Anders Behring Breivik could escape jail after prosecutor indicates gunman was not ‘criminally responsible’

On 22 July 2011, Breivik set off a car bomb outside the government’s headquarters
in Oslo, killing eight people, and then travelled, dressed as a police
officer, to Utoya island, outside the capital, where he opened fire on a
Labour Party youth camp, killing 69 more.

The anti-Islamic extremist has admitted to carrying out the attacks, claiming
they were “atrocious” but “necessary” to wake Norway up
to the threat of militant Islam.

In a court appearance in February Breivik smirked and raised his arm in a
right-wing salute, demanding a medal for his “preventive attack against
state traitors.”

Breivik is now under 24-hour surveillance by a team of psychiatrists, who have
been tasked with providing a second opinion on whether he is suffering from
paranoid schizophrenia, after lawyers representing the victims families
successfully challenged an earlier assessment.

Forensic psychiatrists, Torgeir Husby and Synne Soerheim, concluded in
November that Breivik was a paranoid schizophrenic, basing their assessment
on 36 hours of interviews with Breivik and the two psychiatrists.

They reported that the 33-year-old extremist had acted under “grandiose
delusions whereby he believes he is to determine who is to live and who is
to die.”

But their assessment was criticised by several prominent psychiatrists, who
argued that a true paranoid schizophrenic would be unlikely to have been
able to mount such a meticulously planned attack.

Busch stressed that his advice would not prevent the prosecution from changing
their request, and arguing for a jail sentence on the grounds of new
evidence on Breivik’s mental state that comes to light during the trial.

Neither of the two psychiatric assessments will be binding on the judge when
the trial begin on April 16.

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