Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik has launched his second attempt to sue the state, accusing the Justice Ministry of violating his human rights
From
MARK LEWIS Associated Press
January 8, 2024, 7:48 am ET
• 3 min reading
STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and rampage in 2011, launched his second attempt to sue the state on Monday, accusing the Justice Ministry of violating his human rights.
Breivik, who has changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen, claims that the isolation he has been in since his prison sentence began in 2012 amounts to inhuman punishment under the European Convention on Human Rights. He failed in a similar attempt in 2016 and 2017, when his appeal was ultimately rejected by the European Court of Justice.
The Norwegian state rejects Breivik's claims, arguing that prison conditions are now “significantly better” than in the previous case.
Breivik was transferred to Ringerike prison two years ago, where he is held in a two-story complex with a kitchen, dining room and TV room with an Xbox, several armchairs and black-and-white pictures of the Eiffel Tower on the wall. It also has a gym with weights, a treadmill and a rowing machine, while three parakeets fly around the facility.
“Breivik, on the other hand, is the same. He is still proud of what he accomplished. “He is continuing his ideological project,” prosecutor Andreas Hjetland said in court. “An extraordinarily dangerous inmate brings with him extraordinary security measures.”
Breivik's lawyer, Øystein Storrvik, told The Associated Press that Breivik's mental health had suffered from the additional years in solitary confinement since the previous case, causing him to be “suicidal” and dependent on antidepressants. Storrvik said he would advocate for easing restrictions and more contact with other inmates and believed 12½ years of isolation was “unique” in recent European judicial history.
Storrvik told the court on Monday that Breivik had hoped he could have had some form of “human relations” when he was transferred from Skien prison to the sprawling complex at Ringerike prison near Oslo in 2022 Cells, however, “have been converted into a cell”. Isolation ward.”
In 2012, Breivik was convicted of mass murder and terrorism for carrying out a bombing of the government building in Oslo that killed eight people, as well as for a massacre on the island of Utøya in which he died at a holiday camp for centrist youth activists -Left movement 69 people shot workers' party.
Breivik, who described himself as an anti-Muslim crusader during the trial, pleaded not guilty and claimed he acted in self-defense to protect Norway from multiculturalism.
He received Norway's most severe sentence at the time: 21 years in prison with the provision that he should be held indefinitely if he was still considered dangerous.
“It is no exaggeration to say that if the court does not relent, he will be sentenced to life in prison and will never be able to have relationships with other people,” Storrvik said in court on Monday, according to the Norwegian News Agency NTB.
Breivik entered the makeshift courtroom in the Ringerike prison gym. He was wearing a dark suit and tie, flanked by Storrvik. He did not give a Nazi salute, as he had done in previous court appearances.
The government rejects Breivik's claims that his prison conditions violate human rights.
Some of the restrictions Breivik was subject to have been relaxed, said Hjetland, who is representing the Justice Ministry in the case, but the conditions were necessary for security reasons.
According to a written statement from Hjetland to the court ahead of the trial, which is due to end on Friday, Breivik has so far proven unresponsive to rehabilitation measures.