On July 22, 2011, the 44-year-old extremist first detonated a bomb near the government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people. He then killed 69 more people, most of them teenagers, by opening fire at a Labor youth summer camp on the island of Utøya.
He was sentenced in 2012 to the then maximum sentence of 21 years in prison with the possibility of an extension.
Taking Prozac
Since then, “he is still in solitary confinement and the more time passes, the more this constitutes a violation of the Convention,” his lawyer Øystein Storrvik said in October. In court documents, Mr Storrvik argues that “the long period of isolation and lack of meaningful interaction is now causing (psychological) harm to Breivik, including the fact that he is now suicidal.”
“He now relies on the antidepressant Prozac to survive his days in prison,” he says. According to him, Breivik currently only has contact with two other inmates, whom he sees every two weeks for an hour under close supervision, as well as prison staff.
Citing another article of the Human Rights Convention that guarantees the right to correspondence, the right-wing extremist is also calling for a reduction in the filtering of his letters with the outside world.
He had already attacked the Norwegian state in 2016 on the same two grounds and, to everyone's surprise, partially won his case in the first instance. But his appeal was subsequently dismissed in its entirety and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) declared his complaint “inadmissible” in 2018.
Pet parakeets
For security reasons, this new five-day trial will take place in the Ringerike Prison gymnasium.
In this prison facility on the shores of the lake where Utøya bathes, Breivik has several rooms on two floors that serve as a kitchen, a TV room with a games console (and a photo of the Eiffel Tower), or even an equipped gym. according to the Norwegian agency NTB. According to NTB, prison authorities also placed three parakeets there to fulfill his wish for a pet.
The state, for its part, justifies Breivik's “relative” isolation by citing its dangerousness and the need to protect itself from the risks it poses to society, other prisoners and guards, but also those who burden him.
The Norwegian prison system has traditionally placed great emphasis on the rehabilitation of criminals.
“Very extensive” range of activities
The famous prisoner benefits from “a very wide range of activities” (cooking, games, walks, basketball, etc.) and “there is no indication that Breivik suffers from physical or mental problems due to his prison conditions,” argues prosecutor Andreas Hjetland .
“Breivik has so far shown little openness to rehabilitation work,” he also specifies. “It is therefore difficult to imagine what significant improvements in prison conditions are possible and justifiable in the short term.”
Breivik's public appearances often lead to provocations (Hitler salutes, militant signs, ideological tirades, etc.), which are painfully experienced by the victims' families and surviving relatives.