill". Do we view this scripture as having the overarching authority of God, or shall we treat it as a suggestion; the folly of Moses?
