Poll by Norway's state broadcaster shows three-quarters want Utøya island killer sent to prison, not secure psychiatric unit
The majority of Norwegians want the court to declare Anders Breivik sane when it delivers its verdict on Friday – coinciding with the wishes of the killer.
The Oslo district court will announce whether Breivik, who has admitted murdering 77 people in a killing spree on 22 July last year, should be held responsible and imprisoned for his crimes or whether he is insane and should be sent to a secure psychiatric institution for the rest of his life.
A survey conducted by public broadcaster NRK shows three in four Norwegians believe Breivik should be sent to prison. One in 10 believed the perpetrator of Norway's worst peacetime massacre could not be considered responsible for his actions.
Breivik has said if the court finds him insane it would be "a "fate worse than death". The credibility of his rightwing ideology and claim to be protecting Norway from a Muslim takeover would be dismissed as the rantings of a madman.
Breivik's lawyers confirmed they would appeal against any ruling that declared him insane.
The five district court judges have had to evaluate Breivik's mental state after being presented with two psychiatric evaluations that sharply contradict each other. A court-ordered assessment concluded he was a paranoid schizophrenic; a second report in early April ruled that he was not psychotic. Despite signs of narcissistic and anti-social personality disorder, it said Breivik was sufficiently sane to face a prison sentence.
The prosecutor, Svein Holden, has said any doubt must favour an insanity judgement. "In our opinion it is worse that a psychotic person is sentenced to preventative detention than a non-psychotic person is sentenced to compulsory mental healthcare," he said. The wishes of the defendant were an irrelevance.
The far-right militant targeted Oslo's government buildings with a car bomb before embarking on a shooting spree that killed 69 at the ruling Labour party's youth camp on the island of Utoya.
Yesterday, most Oslo residents seemed adament that he should be jailed.
Standing opposite Oslo's central court house, account manager Harry Aass, 29, said: "It would be ridiculous if he did not go to jail, people would be genuinely fraught."
Oyuind Bryde, a 35-year-old new media executive, said Norway risked being seen as too lenient.
"If he does not got to jail then it will reinforce the caricature of Norway as naïve, but then we are an open society and maybe it is important that we do not let one man change us."
Elisabeth Heier, 50, an Oslo social worker, said Breivik's planning of the twin attacks – his own manifesto charts a precise campaign to build the bomb that hit Oslo and accumulate the firearms he used to target Labour Party youngsters on Utoya, was evidence of a functioning, rational mind.
"From the outside it might look insane but the deliberate execution makes things different," she said.
But for some, a verdict of insanity would constitute the most potent punishment for Breivik is sufficient to hope he is consigned to the . "If that hurts him the most then that is what he should receive," said tax inspector Ingfrid Aas, 47.
Experts have said, however, that the verdict as immaterial. Whether considered sane or not, Breivik will almost certainly never be freed. The maximum jail term in Norway is 21 years but can be extended if Breivik is still deemed a threat to society.