Norway gunman insane, may avoid prison: Prosecutor

Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in twin attacks in Norway last July, may never go to jail after psychiatrists ruled him criminally insane, prosecutors said today.

Instead, the 32-year-old gunman could spend the rest of his life in a mental institution, prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh told reporters in Oslo.

The prosecutor was speaking after forensic experts submitted a psychiatric evaluation today in which they found the gunman insane.

"If the final conclusion is that Breivik is insane, we will request that the court in the upcoming legal proceedings pass sentence by which Breivik is subjected to compulsory mental health care," Bejer Engh said.

The 243-page psychiatric report, which must still be reviewed by a committee of forensic experts, found that Behring Breivik had developed paranoid schizophrenia over time.

The two experts who conducted 13 interviews over 36 hours with the right-wing extremist described a person in his own delusional universe, said another prosecutor, Svein Holden. Holden said the report concluded that Behring Breivik had "grandiose illusions whereby he believes he is to determine who is to live and who is to die."

On July 22, he first set off a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people.

After that, he went to the island of Utoeya, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Oslo, where, disguised as a police officer, he spent nearly an hour and a half methodically shooting and killing another 69 people attending a summer camp, most of them teenagers.