Sorry for bumping this old thread, but some new and interesting information has come to light which might be interesting to someone else here.
A small team of psychologists have been interviewing Anders Behring Breivik since the terrorist attack and have come public with the conclusion that he is a paranoid schizophrenic. Reading about his life, how he f.ex would look for hidden surveillance cameras filming him, believes Norway is in some kind of war, how he's collected costumes that he believes are real uniforms and believes himself a knights templar and so on, it certainly seems to me like a very plausible explanation.
This is quite controversial in Norway as it would mean that he can't be punished with a prison sentence. Instead, he would recieve treatment and could, if the case was treated no different from other such cases, be out on the streets in as little as 3 years time. Of course, that would only happen if he was not considered a threat which I think is highly unlikely for a man who has done what he did, but it's still quite controversial.
I still feel that the most meaningful "punishment" he could recieve would be for him to become rehabilitated to the point where he can start to grasp the tragic consequences of his actions.
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