Norway massacre
January 13, 2012
A Norwegian court on Friday ordered a new psychiatric assessment of Anders Behring Breivik, the man who admitted to killing 77 people in an Oslo bombing and an island shooting spree last year.
The court appointed two psychiatrists to conduct the examination after other court-appointed experts found Breivik legally insane on November 29, 2011.
"The extremely serious nature of the case dictates that additional questions should be investigated further," Oslo District Court Judge Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen told a news conference. "It seldom hurts to have more light shed on a case."
A mental health professional who has dealt with Breivik while in prison has publicly opposed the declaration of insanity.
Seventy-seven victims
Breivik has admitted to detonating a bomb at a government building in Oslo, which killed eight people, and to shooting dead 69 others on an island where the Labor Party was hosting a summer youth camp.
An online manifesto has revealed that Breivik is militantly anti-Islam. He said the attacks were to punish the government for its pro-immigration policies. His defense attorney, Geir Lippestad, filed a motion rejecting the need for another evaluation.
Judge Arntzen said the psychiatrists would have access to the more than 100 hours of video footage recorded during police interviews, and to the case notes by the previous experts, who believed Breivik suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and should be in a psychiatric hospital rather than a prison.
Breivik's trial begins in April. If the new assessment finds him mentally fit to stand trial, he could face up to 21 years in prison.
Author: Andrew Bowen (AP, Reuters, dpa)
Editor: Nicole Goebel