OSLO (AFP) -- The man behind the deadly twin attacks in Norway on July 22 wants a Japanese psychiatrist to carry out his psychological evaluation, his lawyer was quoted as saying Tuesday.
"My client has expressed a wish for a Japanese expert. This wish has to do with the concept of honour. He believes that a Japanese person will understand him better than someone from Europe," defence lawyer Geir Lippestad told financial daily Dagens Naeringsliv.
Two Norwegian psychiatrists have been tasked with evaluating the mental state of 32-year-old rightwing extremist and confessed killer Anders Behring Breivik.
They are set to make their recommendation by November 1 of whether he is sane enough to be tried for the attacks that killed 77 people and injured dozens of others.
"He has not said anything to me about refusing to talk to them," Lippestad stressed in the Dagens Naeringsliv interview.
In another interview, Lippestad said his client claimed he had spared the youngest people present on Utoeya island, where he killed 69 in a shooting rampage at a youth retreat run by the ruling Labour Party.
"I don't this it has anything to do with morals, but with the fact that they were to young to have been indoctrinated by the Labour Party. Therefore, he did not intend to kill the youngest children," Lippestad told the Dagbladet daily.
Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian expert on terrorism and Islamic extremism, told AFP in a recent interview that Behring Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto detailing his "crusade" against a "Muslim invasion" of Europe, showed he was fascinated by the Japanese and Korean cultures.
Based on the initial information available about Behring Breivik's reasoning and personality, several psychiatrists told AFP he was probably sane enough to be held accountable for his actions, meaning he could be tried and sentenced to prison instead of being locked up in a mental institution.
According to existing laws, he could be sentenced to up to 21 years behind bars if found guilty of "terrorism," although the sentence could be stretched to 30 years if he is also found guilty of "crimes against humanity."
On the afternoon of July 22, Behring Breivik first bombed government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before going on an 80-minute shooting rampage on the nearby island of Utoeya, where the ruling Labor Party was holding a youth summer camp, killing another 69 people, many of them teenagers.
Norwegian police initially described the self-confessed mass-murderer as a "fundamentalist Christian" but his lawyer told DN he showed no signs of religious practice in jail.
Behring Breivik is held in isolation at the high-security Ila prison outside Oslo and his only contact with the outside world is prison staff.
According to the Verdens Gang tabloid, the prison's management has taken special security measures and runs poison tests on Behring Breivik's food.
<한글 기사>
노르웨이 테러범, 일본 정신과 의사 요청
노르웨이 연쇄테러 용의자 아네르스 베링 브레이비크가 자신의 정신감정을 일본인 의사가 담당하기를 희망했다고 브레이비크의 변호인이 2일 밝혔다.
가이르 리페스타드 변호사는 이날 노르웨이 경제전문 다겐스 나에링슬리브 및 A P통신과의 인터뷰에서 브레이비크가 일본인 정신과 전문의를 요청했다고 말했다.
리페스타드 변호사는 브레이비크가 아시아 국가에서 통용되는 `명예(honour)'의 개념에 연대감을 느끼고 있다고 소개했다. 브레이비크는 또 `명예의 가치와 개념을 아는 일본인이 유럽인보다 나를 더 잘 이해할 것'이라고 말했다고 변호인은 부연했 다.
그러나 경찰은 브레이비크의 이 같은 요청을 거절한 것으로 알려졌다.
검찰에 따르면 법원이 임명한 노르웨이인 정신과 전문의 2명은 이번 주 내로 브레이비크에 대한 정신감정에 들어갈 예정이며, 최종 결과는 오는 11월1일 이전에 나 올 것으로 보인다. (연합뉴스)
