be released. day 23 (23 may) survivors of the attacks on the island continued to give testimony, including a number of teenaged girls. fifteen-year-old ylva helene schwenke was aged 14 when the attacks occurred and took four bullets. she is physically scarred and showed this to the courtroom at large. she commented on this saying her scars were "the price for democracy" because she feels democracy has prevailed. apparently this commentary caused breivik to grin. breivik also smiled when he was described by another prosecution witness, an 18-year-old girl who remained anonymous, as being "an idiot". 17-year-old andrine johansen testified as to how she believes one of her friends took a bullet that would have killed her, and thus sacrificed his own life to save hers. she had witnessed breivik killing 14 people, several of whom were her personal friends. johansen described the defendant actually holding his gun to a victim's head and pulling the trigger. johansen told how she had already been shot in the chest, and had fallen into the lake. once the others had been killed, breivik returned his attention to her, allegedly smiling. a victim named henrik rasmussen is said to have jumped into the line of fire, thus sacrificing his life for johansen, whilst "breivik had laughed with joy as he continued with the bloodbath......the accused shook his head at the description". day 24 (24 may) more prosecution witnesses testified. mathias eckhoff aged 21 had been shot in the thighs and his scrotum. eckhoff and others had met at the café/pumphouse on the island to discuss the bombings in oslo, and that is when breivik arrived. when the group encountered breivik outside, eckhoff says he had demanded to see breivik's id as he was dressed as a police officer and was informing them the bomber had yet been apprehended. breivik is said to have opened fire, and then eckhoff was shot, and escaped by jumping into the water. eckhoff said he could not use his legs which had been shot, only his arms. mohamad hadi hamed also aged 21 was the second witness of the day. he had asked if breivik could be removed from the courtroom whilst he was testifying. he was wheelchair-bound. he had been in the group that were opened fire upon by breivik at the pumphouse along with eckhoff. hamed had been shot in the abdomen, shoulder and thigh, and had an arm and a leg amputated as a result of his injuries. day 25 (25 may) when adrian pracon testified about his meeting with breivik at utøya, he looked steadfastly at the defendant, even when answering questions from the prosecutor. breivik was visibly uncomfortable and only looked back at the witness in brief glimpses. "breivik made an error when he decided to spare me, seen from his perspective. now i really understand how fragile our society is," pracon testified. "i see how much it is worth and the importance of politics. i will continue with politics, and the labour party remains closer to my heart." pracon was the only witness who looked at the defendant in this way. he was first shot in the shoulder, then the attacker decided not to kill him. breivik has testified earlier about why he decided not to kill pracon. day 36 (5 june) defence lawyers for breivik, trying to portray him as not insane, invited right-wing extremists to testify at the trial. among the witnesses were tore tvedt, founder of the group vigrid, and arne tumyr of the organisation stop islamisation of norway (sian). they argued that there are people who share breivik's political views, yet are not insane. many of the extremists called echoed breivik's political views; one said that "islam is an evil political ideology disguised as a religion." however, they distanced themselves from breivik's alleged violent actions. court-appointed psychiatrists day 37–38 (14–15 june) court-appointed psychiatrists husby and sørheim acknowledge no competence on terrorism and explain that they have evaluated breivik without putting him into a political context. without this context, the language he uses becomes incomprehensible (neologisms), his lack of remorse towards the victims becomes lack of empathy, his long period of isolation and preparation becomes inadequate functioning, and his explanations of why he carried out the operation become delusions and fantasies about violence. in this manner, his political ideology and the way he sees himself in the context of this ideology becomes evidence of paranoid schizophrenia. the defence says that they would understand the psychotic evaluation if breivik had been talking about invaders from mars, but find it difficult to understand how thoughts about a possible future muslim invasion of europe should be seen as a strong indication of schizophrenia. when asked what makes breivik different from a "normal" terrorist, husby and sørheim say that they have no knowledge of how terrorists think, and find such comparative analysis not relevant to the mandate for their evaluation. day 39–40 (18–19 june) court-appointed psychiatrists aspaas and tørrissen acknowledge the political context of breivik's thoughts and actions, and thus see no sign of psychosis. as they see the defendant, he is not clinically insane but a political terrorist with a psychological profile that makes it possible to understand how he was capable of carrying out the terror operation. closing speeches the central theme of the defence closing speech was that breivik, who never denied the facts of the case, is sane and should therefore not be committed to psychiatric care. the prosecutor, svein holden, had argued that since the first psychiatric report was written in a non-falsifiable manner, it is impossible to disprove that breivik is insane, and it then follows that he should be committed to psychiatric care because there would be more harm in sentencing a psychotic person to ordinary prison than a non-psychotic person to a psychiatric facility. day 43 (22 june) on the last day of the trial breivik delivered a 45-minute defence speech summarising the trial from his perspective. the court had decided to refuse video or audio transmission of this speech and rejected appeals from the norwegian media to reverse this. bootleg recording on 26 july, it became known that a bootleg recording of this speech had been posted on the video-sharing site youtube. according to agence france-presse, the video had been posted by a german man who stated that he had received the video from an elected member of the norwegian progress party. according to norwegian news media, it was a norwegian man who originally posted the recording on youtube on 27 june. the man, who told media he didn't know he was breaking the law, subsequently removed the video from his youtube account. coordinating counsel for the aggrieved mette yvonne larsen petitioned oslo district court to have the video removed from youtube, which according to them is not fit for publication since it contains incitement to commit criminal acts. verdict and sentencing on 24 august 2012, beginning approximately 10 a.m. cest, the court formally began to read the verdict against breivik. breivik was adjudged sane and sentenced to containment—a special form of a prison sentence that can be extended indefinitely—with a time frame of 21 years and a minimum time of 10 years, the maximum penalty in norway. explaining why the court found breivik to be sane, the court stated that "many people share breivik's conspiracy theory, including the eurabia theory. the court finds that very few people, however, share breivik's idea that the alleged "islamization" should be fought with terror." when asked by the judge whether he accepted the verdict and sentence, breivik announced that he did not recognise the legitimacy of the court, and would therefore neither accept nor appeal. his attempt at addressing other "militant nationalists" in norway and europe was interrupted by the judge. lacking a formal acceptance of the sentence, the judge formally interpreted this as taking a two-week contemplation period, but breivik's attorney said there would be no appeal from the defence. at a press conference after the verdict, the prosecuting attorneys announced that they would not appeal either. commentary on the proceedings some news outlets in the united states have expressed wonder at apparent concessions being given to the defendant. both the fact that he is allowed five full days to give his testimony, elaborating on his ideology, as well as court-room interactions where both the prosecutors and counsel for the aggrieved shook the defendant's hand at the beginning of the proceedings baffled some commentators but to others showed that the norwegian court system is capable of respecting all people. research has shown that in norway the proceedings of the trial had a positive impact on the coping mechanisms in society. moreover, the trial proceedings were seen as a positive counter-weight to breivik's acts by most norwegians.