ANDERS BEHRING Breivik, the Norwegian far-right extremist who has admitted killing 77 people, is sane – and was sane at the time of the twin bomb and gun attacks last July – according to a second set of psychiatrists.
The first assessment, made shortly after he carried out the attacks in Oslo and on the lake island of Utoeya, concluded that he was a paranoid schizophrenic, psychotic and insane – a view that outraged no one more than Breivik himself, who wants the killings to be seen as a political act.
The new court-ordered psychiatric report, published yesterday, differs radically from the first assessment, which was highly criticised and sparked heated debate public debate, to such an extent that the court ordered the second examination.
A month ago, Breivik was formally charged with terrorism and premeditated murder. If both sets of psychiatrists had come to the same conclusion – psychosis – he would more than likely have been committed to compulsory psychiatric care.
This new situation is unique for the Norwegian legal system, which is now faced with two conflicting reports.
The second report, written by psychiatrists Agnar Aspaas and Terje Toerrisen, ran to 310 pages. Its conclusions were that Breivik:
* was not psychotic or severely mentally impaired;
* did not have a serious mental illness that would weaken “a realistic evaluation of his relations with the outside world”;
* was not psychotic during examinations; and
* was at high risk of repeating violent acts.
However, it did say that Breivik had a narcissistic, anti-social personality disorder. Certain aspects of the report remain confidential.
At a press conference yesterday, the authors said they “were as confident as they could be using the methods to hand”, but it was “up to the courts to decide” between the two assessments.
They did not want to comment on the earlier report, apart from mentioning that much more information was made available to them. “We are talking about psychosis and we have found no signs of it,” said Dr Aspaas, adding that Breivik “is not psychotic now, either”.
The comprehensive assessment was based on round-the-clock observations, case documents, observation reports and 37 hour-long conversations with Breivik.
The psychiatrists’ decision was unanimous based on interviews with Breivik, both together and, at a later stage, individually.
Breivik himself had disagreed with the findings of the first evaluation. He maintains that he was motivated by political ideology. In recent letters sent to the media, he said that to be sent to a psychiatric unit would be “a fate worse than death”.
Breivik has confessed to the attacks but denies criminal guilt. He was made aware of the findings of the second report when his defence team visited him at Ila prison late yesterday afternoon.
His lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said Brevik was “satisfied with the findings [of the second report] and had counted on it”. Mr Lippestad added that Breivik had no intentions of “regretting what he has done and will probably go even further and say that he should have done more”.
“While this is difficult to hear, it is good that people are prepared for this,” he said.
The forensic medical commission will review the new evaluation, which will be submitted before the psychiatric experts testify in June.
Both psychiatric evaluations will be crucial to the court case, which begins next Monday and is expected to last 10 weeks. Ultimately, though, it will be up to the judges to decide on Breivik’s sanity and thus how he will be sentenced.