2024-01-08 15:50:00
Due to isolation, Breivik has “suicidal” tendencies and takes antidepressants to endure prison, said his lawyer, Oystein Storrvik / Photo: Archive
The Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, sued the Norwegian State again this Monday to protest its prison regime of isolation, at the beginning of a hearing dedicated to addressing his claim and during which justice will try prevent him from spreading a Hitlerian message in his testimony that is offensive to the families of the victims and survivors.
With a shaved head and a dark suit and tie, Breivik, unlike his previous public appearances, refrained from any provocation when he arrived at the Ringerike prison gym, where the trial, which will last five days, began this Monday.
Due to the isolation, Breivik has “suicidal” tendencies and takes antidepressants to endure prison, said his lawyer, Oystein Storrvik.
Detained alone in a high security unit, Breivik considers that his isolation for 11.5 years violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment,” the news agency reproduced. AFP.
On July 22, 2011, the extremist – currently 44 years old – He detonated a bomb near the government headquarters in Oslo, leaving eight victims, and then killing another 69 people, mostly teenagers.by shooting at a Labor youth summer camp on the island of Utoya.
He was sentenced in 2012 to the maximum sentence at that time, 21 years, with the possibility of extension.
Since then “he has been in isolation and the more time passes, the more it constitutes a violation of the Convention”declared his lawyer last October.
Storrvik argued that “the long period of isolation and the absence of real interaction causes (psychological) damage to Breivik, including becoming suicidal.”
He indicated that Breivik’s only contacts are two other prisoners whom he sees for an hour every two weeks under close surveillance, in addition to prison staff.
The right-wing extremist also invoked another article of the Human Rights Convention that guarantees the right to correspondence to demand less leakage of his emails to the outside world.
The Norwegian prison system
In 2016 he confronted the Norwegian State for those same two reasons and had a surprising partial success in the first instance. But he was later rejected on appeal and in 2018 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), based in Strasbourg, France, declared his claim “inadmissible.”
For security reasons, the new five-day trial is being held in the Ringerike prison gymnasium.
In this prison on the shores of the lake where Utoya is located, Breivik has, on two floors, several rooms that serve as a kitchen, a television room with a video game console and an equipped gym room, according to the Norwegian agency NTB.
The same agency indicated that prison authorities also placed three birds in the building to address his desire to have a pet.
For its part, the State justifies Breivik’s isolation due to his dangerousness and the need to protect himself from the risks he poses to society, other prisoners and guards, as well as himself.
The Norwegian prison system traditionally places great importance on the rehabilitation of criminals.
The famous prisoner benefits “from a very complete range of activities”, such as cooking, games, walks, basketball, and “there is no indication that Breivik suffers physical or mental problems due to his condition of detention”, argued the lawyer for the State, Andreas Hjetland.
“Breivik has so far been unreceptive to rehabilitation work,” he said.
“It is therefore difficult to imagine that significant improvements in their detention conditions are possible and justifiable in the short term,” he added.
Breivik’s public appearances often lead to provocations (Hitler salutes, militant banners, ideological diatribes, etc.) that the families of the victims and survivors suffer painfully.
For that particular reason, the judge decided to prohibit the broadcast of her testimony scheduled for tomorrow.
“There would be a real danger that Breivik’s testimony would stray from what is at issue in this step to focus on his ideological message,” Judge Birgitte Kolrud warned.
#neoNazi #killed #people #sued #State #isolation #prison