Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Terrorism Suspect Will Not Be Able to Plead Insanity
Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect who has confessed to the brutal killings in Norway, will most likely not be declared legally insane according to the head of the panel that will review his psychiatric evaluation.
If Breivik is declared insane he will be sent to a psychiatric ward for treatment.
However, according to Dr. Tarjei Rygnestad, the head of the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine, Breivik planned and executed the attacks so carefully that it would be difficult to attribute these actions to a mentally unstable man, which means Breivik will most likely be charged as a normal criminal and punished with a prison sentence.
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“It’s not very likely he was psychotic,” said Rygnestad according to AP.
In order to plead insanity in Norway, it would have to be proven that the defendant was in a state of psychosis during the crime they are being charged for, meaning that they lost contact with reality and no longer were in control of their own actions whilst committing the offense.
Rygnestad told AP that someone under psychosis can only perform simple tasks leading him to believe that Breivik’s drive from downtown Oslo to the lake northwest of the capital where he opened fire on a youth camp would be too complicated for him to carry out if he was insane.
“If you have voices in your head telling you to do this and that, it will disturb everything, and driving a car is very complex,” said Rygnestad.
Breivik’s extensive preparations before the attacks also argue against psychosis, according to Rygnestad.
An examination by two court-appointed psychiatrists must be reviewed and approved by the forensic board before the judge hearing the case receives the report which will allow him to make the final decision on how Breivik will be sentenced.
Also, Norwegian police have stated that they plan to interrogate Breivik again later this week and put more pressure on him in order rule out whether or not he worked with accomplices.
“We don’t want to specify the time and place, but it will be a more confrontational interrogation,” said police prosecutor Pal-Fredrick Hjort Kraby at a press conference in Oslo on Monday.
Breivik allegedly had more targets he planned to attack, including the royal castle.
“We can only say that he had targets which would be natural for a terrorist to consider,” said Hjort Kraby.
He also stated that Norwegian police are establishing a new organization to investigate the attacks that would include those who have led the investigation thus far.
