Anders Behring Breivik, who stunned the world last summer with his ideology-driven mass murder in Norway, will learn tomorrow if he is to be found guilty and sentenced to prison or judged insane and sent to a mental hospital.
The decision is in the hands of a five-judge panel that has been deliberating for two months, since Breivik's trial ended in June.
On July 22, 2011, Behring detonated a car bomb in front of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's office in Oslo, killing eight people and injuring more than 200 others. While news of the attack swept the Scandinavian country, Breivik - posing as a police officer - escaped detection and made his way to the island of Ultoya, where the ruling Norwegian Labor Party's AUF youth wing was holding its annual summer camp.
When he had crossed to the island by ferry, he opened fire, and for almost an hour rained terror on the camp. By the time he surrendered to police, 69 people on the island were dead. Most of them were teenagers, the youngest being 14; but casualties were as diverse as the island's director and a police officer who was the stepbrother of Norway's crown princess.
Breivik admits the killings, but says he will appeal an insanity verdict because it would bastardize the message he intended to send with his actions. The 33-year-old sees his country as weakened by Muslim immigrants and multiculturalism; and insists that his actions were a defense of Norway's native culture. His targets were the Labor Party that he sees as driving the country away from its traditional values. Many of Ultoya's campers represented the best and brightest among Norway's left-leaning politically active youth.
They also represented modern Norway. Many were foreign-born or the children of immigrants, while many others were ethnic Norwegians who had embraced the ideals on which Norwegians largely pride themselves - tolerance, inclusiveness, and equality.
Breivik, who smiled during much of his trial, refuses to accept criminal guilt, declaring that he is a "militant nationalist" whose actions were justified. According to the AP, however, he will accept a prison term. Much has been made of the fact that Norway does not allow for prison sentences greater than 21 years. However, the AP reports that there are legal loopholes that would allow him to remain in prison longer if he is judged to pose a continuing threat to the public, or to be transferred to prison if he is put in a mental hospital and eventually judged cured of mental illness.
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