The lawyer for the gunman behind last week's attacks in Norway laid out his feelings about the case and his client yesterday, painting a picture of a cold and paranoid "warrior" who appears to be insane.
"This whole case indicates that he's insane," Geir Lippestad told journalists about Anders Behring Breivik, who has claimed responsibility for Friday's bomb attack on the Oslo government and subsequent shooting spree on a nearby island.
"He believes that he's in a war and he believes that when you're in a war you can do things like that without pleading guilty," the lawyer said of the 32-year-old Norwegian who wants to bring about an anti-Muslim revolution.
"He's in his bubble," Lippestad added.
If his client is adjudged medically insane after blowing up eight people in Oslo and shooting dead 68 mainly youth members of the Labour Party on Utoeya island, Lippestad said: "He can't be punished in a jail."
Paving the way for a defence that could see his client escape prison, after medical experts acceptable to the prosecution are found, Lippestad said Behring Breivik "has a view on reality that is very, very difficult to explain."
He said his client used unspecified drugs to make himself "strong, efficient, to keep him awake" going into Friday's rampage.
"He thought he'd be killed after the bombing, after the action on the island, and he also thought he'd be killed at trial," Lippestad said.
In fact, "he was a little bit surprised that he succeeded, that in his mind he succeeded," Lippestad added.
Asked whether Behring Breivik had shown any empathy for his mainly young victims, Lippestad said: "No."
Behring Breivik wrote and published a 1,500-page manifesto immediately before starting his bombing and shooting spree.
"He believes this war will continue for 60 years and in 60 years this war will be won," Lippestad said of the events he believes he has triggered, preparations for which are painstakingly chronicled in the tract.
Behring Breivik said he was part of an organisation that has two cells in Norway and several others abroad. "Where I don't know," Lippestad said.
"He looks on himself as a warrior and he has started this war," Lippestad said, adding that one of the reasons Behring Breivik's first court appearance on Monday was behind closed doors was for fear he would send coded signals to other cells.
His client was disappointed that the hearing was not open to the public, Lippestad said.
"In his mind he's at war and therefore he said this was necessary," and that's why while admitting responsibility he does not plead guilty.
"He says that he's sorry he had to do this but it was necessary to start the revolution... He hates anyone who believes in democracy."
"My point of view is that he's a very cold person."
Source : The Daily Star
