Nation IN BRIEF : MASSACHUSETTS : Salvi Is Deluded, Lawyer Contends

John C. Salvi III’s lawyer told a jury in Dedham, Mass., that Salvi is a schizophrenic who was driven to kill two abortion clinic workers by delusions of a conspiracy against Catholics. Salvi, who was raised a Catholic, believed Roman Catholics were being persecuted by Freemasons, the Mafia and the Ku Klux Klan, defense attorney J. W. Carney Jr. said. Carney said the December 1994 shootings were triggered by the murders of Catholic priests in Algeria just days earlier. Salvi, 23, is charged with killing two receptionists and wounding five other people at the Planned Parenthood and Preterm Health Services clinics in Brookline. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole. If acquitted by reason of insanity, Salvi would be sent to a mental institution and could be released when found sane.