Since Tuesday, the Telemark District Court has been hearing whether the 42-year-old can be released on probation after the minimum term of his prison sentence has expired, as he has requested. However, around a decade after the attacks that killed 77 people, this is considered unlikely.
As Breivik’s demeanor showed, little has changed in his right-wing extremist and racist attitudes more than ten years after the attacks in Oslo and on the island of Utøya. When entering the gymnasium of the Skien prison, around 130 kilometers southwest of Oslo, which had been converted into a courtroom, he held up relevant messages and gave the Hitler salute several times, also addressing judge Dag Bjørvik. Breivik warned, during introductory words from prosecutor Hulda Karlsdottir, to refrain from upholding his messages.
radicalized online
Defense attorney Øystein Storrvik made it clear that he considered it unfortunate to start a court hearing with a Nazi salute. In a statement, Breivik himself later spoke about nationalism, ideologies and an ongoing “culture war”. He was radicalized online around 2009 and brainwashed into committing the crimes, he said. Today he distances himself from violence and terror, but is still a National Socialist. Norwegian media switched off the sound and picture at times so as not to transmit propaganda messages.
Breivik, who now calls himself Fjotolf Hansen, detonated a car bomb in Oslo’s government district on July 22, 2011, killing eight people. He then massacred the participants of the annual summer camp of the youth organization of the Social Democratic Labor Party on the island of Utøya. 69 mostly young people were killed on the island. The crimes are considered the worst act of violence in Norwegian post-war history.
Will Breivik ever be released?
At the time, Breivik named right-wing extremist and Islamophobic motives for his actions. In the summer of 2012, the Oslo District Court sentenced him to the maximum sentence at the time of 21 years in prison with a minimum term of ten years. In contrast to a normal prison sentence, detention – in Norwegian “forvaring” – means something like an indefinite sentence: it can be extended every five years. It is therefore open whether Breivik will ever be released from prison in Skien.
Norwegian law allows convicts to apply for parole consideration after the minimum sentence has expired. Breivik had submitted this application in September 2020, the minimum period expired on June 5, 2021 after including 445 days of pre-trial detention. Breivik’s father doesn’t think his son will ever walk free again. “Anders will not come out. Probably not for the next 20 years. I don’t want him to come out,” Jens Breivik told the “Bild” newspaper.
The public prosecutor also refuses to release him. Essentially, the court must resolve the issue of whether Breivik could commit serious crimes again and thus pose a threat to society – which therefore needs further protection from him.
“Unprecedented Misdeeds”
At his sentencing, the Oslo District Court found that even after he had served his sentence, it was likely that he would continue to have the intention and ability to commit many and very violent murders. 21 years after the crimes, the Norwegian democracy, which he wants to abolish, will continue to exist, the judges wrote in their more than 100-page judgment at the time – including residents with different ethnic backgrounds, different cultures and different religions.
Prosecutor Karlsdottir also referred to these parts of the verdict. She said: “It is noted that survivors and loved ones are left with bottomless grief and that the atrocities are unprecedented in Norwegian history.” To underline this, she went on to detail each individual killed by Breivik on 22 July 2011.
Breivik’s application will probably be negotiated until Thursday. A court order is expected to be announced at a later date, possibly as early as next week.
Source: Nachrichten
