Norway court rules mass killer Breivik sane

A Norwegian court has ruled that mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is sane, sentencing him to 21 years in prison.

Breivik admitted killing 77 people and wounding more than 240 others when he bombed central Oslo and then opened fire at an island youth camp last year.

He insisted he was sane and refused to plead guilty, seeking to justify his attacks by saying they were necessary to stop the "Islamisation" of Norway.

Prosecutors had called for him to be considered insane.

The five judges were unanimous in ruling that Breivik was sane.

They gave him the maximum sentence of 21 years, but that can be prolonged at a later if he is deemed to remain a danger.

Court-appointed psychiatrists disagreed on Breivik's sanity. A first team which examined him declared him to be a paranoid schizophrenic, but the second found he was sane.


/BBC/