Breivik standing trial. Crying in court today.

[QuintessentialShadows]

here

Standing trial today.

Did anyone see the BBC documentary about the Utoya massacre?

According to the Guardian he was crying after seeing his propaganda video. As he entered the court he raised his hand in a defiant salute.

Here.

I cant work out why he was overcome by emotion.

The psychiatrists say he is not insane, at least they said prior to the trial.

Life, 21 years, in Norway, usually means you are out after 10 years, if you behave well. I am sure he is capable of behaving very well in prison. He has been an expert on behaving well his entire life, while plotting.

It's scary isn't it? I've read a bit about this trial in the last week. It's expected to focus on deciding whether he is insane or not which will determine where they send him.

I've also read about the attitude to this in Norway - retribution is not what people want; they just want a dangerous man taken off the streets. Is that your understanding Quint or do you think there is a thirst for "lock 'im up and throw away the key" as there would be in the UK?

Also in the UK parole depends on showing some remorse and accepting the charge you've been found guilty of, as well as good behaviour. Is that the case in Norway?

I dont think it is about retribution or revenge at all, just that he is a very dangerous man with some really strange ideas. We have seen a man who is intelligent, measured, and calculated, he can spend years silently plotting.
I honestly would not want him at large free to interact with others of the same caliber. It threatens harmony.

I wish the trial was behind closed doors - he will absolutel relish the attention.

anyone else notice that he keeps brushing imaginery dust of his shoulders - he did it about 4 times in a minute.

What Nancy says. I can't believe the Guardian has a photo of him saluting on the front page on their website Yeah, let's reward him with some more attention.

nancy66 - I almost feel guilty even discussing it on here because it just contributes to all the attention he shouldn't be getting. But then I suppose it's naive to think for one second that a mass-murderer wouodn't receive this degree of attention.

And yes, it was pretty insensitive of the Guardian.

I understand that the people of Norway need to see justice in action

....and (on a positive note) he is going to repulse a 100,000 people for every one he appeals to

They said on radio that the trial itself will not be televised (I suppose will still be reported after today) until the Verdict. I suppose that may stop some of the odder elements following it.

It has been televised though, I saw clips of it on the news last night

I'm wary of believing that the average Norwegian has less of a taste for retribution than the average Briton.

It may just be that the only people most foreign journalists can speak to are Oslo-dwellers who speak English and educated people from cities tend to have liberal views.

That's purely a guess and a generalisation. I am aware that many more Norwegians speak English than most British people speak any foreign language at all but I'd bear it in mind.

I'm opposed to the death penalty and would prefer that dangerous people are taken out of society but I also believe that retribution should play some part in justice in order to make people feel their views are being respected by Society.

We can argue about what retribution means but I certainly wouldn't condemn out of hand any thoughtful person who wanted this man dead.

Also I heard there is a possibility that anyone beyond redemption may be given more than the standard 21 years until such time as he has changed his ways. Breivik seems to be making that case for himself.

Um I can't believe he has been deemed sane

I personally feel this change info heart is due to their desire to give him a trail for the families sakes

He isn't insane. He has a very warped view of the world but seems to be behaving consistently within it. Bizarre beliefs like being under attack and acting in self-defence are only as insane as any other extremist terrorist trying to justify indefensible actions. When the french motorbike murderer gunned down chldren in a jewish school last month he had equally lucid, yet twisted, reasons for doing so.

What CES said.

On an emotional level, I'd like him to die horribly, of course.

Come to think of it, when he dies in gaol, of old age, it will be horrible.

Sorted.:)

The definition of sane would seem to rely on the average person and there behaviour and reasoning.

How can anyone who kills that many people in a day be sane?

What is the alternative diagnosis?

Number of victims doesn't indicate insanity... or, more accurately, a psychiatric disorder. Recent testimony that he 'hesitated' before starting on his killing spree but had trained himself to detach from his emotions and conscience are more reminiscent of controlled military/martial art/assassin techniques than mental illness. His rationale is pretty delusional but you could say the same thing about any religious fundamentalist.

In the UK, the defence of being insane would depend on having a mental health diagnosis, which would cause symptoms such that the person when committing an offence would not be acting in their right mind. An example would be someone with schizophrenia who had the delusion that he was in a war being persecuted by people trying to kill him, and therefore acted in a violent way as a consequence of this (false) belief.

A delusion is a false belief which is not explicable in terms of social and cultural context (so religious beliefs held in common with fellow believers are not delusions). If this man was acting as a result of political beliefs which are held in common with a number of other individuals, then this could be viewed as a very disturbing perspective on life - but not a delusion as such.

There is a huge difference between a diagnosis of mental illness and evil intent. Some people do terrible things because they are bad people. Their abhorrent actions are not in themselves a sign of a treatable mental illness (and it does no favours to people with mental health symptoms to lump them together with serial killers).

i'm against the death penatly, but in this instance, he'd have done the world a favour if he'd turned the gun on himself. for preference, before killing anyone else.

sadly he didn't, and now we have to listen to this shit on the radio - can't they just not report it?

he must be bathing in that spotlight.

I'm torn. People need to know what has happned and what is happening. But om glad it seems to be being downplayed (here anyway, not sue about Norway) so as not to give him or his kind the airtime they want.

I too think he's sane and think herecomesthesun explains it the way I would have if I'd have thought of it first.

As for the trial: it does have to be reported or do we want to live in a place where there are secret trials and no details of death because it's upsetting, sordid or inconvenient?

We could live in China and ignore the curious case of Neil Heywood or in Britain with the no less unexplained death of the MI6 worker Gareth Williams

The judge (or tribunals in other countries) ought to be able to step on any grandstanding, as has happened here in the case of the banning of his self-styled salute.

But people have to be allowed to speak their piece at trial. Some of them might turn out to be innocent. For the rest of them, however repugnant their views, I want to ensure they get a fair one and never get the chance of an appeal on the grounds of an unfair hearing.

The only people who have the right to be repulsed by this are the family and friends of the victims. For the rest of us it's merely offensive. I guess most real victims would say it was the lesser of two evils.