Breivik’s rights not violated in prison: appeals court

Norway has not violated the human rights of mass killer Anders Behring Breivik despite his charges of abuse since he was jailed for killing 77 people in 2011, an appeals court ruled.

The Borgarting appeals court on Wednesday overturned a 2016 verdict by a lower Oslo court that Breivik’s near-isolation in a three-room cell amounted to “inhuman and degrading treatment” under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Breivik spent more than an hour on July 22, 2011 methodically killing 69 people, most of them adolescents, on the island of Utoeya, in what is believed to be the deadliest shooting ever carried out by a single person.

Shortly before the island massacre, he killed eight people when he blew up a bomb in a van parked in a government block in Oslo.

Breivik took Norwegian authorities to court in March last year, accusing them of exposing him to inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Breivik protested against his isolation from other inmates and from outsiders who are not professionals. He also complained about cold coffee and microwaved meals that he said were “worse than waterboarding”.

READ MORE: Profile – Anders Behring Breivik

Breivik has three cells to himself in the high-security wing of Skien prison. The cells are equipped with video game consoles, a television, a DVD player, electronic typewriter, newspapers and exercise machines. He also has daily access to a larger exercise yard. He is allowed visits from family and friends, but has not received any except for his mother before she died.

The court that convicted him in 2012 found him criminally sane, rejecting the prosecution’s view that he was psychotic.

Breivik did not appeal against his sentence. He has been trying to start a fascist party in prison and reached out by mail to right-wing extremists in Europe and the United States. Prison officials seized many of those letters, fearing Breivik would inspire others to commit violent attacks.