Mass-killer Breivik smiles with satisfaction as he is ruled sane

Breivik smiled with apparent satisfaction when Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen read the ruling yesterday, declaring him sane enough to be held criminally responsible and sentencing him to “preventive detention”, which means it is unlikely he will ever be released.

The sentence brings a form of closure to Norway, because Breivik’s lawyers had said he would not appeal against any ruling that did not declare him insane. But it also means Breivik got what he wanted: a ruling that paints him as a political terrorist instead of a psychotic mass murderer.

The 33-year-old had confessed to the attacks during the trial, describing in chilling detail how he detonated a car bomb at the government headquarters in Oslo and then opened fire at the annual summer camp of the governing Labour Party’s youth wing.

Eight people were killed and more than 200 injured by the explosion. Sixty-nine people, most of them teenagers, were killed in the cold-blooded shooting spree on Utoya island. The youngest victim was 14.

As emergency services had dealt with the aftermath of the fertiliser bomb, Breivik had driven to catch the ferry to Utoya, situated in a lake outside Oslo.

There, disguised as a policeman and carrying a rifle and a handgun, he walked the island for more than an hour, picking off his terrified targets as they ran for their lives.

Some had even taken to the water to try and swim away, while others pretended to be dead.

Breivik has said the attacks were meant to draw attention to his extreme right-wing ideology and to inspire an uprising by “militant nationalists” across Europe.

Prosecutors argued he was insane as he plotted his attacks to draw attention to a rambling “manifesto” that blamed Muslim immigration for the disintegration of society.

Breivik argued the authorities were trying to cast him as sick to cast doubt on his political views, and claimed being sent to an insane asylum would be the worst thing that could happen to him.

“He has always seen himself as sane so he isn’t surprised by the ruling,” Breivik’s defence lawyer Geir Lippestad said.

The five-judge panel in the Oslo district court convicted Breivik, 33, of terrorism and premeditated murder and ordered him imprisoned for a period between 10 and 21 years, the maximum allowed under Norwegian law.

But such sentences can be extended as long as an inmate is considered too dangerous to be released, and legal experts say Breivik will almost certainly spend the rest of his life in prison.

Prosecutors are considering whether to appeal the ruling, though survivors and relatives welcomed the court’s decision.

“I am very relieved and happy about the outcome,” said Tore Sinding Bekkedal, who survived the Utoya shooting.

“I believe he is mad, but it is political madness and not psychiatric madness. He is a pathetic and sad little person.”

The judges took turns reading sections of the 90-page ruling, starting with the verdict and sentence, and then going over the rampage, victim by victim, and describing their injuries.

Judge Arne Lyng noted the fertiliser bomb that Breivik set off outside the government headquarters could have been even more devastating.

“It was pure luck that not many more were killed,” the judge said.

Breivik is likely to be sent to Oslo’s Ila Prison, where a psychiatric ward was built for him.