Defense makes final case for acquitting Norwegian mass killer Breivik (+video)
(Read article summary)Today's closing arguments mark the end of months of testimony focused on whether Anders Behring Breivik was mentally ill when he killed 85 people last July. His lawyer says he was sane.
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Wrapping up months of testimony, the lawyer defending Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik said in closing arguments today that his client should be considered sane, but acquitted for killing 77 people last summer in a nationalist terrorist attack.
Breivik has admitted to bombing government buildings in Oslo, killing eight, and going on a shooting spree at a Labor party youth camp, killing 77, in July 2011. However, he has pleaded not guilty to charges of voluntary homicide and committing acts of terror, claiming that he did so to protect his country from the Labor party's policies promoting immigration and multiculturalism, which he says are undermining Norwegian society.
Because Breivik has admitted to the attacks, at the crux of this case is not whether he did it but whether he was sane when he did. He insists he was, and is fighting to be declared sane "so that, as he says, his political ideas can stand stronger," The Christian Science Monitor reports.
“When other revolutionaries break the law, they don’t put a diagnosis on them,” Breivik said in court earlier in the trial. “This case seems easy after weeks of witnesses that show this case is about ideology.”
