Norway
Mass murderer Breivik fails with his application for release from prison
Anders Behring Breivik must remain in prison. Photo: Ole Berg-Rusten/NTB/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A decade after the atrocities in Oslo and Utøya, is Anders Behring Breivik still a threat to society? A Norwegian court has dealt with this question. The verdict is clear.
Right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is not released in Norway. A corresponding application by the Utøya murderer for parole was rejected, as the Telemark District Court announced on Tuesday.
The 42-year-old wants to appeal against it, as his defender Øystein Storrvik told the Norwegian broadcasters NRK and TV2. According to the unanimous verdict, the judges continue to consider Breivik to be dangerous. He has committed crimes that are unprecedented in Norwegian legal history and today represents the same ideological positions as in 2011. The court has no doubts that he is still capable of committing new serious crimes today.
Breivik murdered a total of 77 people on July 22, 2011. First, he detonated a car bomb in Oslo’s government district, killing eight people. He then massacred a summer camp run by the youth organization of the Social Democratic Labor Party on the island of Utøya. 69 mostly young people died. The crimes are considered the worst acts of violence in Norwegian post-war history.
At the time, Breivik named right-wing extremist and Islamophobic motives. In the summer of 2012 he was sentenced to the maximum sentence at the time of 21 years in prison with a minimum term of ten years. In contrast to a normal prison sentence, detention in Norway means something like an indefinite sentence: it can be extended every five years. It is unclear whether Breivik will ever be released from prison.
However, Norwegian law allows convicts to apply for parole after the minimum length of their sentence has expired. Breivik did that in September 2020. Two weeks ago, three days of hearings took place in a gymnasium that had been converted into a courtroom at Skien prison, about 130 kilometers south-west of Oslo.
The public prosecutor pleaded for rejection. Defense attorney Storrvik, on the other hand, proposed that his client be released on probation under the conditions of the criminal authorities. Breivik himself claimed to have renounced violence. But he was still a National Socialist. He also complained about his prison conditions. He has been in isolation for almost ten years.