Norway says mass killer Breivik still poses risk of ‘unbridled violence’

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Anders Behring Breivik (right) is seen next to attorney Marte Lindholm during the first day of his trial over his prison conditions, on January 8, 2024 in Tyristrand near Oslo, Norway. Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage in 2011 and who has been held apart from other inmates for 12 years, has sued the state for a second time arguing that his isolation is a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. — Cornelius Poppe/NTB/AFP pic

OSLO, Jan 9 — Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011, still poses a risk of “totally unbridled violence”, the Norwegian state argued today in a lawsuit over his prison conditions.

Breivik has sued the state, claiming his extended isolation is a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhumane” and “degrading” treatment.

Now 44, he has been held apart from other inmates in high-security facilities for over 11 years.

Advertisement

The trial, which opened yesterday, is being held for security reasons in the gymnasium of Ringerike prison where Breivik is serving his sentence.

More than 12 years after committing the bloodiest attack on Norwegian soil since World War II, Breivik still poses “an absolutely extreme risk of totally unbridled violence”, the state’s lawyer Andreas Hjetland told the court.

On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a bomb near government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before gunning down 69 others, mostly teens, at a Labour Party youth wing summer camp on the island of Utoya.

Advertisement

He was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, which can be extended as long as he is considered a threat, which was Norway’s harshest sentence at the time.

“Breivik represents the same danger today as on July 21, 2011,” the eve of the twin attacks he prepared meticulously for years, Hjetland said, citing assessments written by psychiatrists and prison wardens.

“His ideology remains the same, his aptitude for unlimited violence is evident and his personality... further reinforces all these factors,” he said.

Yesterday, Breivik’s lawyer Oystein Storrvik had asked for an easing of his client’s prison conditions, claiming that they had made Breivik “suicidal” and depressed.

Citing another article of the Convention on Human Rights that guarantees the right to correspondence, Breivik has also asked for an easing of restrictions on his incoming and outgoing letters.

In 2016, Breivik sued the Norwegian state on the same grounds, with a lower court ruling in his favour before higher courts found in the state’s favour.

In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed his case as “inadmissible”. — AFP