Lawyers Call for New Evaluation of Norway Gunman

Posted January 5th, 2012 at 1:15 pm (UTC-5)
Leave a comment

Lawyers for some of the victims of last year's shooting massacre in Norway have called for a new evaluation of the gunman, saying doctors monitoring him have seen no signs of paranoid schizophrenia and have not medicated him.

A court in Oslo released a letter from the lawyers this week. The court is to decide by mid-January if Anders Behring Breivik should be given a new psychiatric evaluation.

In November, two court-appointed psychiatrists declared the confessed gunman criminally insane.

The 32-year-old Breivik set off a car bomb in Oslo on July 22 last year and then and went on a shooting rampage at a nearby youth summer camp, killing 77 people.

Even though Breivik confessed, his lawyer says he denies criminal responsibility because he believes the massacre was needed to save Norway and Europe from an influx of Muslims and to punish politicians for embracing multiculturalism.

Breivik's trial is set to begin April 16. If he is considered insane, he could end up in psychiatric care rather than getting a long prison sentence.