Murderer Anders Behring Breivik appeared in the Ringerike prison courtroom today on the first day of trial in the lawsuit he filed against the Norwegian state over the conditions of his solitary confinement.
The 43-year-old neo-Nazi from Oslo, who has been in solitary confinement for 12 years for killing 77 people (sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum sentence, but with the possibility of an extension), mostly very young participants at a Labor rally on the island of Utoya they condemned the state for “inhumane treatment”. Breivik said his detention conditions violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment.
“The long period of isolation and lack of meaningful interaction has now resulted in the harm caused by his incarceration, including the fact that he is now suicidal.” The isolation became progressively worse over time. Breivik currently only has contact with two other prisoners, with whom he has contact for an hour every two weeks,” Ystein Storrvik, the killer’s defense attorney, told Norwegian public broadcaster Nrk.
Breivik is imprisoned in the Ringerike high-security prison, where he has access to a room with a kitchen, a fitness room, a TV room and a cage with three budgies. Despite the accommodation and brief contacts with other inmates, the 43-year-old neo-Nazi says that his current situation is causing him psychological damage, leading to depression and suicidal tendencies.
Depression, suicidal thoughts: Anders Behring Breivik, the man who killed 77 people in 2011, mostly very young participants in a Labor rally on the Norwegian island of Utoya, condemned the state for “inhumane treatment” in prison, where he is in solitary confinement for a 21- serve a year prison sentence. With a shaved head, jacket and tie, Breivik, 44, arrived in the Ringerike prison courtroom today for the first of five days of trial, without making any statements or making provocative gestures, as has been the case on other occasions. The neo-Nazi fighter is held in solitary confinement in a maximum security area and believes the conditions in which he has been held for about eleven and a half years violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits punishment and treatment that is inhumane or degrading. On July 22, 2011, he first detonated a live bomb at the government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people. He then opened fire on young people attending the rally in Utoya, killing 69 people, almost all of them very young. In 2012, he was sentenced to the then possible maximum sentence of 21 years in prison with the possibility of an extension.