The 33-year-old man who confessed to Norway's worst peacetime massacre may not face time behind bars.
Prosecutors Wednesday formally charged Anders Behring Breivik with murder and terrorism for the July 2011 bombing and shooting rampage that left 77 people dead. The murder charges call for a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison, but prosecutors said they will initially ask for Breivik to be sentenced to psychiatric care.
Last November, two court-appointed psychiatrists declared the confessed gunman criminally insane. And prosecutors said they would only change their sentencing recommendation if new evidence emerges about Breivik's mental health.
Breivik's lawyer has denied his client is criminally responsible for the massacre because he believes it was needed to save Norway and Europe from an influx of Muslims and to punish politicians for embracing multiculturalism.
Lawyers for some of the victims called for a new evaluation of the gunman earlier this year, saying doctors monitoring him have seen no signs of paranoid schizophrenia and have not medicated him.
Breivik confessed to setting off a car bomb in Oslo on July 22 last year, killing eight people. He admitted he then went on a shooting rampage at a nearby youth summer camp, killing 69 people.---VOA News
0 comments:
Post a Comment