Self-confessed mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik arrives in court. Credit:AFP Breivik, who had fought against a finding of insanity because he did not want to be dismissed as a madman, smiled briefly when he heard the news. He had earlier made a straight-armed fascist salute in court. Breivik was charged with terror offences after twin attacks on July 22 last year. He set off a 950-kilogram car bomb in central Oslo that killed eight and then took a boat to Utoeya Island where strode around dressed in police uniform and shot 69 people, most of them teenagers, who were attending a summer camp for the youth wing of Norway’s Labour Party. He injured 242 people. Breivik, 33, claimed he was fighting the ‘‘Islamicisation’’ of Norway and Europe and called on others to join his crusade against left-wing multiculturalists and the immigration of Muslims.

The question for the court had not been whether Breivik committed the atrocities — he admitted his actions — but whether he was mad or bad, which would determine whether he should be hospitalised or jailed. Psychiatrists had been divided over his mental state. The first court-appointed panel found him to be a paranoid schizophrenic but a second, while diagnosing several disorders, declared he would not have been psychotic when he committed the attacks. The prosecution had called for him to be sent to a psychiatric hospital. Breivik himself said he was sane and demanded jail, the better to enhance what he saw as his status as a national hero, a right-wing cultural warrior defending his people against invasion. He therefore refused to plead guilty. The victims' families had wanted him to be found sane so he could be held responsible for what they saw as a political crime. Seventy per cent of Norwegains polled shared this view.

After the verdict Utoya survivor Eivind Rindal told a Norwegian newspaper, “The most important thing is that he never gets out. There are many who share his extreme views in our society.” A bereaved relative said, “Now he will be locked up for life and we can forget about him.” The court’s decision means there will be no appeal, one of his lawyers, Geir Lippestad, having promised that his client would not contest a jail sentence. The gunman is expected to live a regimented life at the high-security Ila prison near Oslo. Breivik has spent his time in detention writing his memoirs, according to another of his lawyers, Tord Jordet. He plans to finish the book in the first half of next year and has received unconfirmed offers from publishers in southern Europe, Mr Jordet said.

The killings shone a spotlight on far-right extremism and tensions over multi-culturalism in a country that had previously been noted for its peacefulness. Thorbjoern Jagland, a former prime minister and the Norwegian chairman of the Nobel peace prize committee, believes Norway learned nothing from the tragedy: ‘‘People at the political level have been more cautious regarding the debate around integration and Muslims, but if you look at what is going on at the grassroots level it has not changed.’’ Kari Helene Partapuoli, of Oslo’s anti-racist centre, said Norway still did not record hate crimes and the government had not started programs to improve cultural awareness. She said, ‘‘Hopefully, we would have realised that hatred can inspire actions, but I don’t think we have learnt that lesson.’’ with The Guardian and agencies

