Anders Behring Breivik's 21-year Jail Term Closes Norway's Darkest Chapter

THE GUARDIAN: Calls for debate on multiculturalism as far right extremist is sentenced for killing 77 in twin attacks on Utøya island and Oslo

The darkest chapter in Norway's recent history came to a close, as judges delivered a sentence that is likely to see Anders Behring Breivik spend the rest of his life in prison, before they read out harrowing accounts of the gun and bomb attacks he perpetrated last year.

An Oslo court found that Breivik, whose twin assaults killed 77 people, was sane – the verdict that he and most Norwegians had wanted.

The conclusion of Norway's most high-profile judicial case for decades provoked immediate calls for the country to engage in a more rounded and open debate on multiculturalism.

Survivors and relatives welcomed the court's decision, saying they were now able to move on with their lives, 13 months after Breivik detonated a bomb in Oslo and embarked on a shooting rampage on Utøya island. More than half of those shot were teenagers.

The 33-year-old, who had earlier admitted the attacks that traumatised the peaceful country, smirked as the court's verdict was delivered. He was given the maximum sentence of 21 years, but with a "preventive detention" clause that means his time in jail can be extended as long as he is deemed a threat to society. It is unlikely he will ever be released.

In a final parting shot, clearly designed to offend, Breivik used his chance to address the court by apologising to "militant nationalists" across Europe, apparently for not killing more people during his two attacks. » | Mark Townsend in Oslo | Friday, August 24, 2012

Breivik Verdict: Mass-murderer Declared Sane and Sentenced to 21 Years
THE GUARDIAN: Court decides confessed killer was not psychotic when he went on rampage in Oslo that left 77 people dead

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian far-right extremist, has been sentenced to at least 21 years in prison after a court declared he was sane throughout his murderous rampage last year that killed 77 people.

The Oslo district court declared its verdict that the 33-year-old was not psychotic while carrying out the twin attacks, including the shooting of dozens of teenagers attending a political camp.

The court's decision will have delighted Breivik, who had hoped to avoid what he called the "humiliation" of being dismissed as a madman.

The mass-killer had desperately hoped the court would find him criminally culpable for the killings, claiming they were "cruel and necessary" to protect Norway from becoming overrun by Muslims. » | Mark Townsend | Friday, August 24, 2012

Video: Victims describe their loss »

Anders Behring Breivik: Urteil fällt am Freitag

Norway Remembers Victims of Massacre One Year On
In Norway, memorial services have been taking place to commemorate the victims of last year's massacre. Eight people were killed by a bomb blast at government headquarters there, and a further 69 were shot dead at a youth camp on Utoeya Island. From Oslo Barnaby Philips reports.

Anders Behring Breivik's Defence Calls for Lenient Sentence
On the last day of the trial against mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, his defence council asks the court to declare Breivik criminally accountable allowing him to take responsibility for his actions with a lenient sentence. Speaking outside the court, the leader of the Norwegian Labour party's youth wing, Eskil Pedersen – himself a survivor of the Utøya massacre – says it is obvious that Breivik is insane

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Anders Behring Breivik: History Will Exonerate Me
THE GUARDIAN: Victims' relatives walk out as trial ends with killer demanding to be set free and asking court to reject insanity claim

The trial of Anders Behring Breivik has ended with the confessed mass killer demanding to be set free and vowing that history would exonerate him for a bomb and gun rampage that killed 77 people.

As the self-styled anti-Muslim militant spoke for the last time in the 10-week proceedings, around 30 relatives of his victims walked out of the courtroom as he spoke.

In a rambling statement, Breivik lashed out at everything he perceived to be wrong with the world, from non-ethnic Norwegians representing the country in the Eurovision song contest to the sexually liberated lifestyle of the characters in the American TV show Sex and the City.

He also claimed fellow rightwing extremists were behind a small amount of explosives found outside a Swedish nuclear plant this week. The Swedish police spokesman Tommy Nyman had no comment, adding "especially not if he says it".

While some of Breivik's comments prompted laughter in the Oslo court, gravity returned when he reiterated his motive for bombing a government building in Oslo, killing eight, and hunting down teenagers at the Labour party's youth camp on Utøya island. Sixty-nine people died and dozens more were injured in one of the worst peacetime shooting massacres by a single gunman.

"History shows that you have to commit a small barbarism to prevent a bigger barbarism," the 33-year-old Norwegian said.

"The attacks on July 22 were preventive attacks to defend the indigenous Norwegian people," he said. "I therefore demand to be acquitted."

Breivik claims the governing Labour party has betrayed the country by accepting Muslim immigrants and must be stopped before turning Norway into what he called a "multiculturalist hell". » | Associated Press in Oslo | Friday, June 22, 2012

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Anders Behring Breivik Has 'Human Right' to Be Jailed: Defence
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik should be punished in prison for his brutal terror attacks last July, according to the killer's defence lawyer who pushed to overrule a recommendation that his his client should face "compulsory mental health care".

The defence's closing argument began the last session of the gruelling 10-week trial in which the Nordic nation has tried to come to terms with the worst atrocity in its post-war history.

"It is not violence which lies behind his acts, but political extremism," defence lawyer Geir Lippestad argued at the end of a speech in which he sought a "more lenient standard of proof on the question of sanity", for a case he said was "without precedent".

"The accused always benefits from reasonable doubt. When the accused wishes to be punished, then what?" he asked

"If we consider basic human rights, beginning with the fact that the accused has a radical political project that makes his actions pathological, then we could deprive him of his basic human rights: the right to be responsible for one's actions."

An insanity ruling would come as a bitter disappointment to the 33-year-old in his battle to ensure that his anti-Islamic ideology is not written off as the rantings of a madman.

Breivik has described treatment in a mental hospital as “a fate worse than death” and “the ultimate humiliation”, and has considerably toned down his original rhetoric about the Knights Templar movement to sway the judges.

Many fear that the killer will use the closing speech in the trial to once again expound his radical views, arguing that he should be seen as a hero for the atrocities he committed. » | Richard Orange | Friday, June 22, 2012

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Anders Behring Breivik Resists Insanity Claim by Prosecution
THE GUARDIAN: Prosecutors claim Norwegian is a delusional psychotic schizophrenic, but killer wants to be found sane

Norway is facing the prospect that Anders Behring Breivik could evade prison and live out his days in a specially constructed hospital after prosecutors asked judges in Oslo to rule him insane.

However, Breivik, who admits killing eight people in a bomb blast in the centre of Oslo before driving to nearby island Utøya and slaughtering 69 more, mostly teenage members of the Labour party youth wing, wants to be found sane.

If he gets his way he can be sentenced to 21 years in prison, with a provision to keep him longer if still considered dangerous. Crucially for Breivik, who claims to be part of a pan-European rightwing terror network called The Knights Templar, a jail sentence would also allow him to burnish his credentials as a political prisoner rather than be written off as a madman.

The self-styled anti-Islamic militant said his victims were legitimate targets in his battle against the "cultural-Marxists" encouraging an Islamic colonisation of Europe. (+ video) » | Mark Lewis in Oslo | Thursday, June 21, 2012

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Anders Behring Breivik Trial Hears Closing Statements
The prosecution in the trial of the Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has delivered its closing statement, calling for him to be sent to a mental institution instead of prison. The defence is likely to argue against a finding of insanity on Friday, the last day of the 10-week trial. Breivik is on trial for the murder of 77 people in a bombing and shooting massacre last summer

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Prosecutors Want Mass Killer Breivik Ruled Insane
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: OSLO (Reuters) - Prosecutors asked a Norwegian court on Thursday to declare far- right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik insane and commit him to a mental institution, in line with their original indictment.

Breivik, who admits to killing 77 people in twin attacks last year, most of them teenagers at a Labour Party summer camp, says he should be declared sane, but acquitted on grounds that he was defending the Norwegian people by fighting the supporters of Muslim immigration.

Court-appointed psychiatrists have come to opposing conclusions. One team declared Breivik a psychotic paranoid schizophrenic, while a second concluded that he most likely suffered from a narcissistic personality disorder but was not psychotic, and could therefore be held criminally responsible. » | Reuters | Thursday, June 21, 2012

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Anders Behring Breivik Trial Nears End with Closing Arguments
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The trial of Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway last July, enters the final stretch on Thursday with the prosecutors' call for him to be sent either to prison or to a mental hospital.

Prosecutors Svein Holden and Inga Bejer Engh are to begin presenting their much-awaited closing arguments at 1000 GMT, when they will reveal whether they want the court to find Breivik responsible or not for his actions.

They will base their request on psychiatric evaluations of the 33-year-old right wing extremist which have sharply contradicted each other.

In the formal indictment presented in March, in which Breivik was charged with "acts of terror", the two prosecutors called for him to be committed to psychiatric care but left the door open to change their minds if new information were to surface about his mental health.

They adopted that line based on the sole psychiatric evaluation that had been completed at the time which diagnosed Breivik as insane, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and therefore not responsible for his actions.

That conclusion caused an uproar in Norway, with many stunned to learn that the man who spent years secretly and meticulously planning his twin attacks could not be held responsible for his actions. » | Source: AFP | Thursday, June 21, 2012

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Anders Breivik Was Challenging and Aggressive Child, Court Hears
THE GUARDIAN: Forensic psychiatrists give evidence to Oslo court where Breivik is on trial for the murder of 77 people in Norway last year

Norwegian social workers considered removing Anders Behring Breivik from his mother when he was four years old because she was unable to cope with his behaviour, described in court as challenging, clinging, hyperactive and aggressive.

The claim came as it emerged that for a brief period in the 1980s Breivik and his sister were taken away from his mother – who was separated from his father – and put into respite care at her request.

The evidence of social problems beginning in Breivik's childhood came in a detailed psychiatric assessment presented to the Oslo court where Breivik, 33, is on trial for the murder of 77 people in a bombing and shooting massacre in Norway last summer, including scores of young people shot at a political camp on the island of Utøya.

The evidence was being given by two forensic psychiatrists, Torgeir Husby and Synne Sørheim, who controversially ruled that Breivik was suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia" when he carried out the murders. » | Peter Beaumont in Oslo | Thursday, June 14, 2012

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Anders Behring Breivik Tells 'Beautiful Nordic' Prosecutors He Is Their 'Defender'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Anders Behring Breivik has demanded that his two ethnic Norwegian prosecutors recognise him as the true "defender of their heritage".

Fixing prosecutors Inga Bejer Ingh and Svein Holden with a direct stare, he attacked their argument that his extreme anti-islamic ideology was the result of "delusions" as "very arrogant."

"Bejer Engh, a beautiful Nordic woman, should recognise the defender of her own heritage," he said. "And Holden, a beautiful young Nordic man, should recognise the defender of his own genealogy."

Judge Wenche Arntzen immediately stopped him, cautioning him for commenting on the prosecutors and not information from the witness.

The 33-year-old extremist has always denied being a racist or a fascist, arguing that he defends the rights of indigenous people across the world, and likening the condition of today's Norwegians to Native Americans in the nineteenth century.

He expressed satisfaction that Randi Rosenqvist, a consulting psychiatrist who saw him in prison, told the court she believed that it was his extreme ideology had led him to plan and carry out last year's brutal massacre, rather than paranoid schizophrenia or another mental disorder. » | Richard Orange, Oslo | Tuesday, June 12, 2012

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Tuerie d’Oslo: Un éminent psychiatre propose de réexaminer Breivik
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Un médecin norvégien a suggéré vendredi un nouveau diagnostic pour Anders Behring Breivik, ajoutant à la confusion sur la santé mentale de l'extrémiste de droite après deux expertises officielles aux résultats contradictoires.

Au 33e jour du procès de Breivik jugé pour la mort de 77 personnes l'an dernier, Ulrik Fredrik Malt, professeur de psychiatrie à l'université d'Oslo, a estimé plausible que l'accusé fut atteint du syndrome d'Asperger, du syndrome de la Tourette et de narcissisme.

Le syndrome d'Asperger est une forme d'autisme qui se caractérise notamment par un manque d'empathie, tandis que celui de la Tourette est un trouble neurologique marqué par des tics, ce qui pourrait notamment expliquer, selon lui, les sourires esquissés par Breivik à des moments souvent déplacés.

Ces troubles de la personnalité ne relèvent pas de la psychose, synonyme d'irresponsabilité pénale et donc d'internement psychiatrique, si les juges devaient in fine retenir un tel diagnostic. » | afp/Newsnet | vendredi 08 juin 2012

Verbunden »

Norway Spends Hundreds of Thousands on Psychiatric Unit for Breivik
RT: If mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is proved insane, he now has a special place to go. Part of Norway’s high security Ila prison has been converted into a psychiatric unit for the killer.

Estimates of the cost of the conversion vary between 130,000 and 260,000 euro. Norwegian daily Verdens Gang reported on its website that none of the country's existing mental facilities are considered secure enough for Breivik, whose sanity is the key issue in his ongoing trial.

"We are building a high security hospital in Ila," deputy health minister Robin Koss told the newspaper, adding the facility near Oslo still needs state certification. » | Fridau, June 08, 2012

Verwandt »

Arzt: Breivik leidet "wahrscheinlich" an Asperger-Syndrom
DIE PRESSE: Der ehemalige Kinderpsychiater des norwegischen Attentäters vermutet, dass Breivik eine Persönlichkeitsstörung hat. Das allein erkläre aber nicht seine Taten.

Der einstige Kinderpsychiater des norwegischen Attentäters Anders Behring Breivik vermutet, dass sein ehemaliger Patient unter dem Asperger-Syndrom [E] leidet. Per Olav Naess sagte in einem am Freitag veröffentlichten Interview mit dem Norwegischen Rundfunk NRK, es sei "sehr wahrscheinlich", dassBreivik seit seiner Kindheit unter der Persönlichkeitsstörung leidet. Das Asperger-Syndrom ist eine mildere Form des Autismus. » | Ag. | Freitag, 08. Juni 2012

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Norwegian Far Right Defend Breivik's Views on Islam
BBC: Defence witnesses from the far right in Norway have backed Anders Behring Breivik's views on Islam in court on Day 31 of his murder trial.

They said Norway was threatened by Muslim immigration, an argument used by Breivik in an attempt to justify massacring 77 people and injuring 242.

Breivik's defence said the extremists' testimony proved he was not insane because others shared his views.

However, the speakers did not condone Breivik's attacks.

Breivik admits bombing government buildings in the capital Oslo before shooting young Labour Party supporters at a camp on the lake island of Utoeya on 22 July.

Norway, a small nation famous for its traditions of political tolerance, was traumatised by the attacks.

The trial is seeking to establish whether the 33-year-old is sane, in which case he will be sent to prison. If not, he will be held in a psychiatric institution.

The court warned on Tuesday it might not be able to deliver its verdict until 20 July or even 24 August, for logistical reasons.

'We're at war'

Arne Tumyr, who heads an organisation called Stop the Islamisation of Norway, described Islam as "a religion of violence, a religion of wars".

His organisation, he said, considered Islam "a threat to Norwegian society and values". » | Tuesday, June 05, 2012

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Breivik revient sur les facteurs de sa radicalisation
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Anders Behring Breivik, jugé pour la mort de 77 personnes l'an dernier en Norvège, a détaillé lundi les agressions dont il dit avoir été victime de la part de musulmans, dès sa plus tendre enfance.

Autorisé à prendre la parole au 30e jour de son procès, Breivik a expliqué que le premier incident s'était produit dès l'âge de sept ans, quand un diplomate turc, père d'un de ses camarades, avait détruit son vélo parce qu'il avait été offensé.

Puis, l'extrémiste de droite a recensé une longue liste d'incidents dont lui ou des connaissances auraient été victimes dans sa jeunesse: gifles, rixes, tentatives de vols et trois cas de viols même si, selon le journal Verdens Gang (VG), les jeunes filles concernées ont nié les faits auprès de la police.

«Pris séparément, tous ces épisodes ne sont pas si graves mais leur somme a contribué à façonner mon opinion des musulmans», a déclaré l'accusé.

«Ils ont très souvent en commun le fait que des familles musulmanes aient bénéficié de la part de l'Etat d'appartements dans l'ouest d'Oslo», le quartier chic de la capitale norvégienne, a-t-il dit. » | ats/afp/Newsnet | mardi 05 juin 2012

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Breivik Judge Caught Playing Solitaire in Norway Court
FOX NEWS: OSLO -- A judge at the trial of Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was caught playing solitaire on his laptop during Monday's proceedings, the VG newspaper reported.

Ernst Henning Eielsen, one of the five judges for the case, can clearly be seen on court cameras playing the card game.

According to VG [Verdens Gang], Eielsen was playing the game on a solitaire website, and images showed solitaire in his browser window for up to 16 minutes before the court was adjourned for lunch.

A Swedish expert was testifying while the judge played the game.

A court spokeswoman denied the judge was not paying attention and said the game may have helped him concentrate. » | Newscore | Monday, June 04, 2012

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Norway Prison to Hire 'Friends' to Play Chess and Hockey with Breivik
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Norway's Ila prison will hire trained 'friends' to keep confessed mass killer Anders Breivik company, as he is deemed too dangerous to mingle with ordinary prisoners.

"It could be anything from a team for indoor hockey to people who are willing to play chess with him," Knut Bjarkeid, director of the Ila prison, told Norway's Verdens Gang newspaper.

He said that a "professional community" was necessary because the Norwegian prison service was not willing to inflict years of isolation on Breivik, and he might try to seize other inmates if allowed to mingle with them. » | Richard Orange in Malmö | Thursday, May 32, 2012

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Anders Breivik was victim of 'blood diamond' scam: Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik transferred nearly $5,000 into a Liberian man's bank account and spent another $13,000 travelling to Liberia and buying equipment, after falling for what appears to be an elaborate blood diamond scam. » | Richard Orange, Oslo | Wednesday, May 30, 2012

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