Spree killer Anders Breivik is claiming his human rights are being violated by keeping him in isolation for murdering 77 people on a Norwegian island in 2011.
Breivik, who angered the judge by giving a Nazi-style salute on his arrival in court, claiming it to be an “old Norse gesture”, was appearing for the first time since he was sentenced in 2012. He is claiming inhuman treatment by Norway, where he is serving 21 years for killing eight people with a bomb in Oslo and gunning down 69 people at a Workers’ Youth League (AUF) summer camp on the island of Utøya, many of them teenagers.
Through his lawyer, Oeystein Storrvik, Breivik is accusing Norway of violating a ban on inhuman and degrading treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights by keeping him isolated from other inmates in a special three-room cell.
“There is no tradition in Norway for this type of isolation,” he told the special court that will meet until Friday in a gymnasium at Skien jail about 100 km south of Oslo.
Opinions are divided among the survivors and relatives of victims who have spoken out publicly. Some have said the lawsuit is a joke and do not want to be reminded of 22 July, 2011, while one survivor said Breivik’s human rights should be respected.
“Breivik made us inhuman as victims of his actions and we’re in danger of falling into the same trap as him if we take away his human rights,” survivor Bjoern Ihler told Reuters in Oslo, at a court where the case was televised.
Norway rejects the charges of inhuman treatment.
“Breivik is a very dangerous man,” said Marius Emberland, the lawyer representing the state, defending Breivik’s conditions.
He explained Breivik had been given some opportunities for interaction with others, including meeting volunteers to play chess, but that he had declined.
Storrvik says he may eventually appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if Breivik loses.
