Breivik is insane, says lawyer as his client is charged with crimes against humanity

The self-confessed killer Anders Breivik is probably insane and sees himself as a heroic warrior who has launched a war that is destined to last for at least 60 years, his lawyer said yesterday.

The disturbing disclosures about the 32-year-old farmer, who killed 76 people in the twin bombing and shooting on Friday, came as prosecutors said they aimed to charge him with crimes against humanity to ensure that he spent the maximum time in prison.

As fresh details emerged of the killer's state of mind, police yesterday officially released the first four names of those killed. Norwegian media have already named about 33 victims over the last five days. Geir Lippestad, his lawyer, yesterday gave a graphic account of Mr Breivik's state of mind and said that most of the evidence he had so far presented suggested that he was insane. "He is a very cold person," Mr Lippestad said in an interview with journalists. "So far the whole case indicates that he is insane, although medical reports have to confirm this."

The lawyer said Mr Breivik appeared to have paranoid delusions and had told him he believed that he would be tortured while in Norwegian police custody. He said he had taken drugs before carrying out the massacre in order to stay calm. Photographs of Mr Breivik being driven to face a judge for preliminary questioning on Monday showed him almost smiling with satisfaction as he sped by in a police car.

Mr Lippestad said his bizarre reaction was because Mr Breivik though that he was on a mission. "He sees himself as a warrior and takes some kind of pride in that. He thinks he has started a war that will last at least 60 years," he told journalists. "He not only hates the Labour Party; he hates everyone who is democratic, the Western world and anyone who is not extremist." Currently charged with committing terrorist acts, Mr Breivik would face a maximum of 21 years' imprisonment if convicted. But Christian Hatlo, the state prosecutor, said his office would attempt to charge Mr Breivik with crimes against humanity, which carried a maximum sentence of 30 years.

The offence was recognised by Norwegian law only in 2008 and includes the persecution of individuals for their political beliefs. Mr Hatlo said the charge could apply to Mr Breivik as most of his victims were members of the Norwegian Labour Party's youth organisation. Mr Breivik had claimed during police interrogation that he has singled out the Labour Party because it was an organisation which fostered the multiculturalism and religious tolerance he so virulently detested. On Monday he confessed to committing the massacre at a camp on the island of Utoya, but pleaded not guilty, claiming that he had acted to save Europe from "Muslim domination". Mr Breivik asked for online access so he could look up his own 1,518-page manifesto, according to Norwegian media, but the request was denied. He also asked his lawyer how many people he had killed, but Mr Lippestad declined to tell him. Mr Breivik also told his lawyer that there were two other cells committed to carrying out similar attacks in Norway and others in the rest of Europe.

But police and state prosecutors have so far failed to find any evidence for such claims. Oslo police urged the city's inhabitants to return to normal yesterday. Yet thousands of ordinary Norwegians continued to flock to Oslo's main Lutheran cathedral all day to lay flowers on the square in front of the building and light candles in memory of the Mr Breivik's 76 victims. Among the mourners were friends and relatives of adolescent Labour Party youth-wing members who were still missing nearly four days after Friday's massacre. Police were trawling the waters surrounding the island for bodies yesterday.

Will insanity plea spare Breivik in court?

A leading Norwegian forensic psychiatrist said yesterday it was unlikely Anders Breivik would be found to be psychotic and unaccountable for his actions over the bombing and shooting spree that killed 76 people. Yngve Ystad, an adviser to the police, said that he would not even be able to claim diminished responsibility for his crimes.

"In Norway you are not accountable for crime and getting sentenced to jail if you display a typical psychosis with hallucinations and delusional ideas and this has been the case for a while," Mr Ystad, a consultant in forensic psychiatry at Oslo University Hospital, told Reuters.

"I think it is very risky for me to make guesses in this case... but I think it is natural to expect that this man will be found to have been not psychotic and not unconscious at the moment of the crime. He had planned the crime and he was not in that way disturbed by psychotic or delusional ideas because this has been going on for a very long time and, according to the press, he has not been disturbed or suffered severe disturbances."

A British psychiatrist, who did not wish to be named, agreed. "He doesn't sound mad, he sounds a bad 'un," he said.

Under British law, in order to be guilty of an offence, the accused must be proved to have committed the offence and to have intended to commit it. An "insanity defence" would involve arguing that they were so deranged as result of a learning disability or mental illness that they were incapable of intending to do it. Separately, there is a "diminished responsibility" defence. In this case the accused may be thought culpable to some extent but their responsibility for their actions is reduced because of mental illness.

Jeremy Laurance