Norway declares massacre suspect ‘not psychotic’

Oslo, Norway (AHN) – A Norwegian court on Tuesday declared Anders Behring Breivik sane and held him responsible for last July’s massacre that claimed the lives of 77 people.

The psychiatric report came less than a week before Breivik’s trial begins. The report is likely to revive a debate on whether Norway should send a self-confessed killer to jail to hold him in a secure psychiatric unit.

“The experts’ main conclusion is that the accused, Anders Behring Breivik, is not considered to have been psychotic at the time of the actions on July 22, 2011,” the Oslo district court said.

The report breaks previous conceptions about Breivik’s “paranoid schizophrenia” – a disease that could have sent him to psychiatric care.

Breivik planted a car bomb outside government buildings in the capital Oslo before traveling to the island of Utoeya where he went on a shooting spree. The first incident killed eight people and the shooting killed 69 others, mostly teenagers.

“There is a high risk of repeated violent actions,” experts Agnar Aspaas and Terje Toerrissen said in the court statement.

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