Insane Breivik should be in ward, say prosecutors

CONFESSED mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was insane when he killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in Norway, and should be sent to a psychiatric ward instead of prison, prosecutors said.

A psychiatric evaluation ordered by an Oslo court found that the self-styled anti-Muslim resistance fighter was psychotic during the July 22 attacks, the country’s worst peacetime massacre — which means he is not mentally fit to be sentenced to prison.

The report, written by two psychiatrists who spent a total of 36 hours talking to Breivik, will be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists before the court makes a ruling on whether Breivik is legally insane.

Their conclusions contrast with earlier comments by the head of that board, who said in July it was unlikely Breivik would be declared legally insane as the attacks were so carefully planned and executed.

“The conclusions of the forensic experts is that Anders Behring Breivik was insane,” prosecutor Svein Holden said, adding that Breivik was in a state of psychosis during the attacks.

In their report, the experts describe a man “who finds himself in his own delusional universe, where all his thoughts and acts are governed by these delusions”, Holden said.

“They conclude that Anders Behring Breivik, during a long period of time, has developed the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia, which has changed him and made him into the person he is today.”

In Norway, an insanity defence requires a defendant be in a state of psychosis while committing the crime with which they are charged. That means the defendant has lost contact with reality to the point that he is 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.

Breivik has confessed to carrying out the attacks but denies criminal guilt, saying he is a commander of a Norwegian resistance movement opposed to multiculturalism. Investigators found no sign of such a movement and say Breivik most likely plotted the attacks alone.