Norwegian mass killer ruled insane
Court-appointed psychiatrists have concluded that Norwegian mass
killer Anders Behring Breivik is criminally insane, prosecutors said on
Tuesday, meaning he is likely to be sent to a psychiatric institution
indefinitely rather than to jail.
Breivik killed 77 people in July by bombing central Oslo and then
gunning down dozens of mostly teenagers at a summer camp of the ruling
Labour Party's youth wing, in Norway's worst attacks since World War
Two.
Prosecutors said Breivik, a self-declared anti-immigration militant,
believed he had staged what he called "the executions" out of his love
for his people.
"The conclusion ... is that he is insane," prosecutor Svein Holden
told a news conference on Breivik's psychiatric evaluation. "He lives in
his own delusional universe and his thoughts and acts are governed by
this universe."
If the court accepts the psychiatrists' conclusions, Breivik would be
held in a psychiatric institution rather than in a prison. Norwegian
courts can challenge psychiatric evaluations or order new tests but
rarely reject them. Reuters |