As Norwegian terrorist and mass killer Anders Behring Breivik stepped into court on Tuesday with claims that his treatment in the hands of the state was a violation of his human rights, one of his victims say denying Breivik of his right to a fair trial would be similar to “going down his path”.
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Far-right nationalist Anders Behring Breivik accused Norway of trying to effectively kill him during almost five years of “humiliating treatment” in prison for murder, highlighting his more than 800 strip searches.
The right-wing extremist, who killed 77 people in 2011, created a sensation Tuesday when he appeared with a shaven head and made a Hitler-style salute as hearings began to determine whether his prison conditions are “inhuman”.
Norwegian authorities have refused to televise his testimony in order to prevent him sending coded messages to supporters and out of respect for survivors of his killing spree and victims’ families.
He told the court it would have been more humane to shoot him than treat him like an animal for the past five years. Breivik said the isolation is making him apathetic and depressed, giving him headaches and difficulty sleeping.
Of a total of 4,000 letters sent to or by Breivik, about 600 had been blocked by prison authorities, lawyers said.
Wearing the same black suit, white shirt and golden tie he wore on the first day, Breivik will testify for roughly three hours in a lawsuit taking place in the gym hall of Skien prison, where Breivik is being held, in southern Norway. Eight people were killed when a bomb he planted detonated in Oslo, before he methodically shot to death 69 young people, many of them teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on nearby Utoya Island.
Norwegian state lawyers Marius Emberland (L) and Adele Matheson Mested have said Breivik, is being h …
Breivik has even been allowed to make a gingerbread house as part of a prison competition, the court heard.
He also wants the right to publish books. “It’s understandable when it’s justified, for example when it involves people who have a violent past or something like that, but I have been conducting myself in exemplary fashion for five years”, Breivik said.
Emberland went on to list Breivik’s numerous perks at the prison, including his regular telephone contact – which he recently made a decision to end – and access to newspapers, television, DVDs, a Playstation 2 console and a personal computer to help pursue his political studies at the University of Oslo from his study cell.
However, the state is rejecting the charges, saying Breivik had been given opportunities for interaction with others – opportunities he had declined, www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-breivik-idUSKCN0WH0LZ reports.
Storrvik might take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if he fails in Norwegian courts.
But he said the conditions “were the most inhuman in the Western world”. “Just look at Guantanamo Bay”, he said. Breivik has been kept in solitary confinement since 2013, after being transferred to a high security prison in south Norway, Skien, and according to the New York Times, has had no communication with fellow inmates and limited phone access.
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Breivik had “achieved exactly what he wanted” through pursuing the lawsuit, survivor Viljar Hanssen tweeted Monday, although he added that he was happy to live in a country where the law applied to all.
