* Being deemed psychotic is “ultimate humiliation” -Breivik
* Trial starts April 16 in Oslo
OSLO, April 4 (Reuters) – A far-right militant who killed 77
people in Norway last year will use his trial to challenge a
diagnosis that he is criminally insane, something that would be
“worse than death”, excerpts of a letter he wrote showed on
Wednesday.
The trial of Anders Behring Breivik, who gunned down 69 at a
Labour Party youth camp after detonating a car bomb in central
Oslo that killed eight, starts in Oslo on April 16.
In November two court-appointed psychiatrists deemed the
33-year-old was psychotic and paranoid schizophrenic at the time
of the attacks, which would normally mean he could not be
sentenced to prison.
In a 38-page letter he wrote in jail and sent to various
Norwegian media – of which extracts were published in the daily
VG on Wednesday – Breivik said that being deemed criminally
insane was unbearable to him.
“I must admit this is the worst thing that could have
happened to me as it is the ultimate humiliation,” he wrote.
“To send a political activist to a mental hospital is more
sadistic and evil than to kill him! It is a fate worse than
death.”
Breivik has said he committed the attacks on July 22 last
year to protect Norway from multiculturalism. They were the
worst outbreak of violence there since the end of World War Two.
“I knew of course what was right and what was wrong, but I
acted instinctively,” Breivik wrote in the letter.
He criticised the two psychiatrists, Torgeir Husby and Synne
Soerheim, as unable to be objective.
“Husby said on several occasions that what I had done was
bestial and I got the impression from him that he saw me as a
wild animal that had to be locked in and drugged at whatever
cost.”
“Has an event that has traumatised a nation also traumatised
Husby and Soerheim to such an extent that they must be regarded
as having a conflict of interest? Can two court-appointed
psychiatrists that are so emotionally affected by July 22 mean
that they are not able to be objective?”
After a public outcry following the publication of the first
psychiatric report, the judges in the case have asked for
another evaluation of Breivik’s mental health by different
experts. That is due to be published on Tuesday.
Breivik will stand trial, in a case expected to last ten
weeks, regardless of the psychiatrists’ assessments.
If his judges rule at the end of the trial that he is
psychotic he is likely to be to placed in a high-security
psychiatric unit. If not, he would face up to 21 years in prison
but could be held longer if deemed too dangerous to be released.
Breivik’s lawyer has said he would call defence witnesses to
show his client was not criminally insane but held views shared
by others.
Among those witnesses are Mullah Krekar, the Kurdish founder
of Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, who was recently jailed in
Norway for making death threats, and “Fjordman”, a Norwegian
right-wing blogger whom Oslo police say was a major intellectual
influence on Breivik’s.
Fjordman, whose real name is Peder Jensen, has denied having
any links with Breivik.
(Reporting by Oslo newsroom; Writing by Gwladys Fouche; Editing
by Ben Harding)
