Breivik still in extreme danger twelve years after Utøya attack, Norwegian state says

Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, still poses risks of “totally unbridled violence“, affirmed Tuesday the Norwegian state, sued by the neo-Nazi who believes that his prison regime violates his human rights. Detained alone in a high-security unit, Breivik, 44, argues that his isolation for nearly 12 years violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment“.

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

“His ideology remains the same”

Twelve years after carrying out the bloodiest attack on Norwegian soil since the Second World War, the plaintiff presents “an absolutely extreme risk of completely unbridled violence», Assured state lawyer Andreas Hjetland.

On July 22, 2011, Breivik first detonated a bomb near the government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people, then killed 69 other people, most of them teenagers, by opening fire on a summer camp of the Labor youth on the island of Utøya. He was sentenced in 2012 to the maximum sentence then in force in Norway, namely 21 years in prison with the possibility of extension as long as he remains considered dangerous.

“Breivik represents the same danger today as July 21, 2011“, on the eve of the double attack that he had carefully prepared, Hjetland argued. “His ideology remains the same, his aptitude for limitless violence is evident and his personality (…) further reinforces all these factors“, he said.

His isolation makes him “suicidal”

To justify the prison measures targeting Breivik, the state’s lawyer relied on reports from psychiatrists and guards attesting to his persistent dangerousness and tending to show that he still took responsibility for his crimes today. “Absolutely“, the extremist once replied to the question of whether “further terrorist attacks are necessary“.

On Monday January 8, his lawyer, Øystein Storrvik, requested a relaxation of the prison regime, affirming that his isolation made him “suicidal» and depressed. From the hearing on Tuesday, January 9, it emerged that Breivik had attempted suicide in 2020 by hanging himself with a towel but, state representatives argued, also taking care to warn the guards.