OSLO: The far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who murdered 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in Norway in 2011, will request on Monday that his prison isolation be lifted on the grounds that it is against his human rights.
The 44-year-old is suing the state to try and get limits on his correspondence with the outside world lifted. Prior to his attacks, he sent out copies of a manifesto outlining his views via email.
In Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity, Breivik shot and killed 69 people, the majority of them teenagers, at a Labour Party youth camp after killing eight people with a car bomb in Oslo.
His case has been a sobering test for a nation that has long taken pride in the efforts of its legal system to rehabilitate people but is nevertheless deeply troubled by the brutality of his deeds.
Breivik is housed in a portion of the high-security Ringerike prison, which is located 40 miles (70 km) northwest of Oslo. This is Breivik’s third prison stay.
Pictures from a visit by news agency NTB last month revealed that his designated section contains a kitchen, TV room, training room, and bathroom. According to NTB, he is permitted to own three budgerigars as pets, and they are free to fly around.
Breivik’s attorney sent a document to the Oslo district court indicating that his client’s more than ten years of seclusion “without meaningful interaction” had a disastrous effect.
According to Oeystein Storrvik, “He is suicidal now.” “He is now dependent on the depression medicine Prozac to get through the days in prison.”
Attorneys for the justice ministry assert that due to Breivik’s ongoing security danger, he has to be segregated from the other inmates.
In their court petition, they stated that Breivik’s isolation was “relative” because he still maintains communication with guards, a chaplain, medical professionals, and an outside volunteer that he no longer wants to see.
Every other week, he also spends an hour with two prisoners.
The lawyers contend that controlling Breivik’s interactions with the outside world is warranted due to the possibility that he may incite others to carry out violent crimes.
“Specifically, this applies to contacts with far-right circles, including people who wish to establish contact with Breivik as a result of the terrorist acts on 22 July 2011,” the document stated.
Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, claimed Breivik as an influence.
The maximum term a Norwegian court may inflict on Breivik is 21 years, but it can be increased for as long as it is thought that he poses a threat to society.
Knut Mellingsaeter Soerensen, an associate professor at the Norwegian Police University College and the author of a PhD on Breivik’s circumstances at his first prison from 2011 to 2013, said, “What is unique is how long he has been in isolation.”
“The challenge, with a person who has shown the intention and the capacity to commit a terrorist attack, and to plan it over a long time, is when do you lighten security measures so you can actually have contacts with other inmates?”
Before the limitations were removed, the decision he had made in the first place was reversed on appeal one year later.
The hearing on Monday is scheduled to take place at the prison’s gymnasium, which is situated on the bank of the Tyrifjorden lake, near the island of Utoeya, the location of Breivik’s shooting rampage.
In the upcoming weeks, the judge’s decision—there is no jury—will be made public.
