The trial of Anders Breivik in Norway has taken a decided turn toward the bizarre. Usually in such cases the defense tries to prove that the mass murderer was insane in order to argue that they deserve a lesser punishment, but Breivik’s lawyers are trying to prove that he was sane — by putting neo-Nazis on the witness stand to say they share his beliefs. Seriously.
Norwegian right-wing extremists decried the “Islamisation” of their country as they took the stand Tuesday in what Anders Behring Breivik’s defence hopes will help prove he was sane when he killed 77 people in Norway last year.
The 31st day of Breivik’s trial was in large part dedicated to testimony from extremists, as the defence tries to prove the July 22 bloodbath was the result of ideological convictions shared by others, albeit a tiny minority, and not due to mental illness.
“Norway is at war. It is in the process of being Balkanised,” Tore Tvedt, the founder of neo-Nazi group Vigrid, told the Oslo district court.
“We are not only under attack. We are in the process of being eradicated,” he added in reference to an alleged “Clash of Civilisations” between the West and the Muslim world.
Well sure, that’ll help his defense.
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D. C. Sessions
June 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually, it might. IIRC Norway doesn’t do consecutive sentences and the maximum sentence for murder is quite short by US standards — five or ten years, again IIRC.
On the other hand, if found insane and a threat to others he could be held under treatment until no longer a threat, regardless of how long it takes.
d cwilson
June 8, 2012 at 12:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe they’ll fly Glenn Beck, Louie “Terror Babies” Ghomert, and Peter King to offer testimony.
erichoug
June 8, 2012 at 12:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I really have trouble believing these people. My family is from Norway and I still have relatives there. I know from my family and history that Norway is one of the safest, wealthiest, healthiest, most prosperous countries in the world. They have a high education rate a low crime rate and a generally good civil society.
Given all that, how can you reaonably assert that you are under attack? How can you, with a straigt face, say that you are “being eradicated”? Where are the piles of Norwegian corpses in the streets? Where are the trains running full to the woods and empty back to town? Where are the trucks full of soldiers kicking in the door in the middle of the night? How can these people really say this when the only one attacking Norway is them.
williamsnedden
June 8, 2012 at 12:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It seems to me that there’s quite a gap between demonstrating the sanity of “Norway is at war. It is in the process of being Balkanised. We should do something about it!” and “Norway is at war. It is in the process of being Balkanised. The proper response is to go out and murder a bunch of innocent people.”
jba55
June 8, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“how can you reaonably assert that you are under attack?”
Short answer: You can’t.
Longer answer: Giving them the benefit of the doubt that they actually believe that what they’re saying is truth and not just drumming up racism, they see changes in the culture and they are afraid. To some even a small change is an assault, a criticism is deadly and any number of people of a different background being accepted is going to destroy their everything, forever. At least that’s how I see it, I’ve been known to be wrong.
osguido
June 8, 2012 at 12:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They are being eradicated, so the proper answer is go and kill 70 of them, of their same race and culture.
The stupid it burns
sivivolk
June 8, 2012 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This might prove Breivik’s sanity, but it doesn’t go very far in proving that of his attorneys.
Stevarious
June 8, 2012 at 12:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well they were liberals, you know. In their Grand Wingnut Dictionary, Liberal is listed under synonyms of ‘Race Traitor’. Traitors are worse than enemies.
marcus
June 8, 2012 at 12:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
D.C. @ 1 “Actually, it might. IIRC Norway doesn’t do consecutive sentences and the maximum sentence for murder is quite short by US standards — five or ten years, again IIRC.”
You are essentially correct, the maximum possible sentence for Breivik, if found sane and guilty, is 21 years. Considering the heinous nature of the crime that is quite short (by American standards at least where he would either get the needle or life w/o parole).
lofgren
June 8, 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No consecutive sentences? The DnD player in me immediately min/maxes that phrase and comes away with: if you’re going to kill one person, might as well kill a few more just for giggles.
Rip Steakface
June 8, 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Depends on the state. In more than half of the states, he’d probably have multiple death penalties (we’re like that). In a state like Michigan or Maine, he’d likely get multiple life sentences (we’re like that, again).
I’m sad to say that my state, Washington, has not yet come to their senses.
tacitus
June 8, 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The maximum predetermined sentence is 21 years, serving at least 10 years before any chance of parole, but prisoners still regarded to be a danger to society can be held indefinitely beyond the maximum, that decision to be reassessed every five years. I highly doubt that Breivik will walk free before the 21 years is up, and I suspect he’ll be an old man before he is released, if he ever is.
So proving he is sane will not help Breivik at all. What’s more likely is that he doesn’t want his actions to be dismissed as those of a madman, since that would betray the cause he believes in, and maybe his lawyers are going along with it since putting NeoNazi’s up on the stand is hardly going to win points in the sanity department.
Area Man
June 8, 2012 at 1:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is a shorter version of what I was going to say. Right-wing extremists are always obsessed with the “enemy within”, who is the main enabler of the external enemy, and thus must be eliminated first so that the external threat can be dealt with.
It has a certain internal logic to it. But if you don’t buy the premise that the 4% of Europeans who are Muslim are going to conquer Europe and turn it into a radicalized pan-Islamist hellhole any week now, then the whole thing falls apart.
mattisironen
June 8, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is this supposed to be a serious critique of Norwegian (and largely Scandinavian) sentencing practices? In Finland we for example have a serial child rapist/killer called “Jammu” who, despite our nominal maximum sentencing laws, will never see the outside of a prison. Why? Because everyone knows that he’d basically get lynched within a week of being set free (yes, he was that bad).
Seriously, we don’t release obvious psychopaths into the wild just because our “weak” laws don’t allow us to imprison them for 2354356956 years without the possibility of parole. I’m not trying to blame the shit criminal justice of the US on you personally, but you might want to give it another thought if you think you’ve suddenly come up with the best justice system ever deviced.
Sastra
June 8, 2012 at 1:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“How can you reasonably assert that you are under attack?”
My guess is that each Norwegian who feels this way has a personal story — or a personal history — of being “under attack.” They find it easier to deal with the resentment, paranoia, and sense of persecution if they consider this not their own problem, but something widespread, significant, and indicative of something wrong with a society which would have let such things happen even to them.
matty1
June 8, 2012 at 3:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
sinned34
June 8, 2012 at 3:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think it’s more likely that Brevik wants to be a martyr for his cause. Better to sound a rallying cry for other bigots to gather around than to have his life’s work dismissed as the efforts of a madman. Or perhaps he thinks that if all his evidence of the upcoming race war is presented, his fellow countrymen will finally recognize what is happening to Europe, and rise up and join him in slaughtering teenage liberals.
Chris from Europe
June 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On a TYT video at Youtube about fighting racism, the racists wrote that anti-racism constitutes “white genocide”. Because people with one drop non-white blood aren’t white and, apparently, race-mixing is equivalent to murder of potentially purely white babies.
There seem to be a lot of people that should be institutionalized.
marcus
June 8, 2012 at 4:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree w/ sinned34 on this. I think that he would rather spend his life in a maximum security prison as a celebrity with his racist skin-head pals than be confined in the probably more comfortable but ultimately less gratifying mental health facility. You can’t be a martyr to the cause if you’re merely insane.
bryanfeir
June 8, 2012 at 5:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Agreed in general with the idea that the most likely reason for this is that if he’s declared insane, he and his actions can just be dismissed out of hand. If he’s sane, he’s easier to use as a rallying point.
Canada has similar results under the Dangerous Offender laws. They are not uncontroversial, with shots fired at them from both directions in that some think the ‘Dangerous Offender’ status is too hard to acquire for those who really deserve it, and some think the entire concept shouldn’t exist.
DaveL
June 8, 2012 at 6:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Those of us who are used to the jargon of American-style conservative extremism instantly understand “We are under attack” to mean “My privilege is being eroded.”
marcus
June 8, 2012 at 6:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is of course another alternative. There is a meme that says that most “honest” criminals don’t care much for either child-rapists or child-killers. If true in this case his “life in prison” could be rather short. I am not an advocate of, nor would I encourage “execution by inmate”, but if this piece of excrement suddenly stopped breathing the world would immediately be a better place. I would prefer that he spend the rest of his life in a nice, comfortable, well-lit padded cell with three squares-a-day and lots of nice doctors to talk to… The. Rest. Of. His. Life. And I hope it’s a long one. (Might not sound like proper retribution but then think about year number 27, 38, 43…)
Ichthyic
June 8, 2012 at 7:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s amazing to me that an argumentum ad populum can even be considered in deciding whether someone is sane or not.
do we decide who has a ill with a cold by whether or not a large group of us have them too?
imagine that:
person with leprosy is designated “not ill”, because there are a lot of other lepers out there.
I’ve never understood this kind of thinking.
Ichthyic
June 8, 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There seem to be a lot of people that should be institutionalized.
that seems to be the more reasoned conclusion from having a parade of neo-nazis claim Brievik is sane.
Who Cares
June 8, 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Sivivolk:
His attorneys are trying to mitigate the damage.
Breivik has confessed to both the bombing and the killing spree on the island.
Seeing that he’s unrepentant and defiant about what he did (At least as seen through the media) he’ll most likely get the maximum sentence possible. And there is not a lick that his defense can do about that.
So they are trying to do the next best thing. Prevent the court declaring him (criminally) insane. There are not a lot crimes here in Western Europe that will get you life as a sentence. Unless you get declared insane. When you get declared insane then once you have finished your prison sentence they dump you into a closed mental treatment facility until a periodic review declares you sane again.
And that is what his defense is trying to prevent from happening.
Weed Monkey
June 8, 2012 at 11:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, not any more. Jammu Siltavuori died last March a demented 85-year old in Niuvanniemi mental hospital, where he was involuntarily committed year 2000, immediately as he was technically released on parole. He was considered to be a serious security risk if set free.
democommie
June 9, 2012 at 12:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@25:
“And that is what his defense is trying to prevent from happening.”
Is there some way that we can donate to a fund for his prosecution?
laurentweppe
June 9, 2012 at 12:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Wow player in Breivik thought the same: congratulation lofgren, you found one point of convergence between you and Breivik.
***
He may ten years from now pretend to be oh so remorseful, leave prison, then go to a far-right media and say “Got you: I was lying, I’m still proud to have killed 77 persons suckers”
***
Well, technically, incestuous fantasies are not considered a mental illness (just creepy in a “please tell me you don’t have kids” way).
So, we can’t institutionalize people like Breivik fans nor people who use A Song of Ice and Fire as porn.
***
Don’t worry: he will still be seen as a martyr to the cause:
“They put him in an asylum for his opinion, like they did in USSR!” would doubtlessly be the rallying cry of his fanclub.
podkayne
June 9, 2012 at 4:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Murdering anyone is wrong, let alone an indiscriminate killing spree. That caveat in place, I agree with Breivik’s motivations, though not his methods. I see allowing the continuing Muslim colonisation of Europe to be cultural suicide. And I do believe it will lead to increasingly frequent sectarian and secular violence in Europe.
There, I said it. Flame at will.
hinschelwood
June 9, 2012 at 4:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, if he’s really stupid, yes.
If he’s up for parole after 10 years, he’ll need to convince the parole board that a) he’s genuinely remorseful about his crimes, b) that he’s no danger to the public. Then they’ll release him on parole.
If he breaks the terms of his parole, he’ll be back in prison the next day to finish his sentence.
Pen
June 9, 2012 at 5:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah – the privilege of sharing your bit of land exclusively with other indigenous inhabitants. Welcome to the worst in European nationalism.
Chris from Europe
June 9, 2012 at 5:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@podkayne
You’re not based in reality, troll.
podkayne
June 9, 2012 at 5:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Chris when you can’t discuss something on its merits, go for the cheap insult.
Oh wait, you did!
FlickingYourSwitch
June 9, 2012 at 6:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That’s what the nationalists (including the ones who wear suits and claim they’re not Nazis) say in Sweden too. We’re under attack this, our culture is being destroyed that.
democommie
June 9, 2012 at 8:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
PooKKKlown sez:
“There, I said it. Flame at will.”
and
“Chris when you can’t discuss something on its merits, go for the cheap insult.”
Geez, I’m sorry to have to tell you this (well, not reallllllllllly sorry) but your witless screed has no merit, you racist fuckbag.
marcus
June 9, 2012 at 8:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
laurentweppe @28 “Don’t worry: he will still be seen as a martyr to the cause…” Point taken.
“He may ten years from now pretend to be oh so remorseful, leave prison…” I doubt he will ever leave prison (or sanitarium). I predict that the utterly cold psychopathy of his actions and subsequent testimony will never be forgotten.
This should also never be forgotten:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021594/Norway-massacre-Lesbians-save-40-children-Anders-Behring-Breivik-Utoya.html
dingojack
June 9, 2012 at 8:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
podkayne – While I respect apple pie and motherhood as much as the next person, it should be noted that I believe you are being eaten alive at this very moment by a pink unicorn called Chrysothemis.
As Johnny Storm would say Flame on!*
Dingo
—–
* Oh I’m sorry – I thought this was the thread for spouting unsupported nonsense without any connection to reality.
Silly me, carry on.
laurentweppe
June 9, 2012 at 10:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is no “Muslim colonization” of Europe
This is a fucking lie invented by fucking liars when they realized that the fucking lie of the Jewish conspiracy did not suffice anymore to build a succesfull political plateform.
*
And do not go on pretending that you are a civilized individual who merely “disagree” with “Breivik’s methods”: there are two more fucking lies in this sentence:
The first one is the pretense of disagreement: you completely agree with his methods since you agree with his fucking lying postulate (“Meesa be a Heroic Resistant against the Evil Colonial Empire of Muslimdom“): you just don’t have the guts to say it openly.
The second one is that you’re a civilized person: you demonstrated that you were a barbarian the second you started to play the apologetic tune toward Breivik.
***
You know, there are precedents of remorseless killers expressing their lack of remorse once free… and remaining free nonetheless.
The thing is, ten years from now, all the world’s podkayne will no more hesitate to call Breivik a hero and to openly help him. So it is perfectly possible that by then lawyers with a better paygrade and more ressources than his current lawyers will take him under their wing and using every possible trick to keep him outside of prison because some wealthy fascist paid them for this.
***
Well, technically, the european “indigenous inhabitants” are the descendant of middle-eastern herders who slaughtered the original inhabitants 8.000 years ago.
And since they were the one who first mutated to develop lactose tolerance, we can conclude that
1. The middle-eastern genocidal migration already happenned long ago
2. If you enjoy ice cream, you’re the descendant of mass murderers.
KG
June 9, 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m sure it will if scumbag bigots like you have their way. Describing the immigration of Muslims to Europe over the past few decades as “colonisation” is a stupid racist lie, so we all know what sort of filth you are.
OK, with the entirely justified name-calling out of the way, here are some facts. The current Muslim population of the EU is under 4%. It is in no way ethnically, culturally, politically or religiously homogeneous: most British Muslims are of south Asian ethnic origin, most French Muslims are of north African descent, most Dutch Muslims have recent ancestry from Indonesia, most Muslims in Germany (racist nationality laws have prevented the majority becoming citizens) are of Turkish background. There’s a pattern here (Germany being something of an exception): those European countries with the longest history of Muslim immigration have drawn their Muslim immigrants largely from places those countries colonised – in the honest sense of that term. While many European Muslim communities do currently have higher birthrates than the average for their countries, a recent Pew Forum study indicates that by 2030, only two EU countries(France and Belgium) will have over 10% Muslim populations – and those, just barely – while Muslim population growth rates, both in Europe and elsewhere, and like those of almost all populations, are declining. Religiously, European Muslims vary from a small minority of dangerous Islamist extremists, who are, rightly, closely watched (and who have had only two significant terrorist successes in the decade since 9/11); through observant Muslims who are also peaceable citizens; to those who are Muslim in name only. In no EU country do Muslims have any significant political power, and in all, their median incomes are below the median for the whole population.
As for Breivik, while I have no relevant expertise, I am inclined to agree with him that he is sane; evil, and with many irrational beliefs, but neither evil nor irrational beliefs are sufficient for a diagnosis of insanity. Whether he is found sane or insane, I would be astonished if he is ever released, except perhaps under the kind of surveillance and restraint that are likely to be available in 30 or more years’ time.
KG
June 9, 2012 at 11:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
laurentweppe,
I’m rather sceptical of the article you link to about the movement of neolithic farmers into Europe: it looks to me like there’s a lot of assumptions there about how the process took place, and particularly, how violent it was (for example there’s no evidence the mass grave mentioned was a result of conflict between farmers and foragers). Farming populations would have been considerably larger than those of foragers, so even without genocide, the genetic traces of the latter could well become very faint if farmers immigrated in numbers much greater than those of the previous inhabitants. In any case, this does not appear to have happened in Britain (see Stephen Oppenheimer’s The Origins of the British – he estimates the Neolithic contribution to modern British genetic makeup as between 10% and 30%), nor the Basque country, nor Finland. In fact, Oppenheimer’s estimates for much of Europe are below 50%, and I think there is still considerable scientific debate about this question: a lactose tolerance gene could obviously have spread by selective advantage once milk-giving ruminants were domesticated.
laurentweppe
June 9, 2012 at 2:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No: these two countries will have 10% of people of muslim descent among their population. Some of them will be Muslims, so other will have converted to other religions, some will be Atheists… Religion and ethnicity are two different things, and it annoys me to no end that virtually everyone -even those who should know better- keep forgetting about that.
***
Three, if you count Merah’s killing spree.
***
The problem is that farmers (well, herders) did not emmigrate in great numbers: in fact; studies have shown that until the mutation happened, their progress was very slow: neolithic culture progressed slowly from Anatolia to southern Europe: after slowly spreading through the Balkans, it remained stagnant for 800 years before starting to spread in central Europe, and then became stagnant for 1000 years before spreading again, which indicate a population which was neither demographically dominant nor enjoying strong cultural ties with its neighbours. Then the mutation causing Lactase persistence occurs and suddenly the neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture spread like wildfire and manage to conquer everything between the Paris Bassin and Ukraine in 500 years.
*
Of course it does not mean that intermarriage and cultural ties did not happen (it’s pretty much impossible), but between the fact that the herders who enjoyed first the mutation leading to lactose tolerance were:
the sudden enormous and fast territorial expansion and the signs and violent conflicts (arsoned villages and mass graves), it’s not an optimistic picture which is drawn