TITLE:
The Norwegian 22 July 2011 Terror Acts and Mass Murder: Insanity, Evilness or Both?
AUTHORS:
Henning Værøy
KEYWORDS:
Terrorism, Insanity, Forensic Diagnosis, Mental Disorders, Personality
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol.4 No.4,
October
15,
2014
ABSTRACT: This review presents unique information rarely seen
in a description of a politically extreme right wing terrorist. During the
trial following the terror acts in Norway on July 22nd 2011, the
author, a forensic psychiatrist was at the time engaged by a national Norwegian
newspaper to comment on the court proceedings. The author has later thoroughly
gone through all available background material such as the terrorist’s
childhood, relationship to his mother, childhood psychological evaluation, the
interviews made by the forensic psychiatrists and information from the police
documents. This information is shared in the review. The author also discusses
how it was possible for two pairs of court appointed experienced forensic
psychiatrists to arrive at completely different conclusions. One pair concluded
with insanity due to Paranoid Schizophrenia and the second pair found no signs
of psychotic disorder at all and concluded with Narcissistic Personality
Disorder. The court found the terrorist capable to stand trial and sentenced
him to 21 years in preventive detention with 10 years to be served before the
possibility to apply for an appeal.