Anders Behring Breivik has been in prison in Norway for almost twelve years. He feels his human rights have been violated in his prison conditions. He is now taking action against this in court again.
In Norway, court proceedings have begun regarding a new complaint by Utøya attacker Anders Behring Breivik against his prison conditions. The 44-year-old arrived on Monday for the first day of the trial in the gymnasium of Ringerike prison, which has been converted into a makeshift courtroom. Shortly after 10 a.m., judge Birgitte Kolrud declared the proceedings open, according to the NTB news agency.
In the makeshift courtroom, for the second time since 2017, a position will be taken on whether the Norwegian state is violating his human rights in Breivik’s prison conditions, as he stated. The Oslo District Court has scheduled five days of hearings up to and including Friday.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik first detonated a car bomb in the Oslo government district and then carried out a massacre in a summer camp of the youth organization of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party on the island of Utøya. The terrorist attacks, with a total of 77 deaths, are considered by far the worst acts of violence in Norway’s post-war period.
Sentenced to maximum sentence in 2012
Breivik, who has long called himself Fjotolf Hansen, was sentenced in 2012 to the then maximum sentence of 21 years in preventive detention with a minimum period of ten years. In contrast to a normal prison sentence, detention means that the length of the sentence can be extended every five years, which means it remains unclear whether Breivik will ever be released from prison again. At the end of the minimum period, he had applied for early release from prison, but this application failed in court at the beginning of 2022.
Regarding his prison conditions, Breivik has been accusing the Norwegian state of violating his human rights for years. He believes that almost twelve years in solitary confinement are enough and something needs to be done so that he can meet and communicate with other people. His lawyer, Øystein Storrvik, said in a statement that Breivik had suffered damage from years of isolation and the lack of meaningful interaction. Among other things, he is now at risk of suicide and dependent on antidepressants.
The Norwegian Ministry of Justice, on the other hand, is of the opinion that the prison conditions do not violate human rights. A Norwegian appeals court had already ruled in 2017 that there were no human rights violations.
Source: Stern
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