Even more than twelve years after his crime, right-wing extremist attacker Anders Behring Breivik has lost none of his desire to use violence, according to the Norwegian State.
In a court filing regarding the now 44-year-old's prison conditions, Norwegian state representative Andreas Hjetland emphasized that Breivik “represents the same danger today as he did on July 21, 2011 – the eve of the two attacks he meticulously prepared during years.”
“The ideology remains the same”
“His ideology remains the same, his propensity for unrestrained violence is obvious and his personality reinforces all these factors”, Hjetland emphasized, citing reports from psychiatrists and prison guards.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik killed eight people with a bomb in Oslo's government district and then shot another 69 people on the island of Utöya, most of them participants in a summer camp run by the Workers' Party youth organization.
In 2012, Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison followed by pre-trial detention. In 2022, a request for early release from prison was rejected.
Complaint against isolation
The convicted murderer has sued the Norwegian state over his isolation from other prisoners for the past eleven years. According to his argument, isolation violates article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhumane” and “degrading” treatment.
The trial, scheduled to last five days, began yesterday and, for security reasons, takes place in a gymnasium at Ringerike prison, where Breivik is serving his long sentence.
Breivik was successful in a similar case in an Oslo court in 2016. However, higher courts overturned the verdict and the European Court of Human Rights rejected his case as “inadmissible”.