Two mental health experts said Thursday that Anders Behring Breivik, the neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, is neither seriously depressed nor suicidal, contrary to what he claims in the lawsuit he filed with the Norwegian state has.
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Breivik, who was held alone in a high-security unit for around 12 years, argues that his relative isolation makes him depressed and suicidal and violates the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans “degrading” and “inhumane” punishments.
“I would rather be killed today than live another week in this prison regime,” the 44-year-old extremist said through tears on Tuesday as he testified before the court, which was moved to the Ringerike prison gymnasium for security reasons, where he is serving his sentence.
On Thursday, two experts said they had found no psychological harm related to his prison conditions.
“I don’t think he is seriously depressed because of his prison conditions,” testified Janne Gudim Hermansen, a psychiatrist who has spoken to him 21 times since the beginning of 2022.
The only exception: Breivik was “slightly depressed” for “a few weeks” at the end of last summer, she said, while she assessed the risk of suicide as “low.”
Asked about the tears the extremist shed on Tuesday, the psychiatrist described them as unusual and doubted their sincerity.
“I’m a little unsure about how credible they are,” she said. “The idea came to my mind that it was meant to be used to procure something.”
The psychologist Inni Rein, who was responsible for assessing the prisoner's dangerousness, responded negatively to questions about Breivik's depressive nature, possible psychological damage or suicide risk.
She recalled the personality disorders diagnosed in the person concerned (narcissistic, antisocial and histrionic), for whom there was “strong suspicion” of being affected by Asperger's, a syndrome for which he cannot be examined.
During this week's trial, it emerged that Breivik attempted suicide three times in 2018.
“This does not give the impression that he had a genuine desire to die,” Ms. Rein commented, pointing to reports in which he admitted that these attempts were intended to satisfy his demands.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik first detonated a bomb near the government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people. He then killed 69 more people, most of them teenagers, when he opened fire on a Labor youth summer camp on the island of Utøya.
He was sentenced in 2012 to the maximum sentence in force in Norway at the time, namely 21 years in prison with the possibility of an extension as long as he remains considered dangerous.