Anders Brevik

Anders Behring Breivik: Norway court finds him sane

A Norwegian court has found that mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is sane and sentenced him to 21 years in jail.

Breivik admitted killing 77 people and wounding more than 240 others when he bombed central Oslo and then opened fire at an island youth camp last year.

He insisted he was sane and refused to plead guilty, seeking to justify his attacks by saying they were necessary to stop the "Islamisation" of Norway.

Prosecutors had called for him to be considered insane.

The five judges were unanimous in ruling that Breivik was sane.

He was convicted of terrorism and premeditated murder, and given the maximum sentence of 21 years' imprisonment.

However, that can be prolonged at a later date if he is deemed to remain a danger to society.

Planned attack

Delivering the verdict, Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen imposed a sentence of "preventive detention," a special prison term for criminals considered dangerous to society.

She set the minimum length of imprisonment to 10 years.

Some of the survivors and relatives of Breivik's victims welcomed the verdict and the end of the trial.

"Now we won't hear about him for quite a while. Now we can have peace and quiet," Per Balch Soerensen, whose daughter was among those killed in the shooting massacre, told Denmark's TV2.

"He doesn't mean anything to me; he is just air."

Court-appointed psychiatrists disagreed on Breivik's sanity. A first team which examined him declared him to be a paranoid schizophrenic, but the second found he was sane.

Before the verdict, Breivik said psychiatric care would be "worse than death".

He had said he would not appeal against a sanity verdict. The prosecution, which argued for insanity, could still appeal, says the BBC's Lars Bevanger, at the court in Oslo.

This verdict will come as a relief to many of the survivors and families who said they wanted Breivik to be accountable for his actions, our correspondent adds.

Breivik, 33, carried out the meticulously planned attack in July 2011, wearing a fake police uniform, and methodically hunted down his victims.

He accused the Labour Party of promoting multiculturalism and endangering Norway's identity.

Some victims at the Labour Party youth camp on Utoeya island were shot in the head at point-blank range.

Ahead of the verdict, security barriers were put up outside the district court in Oslo.

A glass partition separates Breivik from relatives of victims in a courtroom custom-built for the trial.

Remote-controlled cameras are filming the proceedings, sending the images to courtrooms around Norway where other relatives can watch the hearing live.

Breivik's trial, which began in March and lasted for 10 weeks, heard graphic testimony from some of the survivors of his attacks.

Mohamad Hadi Hamed, 21, who is now in a wheelchair, told the court how his left arm and his left leg were amputated after he was shot by Breivik.

Another survivor, Einar Bardal, 17, described how he was trying to escape when he heard a loud bang, followed by a loud beeping noise in his head.

Experts in far-right ideology told the trial Breivik's ideas should not be seen as the ramblings of a madman.

Breivik's attacks ignited a debate about the nature of tolerance and democracy in Norway.

While nowhere near an expert on the mental state of individuals, I do find it hard to believe that someone who is not sane sould plan and execute what Brievik did. He deserves way more than 21 years. he should never see the light of day again and should be put to extremely hard labor (I do not believe in state sanctioned killing, ala the death penalty, but do believe that criminals have it way too easy while they are incarcerated).

Why would PROSECUTERS want him to be declared insane? Thats sounds like what his defense would have wanted.

Glad this guy is behind bars, but it should have been life w/out parole (if not death). I favor sentencing theser guys to life at hard labor. That can often be worse than death. LEt that sob die in a frozen mine somewhere. Spend his last days thinking about what he did while working bare-footed and stripped to the waist, bent over in a hole in the ground and hauling ore out manually...for the rest of his life. Rather than sitting around in a climate controlled prison.

You know...I can understand having political differences with the ruling party. I can even understand being somewhat concerned with so-called multi-culturalism and worrying about your country's national identity.

But you dont just go on a rampage and kill a bunch of kids coz you dont like the politics of a nation.

Dennis324 wrote:Glad this guy is behind bars, but it should have been life w/out parole (if not death). I favor sentencing theser guys to life at hard labor. That can often be worse than death. LEt that sob die in a frozen mine somewhere. Spend his last days thinking about what he did while working bare-footed and stripped to the waist, bent over in a hole in the ground and hauling ore out manually...for the rest of his life. Rather than sitting around in a climate controlled prison.

No doubt. I guess in Norway the act of taking a life is only worth a penalty of a quarter year.

21 years/77 deaths = .27 years/death

Makes it a trivial penalty and a travesty to those who perished as well as those who survived.

That man should never.......ever......see the light of day.

Marconius wrote:
No doubt. I guess in Norway the act of taking a life is only worth a penalty of a quarter year.

21 years/77 deaths = .27 years/death

Makes it a trivial penalty and a travesty to those who perished as well as those who survived.

That man should never.......ever......see the light of day.

Apparently 21 years is the maximum sentence that they were allowed give him by law, but it has the rider "with the possibility of extension for as long as he is deemed a danger to society", so in reality he'll never get out.

Miles1 wrote:

Marconius wrote:
No doubt. I guess in Norway the act of taking a life is only worth a penalty of a quarter year.

21 years/77 deaths = .27 years/death

Makes it a trivial penalty and a travesty to those who perished as well as those who survived.

That man should never.......ever......see the light of day.

Apparently 21 years is the maximum sentence that they were allowed give him by law, but it has the rider "with the possibility of extension for as long as he is deemed a danger to society", so in reality he'll never get out.

Makes more sense.
I wonder why they have maximum sentencing??? Seems strange.