Norwegian killer is probably insane - lawyer
The lawyer of a Norwegian who killed at least 76 people in a bombing and a shooting spree said on Tuesday his client appeared to be a madman.
Friday’s attacks by Anders Behring Breivik traumatised normally peaceful Norway, which has been struggling to come to terms with its worst peace-time massacre of modern times.
“This whole case indicated that he is insane,” lawyer Geir Lippestad said of the 32-year-old Breivik, who has confessed to “atrocious but necessary” actions, but denies he is a criminal.
The lawyer said it was too early to say if Breivik would plead insanity at his trial, adding that his client might oppose this as he felt that only he “understands the truth” and a need, as he sees it, to combat “cultural Marxism” and Islam.
“He is of the view that he will be seen as a demon now but that people will thank him in 60 years,” he said. Breivik’s writings speak of a crusade to 2083, 400 years after the battle of Vienna when Christians began to defeat the Ottoman Empire.
Lippestad said Breivik had stated he belonged to a radical network that has two cells in Norway and more abroad. But police believe Breivik probably acted alone in staging his bloody assaults, which have united Norwegians in revulsion.
Lippestad, a member of the Labour party whose youth wing was the target of his client’s shooting rampage on an idyllic island, said he would quit if Breivik did not agree to psychological tests.
He was previously best known for defending a right-winger who in 2002 got 17 years in prison for the racially motivated murder of Benjamin Hermansen, 15, whose father was African.
