Anders Behring Breivik is accused of killing 77 people last year in protest against immigration.
The man who carried out bomb and gun attacks in Norway last year that left 77 people dead on Monday April 16, 2012 pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial in an Oslo District Court in the Norwegian capital, the BBC reported.
Anders Behring Breivik had earlier confessed to the killings, but continues to deny any criminal responsibility. The New York Times reported that at the opening of the trial, the self-confessed anti-Islamic militant and Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity suspect, insisted that he did not recognise the authority of the country’s legal system.
Breivik, 33, had admitted on several occasions that he carried out the rampage on July 22, 2011 in which 69 people were shot and killed on Utoya Island where the Youth Wing of the Labour Party was holding a summer camp. Hours earlier, he had planted a car bomb in central Oslo that killed eight people. According to RTE News, he told the court that he did not recognise the authority of Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen, claiming she is friend to the sister of former Norwegian Prime Minister and Labour Party leader, Gro Harlem Brundtland.
Breivik made a far-right salute as he entered the court room. Betraying no emotion as Prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh solemnly and painstakingly read out the names of the dead, Breivik refused to plead guilty, saying he had acted in self-defence to protect Norway against what he described as Islamic immigration. His trial is due to last 10 weeks.
If he is deemed to have been sane when he carried out the killings, the five presiding judges can sentence him to up to 21 years in prison, with a provision to keep him behind bars for longer if he is still considered dangerous. If he is deemed insane, Breivik can be kept in forced psychiatric care for as long as his illness persists. Though a 2011 report concluded that he was a psychotic paranoid schizophrenic before, during and after the attacks, a second test on April 10 said he was sane, though with a narcissistic personality disorder.
