trial of anders behring breivik trial of anders behring breivik the trial of anders behring breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 norway attacks, took place between 16 april and 22 june 2012 in oslo district court. breivik was sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention on 24 august 2012. 170 media organisations were accredited to cover the proceedings, involving some 800 individual journalists. trial of anders behring breivikcourtoslo district courtdecided24 august 2012 (2012-08-24)verdictbreivik found sane and guilty on terrorism chargesdefendantanders behring breivikcase historysubsequent action(s)breivik sentenced to 21 years in preventive detention with a minimum term of 10 yearscourt membershipjudge(s) sittingwenche elizabeth arntzen, arne lyng oslo courthouse, where the trial was held the main entrance of oslo courthouse the main question during the trial became the extent of the defendant's criminal responsibility for these attacks and thereby whether he would be sentenced to imprisonment or committed to a psychiatric hospital. two psychiatric reports with conflicting conclusions were submitted prior to the trial, leading to questions about the soundness and future role of forensic psychiatry in norway. background on 25 july 2011, breivik was charged with violating paragraph 147a of the norwegian criminal code, "destabilising or destroying basic functions of society" and "creating serious fear in the population", both acts of terrorism under norwegian law. forensic psychiatrists torgeir husby and synne sørheim, who conducted the psychiatric analysis of breivik and released their report in december 2011, found that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, supporting a would-be insanity defence or criminal insanity ruling by the court. however, subject to massive criticism from legal and psychiatric experts, the court decided to appoint two new psychiatrists, terje tørrissen and agnar aspaas, who were to conduct another analysis. breivik was initially uncooperative with the new psychiatrists because of the previous report having been leaked to the media, but he later changed his mind and decided to cooperate. on 10 april 2012, psychiatrists found that breivik was legally sane. if that conclusion is upheld, breivik can be sentenced to prison or containment. parties geir lippestad, breivik's defence counsel. breivik was represented by his defence counsel geir lippestad, vibeke hein bæra, tord jordet and odd ivar grøn. lippestad and bæra are both in their late forties, whereas jordet and grøn who are both in their thirties and were in employment at lippestad's law firm prior to 22 july 2011 as associates. bæra, who has ten years of experience as public prosecutor, was hired as a partner following lippestad's accepting the request from breivik to defend him. the prosecution is represented by state prosecutors svein holden and inga bejer engh. the presiding judge is wenche elizabeth arntzen. she is joined by judge arne lyng and lay judges ernst henning eielsen, anne wisløff and diana patricia fynbo. wisløff came in as an alternate after thomas indrebø had to recuse on the second day of the trial when it came to light that he had advocated the death penalty on a facebook page the day after the terror attacks. defendant anders behring breivik judges district court judges wenche elizabeth arntzen (court administrator) arne lyng lay judges in oslo district court thomas indrebø, receptionist (16–17 april) anne elisabeth wisløff, retired family consultant (from 17 april) diana patricia fynbo, teacher ernst henning eielsen, advisor ole westerås (reserve), lier, teacher defence main defence counsel geir lippestad, lawyer vibeke hein bæra, lawyer assisting counsels (employed by lippestad law firm) tord eskild jordet, associate lawyer odd ivar grøn, associate lawyer prosecution inga bejer engh, prosecutor svein holden, prosecutor court-appointed psychiatrists torgeir husby, psychiatrist synne sørheim, psychiatrist agnar aspaas, psychiatrist terje tørrissen, psychiatrist 166 counsel for the aggrieved have been appointed three coordinating counsel for the aggrieved representing the 166 in court siv hallgren (for aggrieved from the government quarter) frode elgesem (for auf, and aggrieved from utøya) mette yvonne larsen (assisting the appointed, spokesperson) witnesses breivik's list of witnesses includes far right activist tore tvedt, labour party politician raymond johansen, prominent islamists mullah krekar and arfan qadeer bhatti, and anti-islamist blogger fjordman. the purpose of calling mullah krekar is to help establish for the defence that political and ideological extremism is not a psychiatric disorder and should not be treated legally with insanity. start of trial day 1 (16 april) formal indictment against anders behring breivik on monday 16 april 2012, when offered the opportunity to speak, breivik said that he did not recognise the legitimacy of the court because it derived its authority from parties supporting multi-culturalism. breivik also claimed that presiding judge, wenche elizabeth arntzen, was a close friend of hanne harlem, the sister of former prime minister gro harlem brundtland. to the question from arntzen whether this constituted a formal assertion of conflict of interest, breivik's main defence counsel geir lippestad, after cursorily conferring with breivik, replied that it was not. the charges were read out to breivik by prosecutor inga bejer engh including the indictments of terrorism and premeditated murder. descriptions were provided of how each victim was killed. when asked to plead after hearing the charge-sheet, breivik responded that he acknowledged that he had committed the offences, but pleaded not guilty because he was acting out of "necessity" (norwegian: nødrett). a court translator incorrectly rendered this as "self-defence" (norwegian: nødverge), but court officials corrected the error on the second day. prosecutor svein holden then outlined breivik's life in the preceding decade, including lists of failed business ventures, and a year living off savings and playing world of warcraft, at which mention breivik apparently broke into a broad grin. at one point when the court was shown his 12-minute youtube video, he started crying. an unidentified woman, a german national, was apprehended by the police as she tried to force herself into the court building, asserting herself as breivik's girlfriend and displaying the photo of breivik in military gear on her cell phone. according to the police she had a criminal record in germany for several instances of disturbing the peace. she had arrived in oslo from stuttgart on the preceding day and rented a hotel room, expecting to stay for 14 days. following an expulsion decision from oslo police district she was escorted out of norway on 17 april. defendant's testimony day 2 (17 april) the second day was the opening day of breivik's testimony, which was expected to last for a week, including cross-examination. the court was told that a lay judge, thomas indrebø, had posted remarks in the immediate aftermath of the defendant's acts on 22 july 2011, that the perpetrator ought to be given the death penalty, and proceedings were adjourned to consider the implications of this, which consequently led to the dismissal of that judge. breivik often spoke with the collective "we" with reference to supposed association with others sharing his ideology. he focused on his purported fight against "multiculturalism" and compared it with the struggle of tibet for "self-rule" and "cultural protection" from china. when asked about the greatest influence on his ideology and the biggest source of his worldview, breivik said, "wikipedia". breivik has claimed he would repeat the attacks given the chance. he claims he acted out of a desire to fight "communism" and to defend norway and europe against muslims and multiculturalists. he maintained that he cannot be insane and was acting out of "goodness", and that he was part of an organisation called "knights templar" (kt). before starting his testimony the defendant had requested that he be allowed to begin by reading a document which he had written in the weeks leading up to the trial. much of breivik's speech could be seen as a summation of his previous 1,500-page manifesto published online just prior to the attacks. on several occasions during the day judges asked the defendant to keep his statements brief, and some of the aggrieved through their counsels voiced concerns that he may be going too far in using his defence statement as a platform for his ideological views. breivik claims he would have preferred to target a group of journalists instead of the island camp, and that he had envisaged being killed in the course of his actions. in his prepared speech breivik gave a major focus to a statement by norwegian social anthropologist thomas hylland eriksen. the quote which originates in a january 2008 interview with eriksen, is: "our most important task ahead is to deconstruct the majority, and we must deconstruct them so thoroughly that they will never be able to call themselves the majority again." breivik explained how he interpreted eriksen's statement to mean that eriksen, and the rest of the multiculturalists, want to deconstruct the norwegian ethnic group so that they will never again constitute a majority. eriksen has been called as a witness for the defence and will appear before the court later in the trial. when asked by prosecutor inga bejer engh why he had broken into tears the opening day, breivik responded that he had been weeping for norway and his perception of its deconstruction: "i thought, 'my country and my ethnic group are dying.'" breivik also claims he does acknowledge the pain he has caused to people and families in norway but did not apologise at that time. day 3 (18 april) the defendant greeted the court with his same fist-salute as he did the first day. breivik had been asked to not greet the court in such a manner, at the request of lawyers for the victims. breivik was cross-examined about the contacts that he had made in his preparation. all he wanted at first to reveal was that he had travelled to both london and liberia, and also had spoken with norwegians online. the contact in liberia happened to be a serb, but he insisted on saying no more ostensibly because he wanted no more arrests. the norwegian police had suspected the serb may be milorad ulemek which was denied both by the defendant and by lawyers for ulemek. on the fifth day of the trial the bosnian investigative weekly newspaper slobodna bosna reported that milorad pelemiš, a participant in the srebrenica massacre of 1995, was breivik's serb contact. this was relayed to the trial parties and the norwegian police by the news media. as of 27 april 2012, follow-up investigations by the media had come up with conflicting information on this possibility. breivik claimed to have been inspired by serb nationalism, and was angered by the nato bombing of serbia in 1999. he said that he had founded the knights templar in london in 2002, and if the police dispute that to the depth as described by the defendant, it was because they had not done a sufficiently thorough job in investigating. he reaffirmed a lack of desire to give any information that could contribute to further arrests. the defendant went on to claim that, kt as he calls it, does not exist as an organisation in its "conventional" understanding, but rather is "leaderless" and clustered around "independent cells". allegedly there had been meetings with four individual nationalists, including "richard", being the defendant's "mentor", and described as a "perfect knight", in a "founding" session. the prosecution attacked breivik's version and alleged that he was making it all up. by some accounts the defendant would get vexed at the repeated suggestion that there is no such network, and he insisted there are 15–20 members in the knights templar. breivik talked about martyrdom and his actions making him a role model, and he emphasised that this could not be achieved as "keyboard warriors". he also used the term "sofa generals" when he asserted that one cannot be afraid to die if one wants to promote martyrdom. breivik himself commented on the trial this day that there ought to be one of only two possible outcomes in the case, that of death penalty, or an acquittal. he said of the maximum sentence of 21 years imprisonment prescribed by norwegian law that this is "pathetic". day 4 (19 april) conceding to complaints from the counsels for the aggrieved, the defendant did not start the session with a salute to the court. breivik was questioned about his reasons for moving back in with his mother in 2006. he disputed that it had been because he had been made bankrupt, he said he had been working hard from 2002 to