Norway Mass Killer May Be Declared Insane

Confessed mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik was legally insane when he killed nearly 80 people, many children, during a bombing and shooting rampage in Norway in July, according to a psychiatric evaluation ordered by the court, the Associated Press reports.

Breivik, 32, said he claimed a modern day affliction, World of Warcraft gaming addiction, to prevent those close to him from prying into his personal life in the days, the weeks leading up to his twin attacks in Oslo. Fellow guildmates and gamers described Breivik as a likable loner. If the insanity evaluation is accepted by the court Breivik would likely be sent to a psychiatric ward, not prison.

The 243-page report still needs to be reviewed by a panel of forensic psychiatrists before a ruling by the court is made.

In the report, Breivik is described as a man “who finds himself in his own delusional universe, where all his thoughts and acts are governed by these delusions,” prosecutor Svein Holden said. “They conclude that Anders Behring Breivik during a long period of time has developed the mental disorder of paranoid schizophrenia, which has changed him and made him into the person he is today.”

In a 1500-page manifesto, Breivik recommends using Call of Duty to train combat skills for an upcoming war with Islam. He also suggests that an obsession with massively-multiplayer role playing game World of Warcraft is a useful cover story to explain the time one is actually spending plotting attacks.

Norway does not have the death penalty.

Psychiatric evaluation finds Norway killer insane [AP News]