Mass murderer asks for parole
Anders Behring Breivik also files new lawsuit for improved prison conditions
Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB scanpix
Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik gives a Nazi salute inside a Norwegian courtroom in 2017.
THE LOCAL
Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway’s worst peace-time killing on the island of Utøya in 2011, has applied for parole, his lawyer said on Sept. 16.
Breivik also plans to file a new lawsuit against the Norwegian state regarding his conditions in prison, where he is kept apart from other inmates, lawyer Øystein Storrvik said.
In July 2011, disguised as a police officer, Breivik tracked and gunned down 69 people, most of them teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on the island of Utøya, shortly after killing eight people in a bombing outside a government building in Oslo.
He was jailed in 2012 to Norway’s then-harshest sentence, 21 years in prison, which can be extended indefinitely.
“In his name I have sent in a request for parole,” Storrvik told daily newspaper VG. “He has the right to a legal review for parole at the end of the minimum period, which is 10 years in his case. It’s a right all convicts have and that he wants to exercise,” he said.
The lawyer also said Breivik plans to file another lawsuit against Norway to protest against “such a long period of isolation” in prison.
Breivik has previously filed a lawsuit against the state over his prison conditions, which he said were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights barring “inhumane” and “degrading” treatment.
After winning a partial legal victory in 2016, he has since been rebuffed by Norway’s higher courts and the European Court of Human Rights.
In Skien prison, Breivik has three cells each measuring 107 square feet, with outdoor views, and he can exercise, play video games, and watch television.
A support group for families of the victims contacted by news agency AFP had no comment on his parole request.
This article was originally published on The Local.
This article originally appeared in the Oct. 9, 2020, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.
