21 June 2012
Last updated at 15:52 GMT
Prosecutor Svein Holden: "We are not convinced that Breivik is legally insane but we are in doubt"
Prosecutors
in Norway have called for self-confessed mass killer Anders Behring
Breivik to be considered insane in their closing argument at his trial.
Prosecutor Svein Holden said there were still doubts about
his insanity but he should be placed in psychiatric care, not sent to
prison.
Judges in the trial in Oslo are due to deliver their verdict in the trial in July or August.
Breivik killed 77 people and injured 242 on 22 July of last year.
He bombed government buildings in Oslo before shooting young Labour Party supporters at an island camp.
Breivik, who insists he is sane, sought to justify his
attacks by saying they were necessary to stop the "Islamisation" of
Norway.
The defence concludes on Friday.
'Killing machine'
"We are not convinced or certain that Breivik is legally insane but we are in doubt," said Svein Holden.
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Analysis
Lars Bevanger
BBC News, Oslo
Since the question of guilt is not an issue in this case,
Breivik's sanity has from the outset been the central question the court
must answer. Now that the prosecution has asked the court to commit him
to psychiatric care, many commentators here say it would be unusual for
the judges to go the opposite way: to rule him sane and accountable and
send him to prison.
A string of forensic and prison psychiatrists have told this
court they think Breivik is not psychotic and therefore accountable.
Only two people - the authors of the first psychiatric assessment - have
argued in court that he was psychotic at the time of his crimes.
Yet the prosecution argued this presented reasonable doubt
which should "benefit" the defendant. The fact that Breivik himself has
called psychiatric care "a fate worse than death" is not something the
prosecution or the court can take into account.
"So we request that he is transferred to compulsory psychiatric care."
Mr Holden said it was worse to sentence a psychotic person to prison than to place a non-psychotic person in psychiatric care.
Earlier on Thursday, another prosecutor, Inga Bejer Engh,
told the court it had always been the prosecution's clear view that the
case should be treated like any other criminal case.
"We must also accept this court will never find all the answers to our questions," she added.
"How did he become this killing machine? How many did he try to kill on that day?"
Without a hint of regret, she said, Breivik had told the
court how he had reloaded his gun while victims sat waiting for him to
kill them on the island of Utoeya.
Thursday's recommendation by the prosecution upholds its call
at the start of the trial in March for Breivik to be committed to
psychiatric care.
Before the trial, psychiatrists commissioned by the court had
found Breivik insane, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and
therefore not responsible for his actions.
This caused an uproar in Norway. The court then ordered a
second opinion which found Breivik sane, as did a number of other
psychiatrists who had observed him in detention and in court
Fist salute
Breivik could be seen smiling at times as he listened to the prosecutor, and shaking his head while Mr Holden summed up.
Continue reading the main story
22 July attacks
- 8 people killed and 209 injured by bomb in Oslo
- 69 people killed on Utoeya island, of them 34 aged between 14 and 17
- 33 injured on Utoeya
- Nearly 900 people affected by attacks
Breivik gave a clenched-fist salute with his right arm before being led out of the courtroom.
Breivik's lawyers are likely to reject the insanity finding
when they sum up on Friday, the last scheduled day of the 10-week trial.
There was disappointment among some of those injured or
bereaved by Breivik, who would face a maximum prison sentence of 21
years if found sane and convicted of murder.
"They say they want this to be a correct judgment," said Mettle Yvonne Larsen, a lawyer for the bereaved.
"They think that imprisonment would be a more justified
outcome of what happened on 22 July," she was quoted as saying by the
Associated Press news agency.
In her remarks to the court, Ms Engh pointed out that
commitment to psychiatric care would mean Breivik being confined for a
long time, maybe for the rest of his life.
"We have murderers who have been sentenced to psychiatric care who will probably never get out again," she said.
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