29 November 2011 Last updated at 09:11 ET

Profile: Anders Behring Breivik

Images from Breivik's manifesto and a video attributed to him

Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old charged with murdering 77 people in two attacks in Norway, has been assessed as criminally insane by court-appointed psychiatrists.

They concluded that he had developed paranoid schizophrenia over a long period.

Breivik harboured radical right-wing views and had railed against what he saw as a Marxist Islamic takeover of Europe.

While he openly expressed these views online, there was little to indicate that the young man - described by friends as quiet, friendly and ordinary - would go on to kill dozens of people, many in cold blood.

The turning point seems to have come in his late 20s, when his paranoia grew about the "Islamisation of western Europe" and the perceived failure of his country's political leadership to stop its advance at home.

Lars Buehler, a Norwegian scholar and terrorism expert, said he had debated with Breivik on an extremist website frequented by what he calls xenophobes and Islamaphobes all over Europe.

"I was the single opposing voice, arguing against the xenophobic, Islamaphobic postings and comments that were the norm on this page, and Breivik did not stand out with a particularly aggressive or violent rhetoric. He was quite mainstream," Mr Buehler said.

Breivik was also a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi internet forum called Nordisk, according to Expo, a Swedish group monitoring far-right activity.

'Policy of hatred'

It is his diary - which forms part of his dense, wordy manifesto - that gives a chilling insight into the thought processes of Mr Breivik.

In it, he describes how in early May he had prepared and stored his equipment for the attack. He talks of his paranoia at the number of police vehicles he sees near his home, wondering where he would hide were they to pay him a visit.

"It's one of the scariest documents I've ever read," forensic clinical psychologist Ian Stephen told the BBC.

• Manifesto details attacks

"It's written by a man who is absolutely meticulous in his development of his philosophy and he has researched everything, obviously shut away for a long period of time reading, researching, digging into the internet, reading books," said the psychologist.

"[He] formulated this absolute policy of hatred of anything that is non-Nordic in a sense, and looking at planning how to take over the world [in a] rather insane, over-complicated deluded manner."

A 12-minute anti-Muslim video called Knights Templar 2083, in which images of Breivik appear, was also discovered online.

He appears to have created entries on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, though the accounts were set up on 17 July, only five days before the attacks in Oslo and on the island of Utoeya.

On the Facebook page attributed to him, he described himself as a Christian and a conservative. The Facebook page is no longer available but it also listed interests such as bodybuilding and freemasonry.

A Twitter account attributed to the suspect also emerged but it had only one post -a quote from philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."

'Price of treason'

Breivik had no military background except for ordinary national service, and no criminal record. Police say he put down his weapon when told to, after a shooting spree which lasted about 90 minutes.

According to court officials, he said that he was trying to "save Norway and western Europe from cultural Marxism and a Muslim takeover."

He has admitted to carrying out the twin attacks, but has not pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism.

"The objective of the attacks was to give a 'sharp signal' to people," said the judge in the case, Kim Heger.

"The accused explained that the Labour Party has failed the country and the people and the price of their treason is what they had to pay."

Knights Templar

• Western military monastic orders that existed from 12th to 14th centuries
• Reputed to possess great wealth and power
• Fighting members took part in Crusades
• Many organisations today bear the Templar name - charitable ventures, bodies within lay Catholicism and within freemasonry
• White supremacists, apparently including Anders Behring Breivik, also inspired by Knights Templar

His 1,500-page manifesto - authored by "Andrew Berwick", the Anglicised version of his name - gives a detailed account of the author's "preparation phases", apparently for an "armed struggle" which he says seems "futile at this point but... is the only way forward".

The manifesto, called 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, minutely elaborates the author's belief that a process of "Islamisation" is under way.

During this preparation, the author details how he sets up front companies to allow the purchase of fertiliser, which can be used in bomb-making, and the steps he takes to obtain powerful guns - including joining a firearms club in 2005 to increase his chances to obtain a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol six years later.

He also claims to have bought three bottles of 1979 vintage French wine, and decides to open one with his family at Christmas as his "martyrdom operation draws ever closer".

Breivik was previously a member of the right-wing Progress Party (FrP), the second largest party in Norway's parliament.

He was also a member of the FrP youth wing from 1997 to 2006/2007. He deleted his membership in 2007.

'Ordinary boy'

Breivik was born on 13 February 1979 in London, where his father, a diplomat, had been stationed at the time. Jens Breivik - long estranged from his son - has expressed shock at the crime.

Judge Kim Heger: "The accused believes he needed to carry out these attacks''

"I view this atrocity with absolute horror," he was quoted as saying by London's Daily Telegraph newspaper from his home in south-west France.

He divorced Anders' mother, a nurse, when their child was one year old, moved to Paris and married again. From then on, he had limited contact with the boy.

"When he was young, he was a very ordinary boy. He was not interested in politics at the time," Jens Breivik said.

Their relationship broke down when Anders was a teenager, and the father and son have not spoken since then.

Anders Behring Breivik said on his Facebook page that he was a student at Oslo Handelsgymnasium, a high school that specialises in business studies, Norwegian media reported. He also claimed to have educated himself beyond that, but not through any formal educational establishment.

A school friend told Norwegian TV he did not recognise him as the boy he knew.

"One of his good work-out buddies was from the Middle East, and it seems as though they were good friends all through junior high school, and hung out a lot together," Michael Tomala said.

"It seems as though he has taken a completely different direction than what we knew of him from junior high school."

The Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang quoted another friend as saying that the suspect turned to right-wing extremism in his late 20s.

He later appears to have moved out of the city and established Breivik Geofarm, a company Norwegian media describied as a farming sole proprietorship set up to cultivate vegetables, melons, roots and tubers.

A supply company has come forward to say that in May it delivered to the company six tonnes of fertiliser - an ingredient used in bomb-making.

In his first comment after his arrest, Breivik said via his lawyer that the attacks were "atrocious, but necessary" to defeat liberal immigration policies and the spread of Islam.

Breivik is being held in an Oslo jail. If the courts accept the psychiatrists' conclusions that he is criminally insane, he would still face trial in April but would be given compulsory mental health care rather than a prison sentence.