26.09.2012
68
Utskrift fra Lovdata
expression of him intending to speak on behalf of likeminded persons. In its statements of 23 April and 21 May, the Board of Forensic Medicine has questioned the validity of the defendant's answers to, inter alia, the SCID-1 interview, considering his tendency to answer strategically. In their introductory description of SCID-1, the experts Aspaas and Tørrissen have addressed this issue, writing that they, inter alia, have taken as a point of departure and have confronted the defendant with his earlier statements in police interviews, in conversations and in the compendium. Next, these statements have been «weighed against the clinical impression and the way in which he answers». Also in the introductory general remarks on page 12 of their report, they raise the question of whether the defendant in his conversations with them «has adapted himself to his knowledge at any given time of the case complex, the police investigation, the previous forensic psychiatric report, etc». Against this background, they have assessed and «compared his statements to the expert witnesses in February/March 2012 with what emerged during the early stages after his arrest (documented in a police interview recorded on DVD), as well as his statements to the health service and the earlier expert witnesses in July/August 2011». Additionally, the questions of dissimulation and a possible false negative conclusion are discussed in connection with the diagnostic assessments on page 300 and in the supplementary report of 30 April 2012. The Court agrees that the defendant's tendency to adapt his answers in tests and in his conversations with the experts may, considered in isolation, weaken the value of the observations of the experts Aspaas and Tørrissen. Notwithstanding this, the Court notes that as early as in the first conversation on 9 September 2011 with psychiatrist Arnhild Flikke, the defendant described himself as a «foot soldier», see the above quote. Flikke is a senior medical officer within the Specialist Health Service of Bærum Municipality, the District Psychiatric Centre (hereinafter DPS), and she has been a member of the «Ila Team» since 2007. Also in a police interview on 18 October 2011 did the defendant moderate statements in the manifesto that he has also cited during early police interviews as well as in conversations with the experts Husby and Sørheim. In the police interview he said, inter alia, that the way he had «described the Knights Templar, it is a glossy picture of the Knights Templar, but in practice the Knights Templar is in the process of being established», see the quote from this interview on page 82 of the report of the experts Aspaas and Tørrissen. Additionally, policemen who carried out the interviews of the defendant confirmed at the trial that they noted a certain toning down of the defendant's previous statements from the police interview on 18 October 2011, and a marked toning down from the police interviews in March 2012. It is furthermore clear that the defendant toned down the description of the Knights Templar and his own political role in his conversations with the experts Aspaas and Tørrissen, and also in his statement during the trial. The Court believes that the circumstance that the defendant is capable of moderating his statements is also relevant diagnostic information. On pages 296–297 of their report, the experts Aspaas and Tørrissen describe the defendant's high opinion of, inter alia, «his own importance for the future of the country and Western Europe». Here, they draw a parallel with a condition that in specialist literature is termed «pseudologia fantastica», and which refers to conditions where a person with theatrical personality traits makes up stories that make them important. They write the following about the difference between persons with such personality traits and psychotic persons: «It is characteristic that these kinds of stories are toned down when the person concerned is confronted with facts or opposing views. In psychotic patients, the opposite is often observed; when they are confronted with ambiguities and improbabilities, their statements will become increasingly unclear and improbable, and when patients are subjected to pressure they may show signs of stress and psychological decompensation. «Pseudologia fantastica» is not a separate diagnosis in the diagnostic systems, but the phenomenon may provide a basis for personality diagnoses.» Also other expert witnesses within psychiatry described at the trial how genuine delusions normally are defended by the patient in the case of resistance. Patients often turn