Anders Breivik wants to sue Norway for human rights violations

O The case will be tried on Monday, in the Ringerike prison gym, near Utoya Island, where Breivik shot and killed 69 people, after having murdered eight others in a bomb attack in Oslo.

Breivik, 44, claims that solitary confinement since he was arrested in 2012 constitutes inhumane treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights, according to the lawsuit cited by the US agency AP.

Norway favors rehabilitation over retaliation.

Breivik is being held in a two-story complex with a kitchen, dining room, TV room with Xbox, several armchairs and black and white photographs of the Eiffel Tower on the wall.

There is also a fitness room with weights, a treadmill and a rowing machine, while three parakeets fly around the complex.

Even so, lawyer Oystein Storrvik says it is impossible for Breivik, who now goes by the name Fjotolf Hansen, to have any meaningful relationship with anyone in the outside world.

The lawyer also claims that preventing the client from sending letters is another violation of human rights.

A similar request, filed in 2016, was accepted but later overturned by a higher court and then rejected by the European Court of Human Rights.

Breivik applied for parole in 2022 but was considered to have shown no signs of rehabilitation.

On July 22, 2011, Breivik killed eight people in a bomb attack in Oslo and then went to a center-left political group’s youth camp in Utoya, where, dressed as a police officer, he chased and killed the shot 69 people, most of them teenagers.

The following year Breivik was sentenced to the maximum sentence of 21 years, with a clause – rarely used in the Norwegian judicial system – that allows him to be detained indefinitely if he continues to be considered a danger to society.

Breivik has shown no remorse for the attacks, which he presented as a crusade against multiculturalism in Norway.

Many consider Breivik’s interactions with the courts to be attempts to draw attention to his cause or even to return to the international spotlight.

The State rejects Breivik’s allegations.

In a letter sent to the court, Andreas Hjetland, a government lawyer, wrote that Breivik had so far shown he was not receptive to rehabilitation work.

The lawyer considered that it was “therefore difficult to imagine that major relief in terms of sentence would be possible and justifiable”.

Lisbeth Kristine Royneland, who runs an association supporting bombing survivors and bereaved families, said the group was “pleased with the decision” not to allow the live broadcast of Breivik’s comments at the proceedings.

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