OSLO, Norway — The right-wing extremist who confessed to killing 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in Norway
is not criminally insane, a psychiatric assessment found Tuesday, contradicting an earlier
examination.
Feb. 6, 2012 file photo of Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who confessed to a bombing and mass shooting that
killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, as arrives for a detention hearing at a court in Oslo, Norway. Norwegian prosecutors on
Wednesday March 7, 2012 indicted Anders Behring Breivik on terror and murder charges for slaying 77 people in a bomb and
shooting rampage but said the confessed mass killer likely won't go to prison for the country's worst peacetime
massacre. Prosecutors said they consider the 33-year-old right-wing extremist psychotic and will seek a sentence of
involuntary commitment to psychiatric care instead of imprisonment unless new information about his mental health emerges
during the trial set to start in April. (AP Photo/Heiko Junge, Scanpix Norway, File) NORWAY OUT
The new conclusion comes just six
days before Anders Behring Breivik is scheduled to go on trial on terror charges for the massacre on July 22, and could
prompt prosecutors to seek a prison sentence instead of compulsory commitment to psychiatric care.
It conflicts with
an earlier assessment, which found Breivik psychotic both during and after the attacks, and diagnosed him as a paranoid
schizophrenic.
The court will take both psychiatric assessments into account during the trial, which starts Monday and
is scheduled to last 10 weeks.
The new assessment was made by psychiatrists Terje Toerrissen and Agnar Aspaas on a
request from the court after widespread criticism against the first diagnosis.
“Our conclusion is that he is not
psychotic at the time of the actions of terrorism and he is not psychotic now,” Toerrissen told The Associated
Press.
The full report was confidential and the psychiatrists declined to give details on why they reached a different
conclusion than the first team of experts that examined Breivik. They said they will present their reasoning when they
testify in the trial.
Breivik has confessed to setting off the bomb in downtown Oslo, killing eight, and opening fire
at a youth camp outside the Norwegian capital, killing 69. But he denies criminal guilt, saying the attacks were necessary in
what he calls a civil war against Islam in Europe.
When prosecutors indicted Breivik on terror and murder charges last
month, they cited the first assessment and said they would seek compulsory psychiatric care instead of imprisonment unless
new information about his mental health emerged.
Breivik claims he’s not insane and wrote a letter to Norwegian media saying
the first review was based on lies.
After the attacks, Breivik told investigators that he was part of a right-wing
militant group plotting to overthrow European governments in a “patriotic” revolution that would lead to the deportation of
Muslim immigrants from Europe.
Police, however, found no trace of his so-called Knights Templar organization, and say
he planned and carried out the attacks on his own.
