Norwegian mass killer Breivik sues the state over 'extreme' isolation

The right-wing militant is serving a 21-year sentence for the killing of 77 people

Anders Behring Breivik is suing the state for allegedly violating his human rights. Reuters

Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is suing the state for allegedly violating his human rights due to his being held in “extreme” isolation and has filed another application for parole, his lawyer said on Friday.

In July 2011, the right-wing militant killed 77 people, most of them teenagers, in shootings and a bombing in Norway's worst peacetime atrocity.

Breivik, now 44, is serving Norway's longest sentence, 21 years, which can be extended if he is still considered a threat.

“He's suing the state because he has been in an extreme isolation for 11 years, and has no contacts with other people except his guards,” Breivik's lawyer Oeystein Storrvik told Reuters.

“He was moved to a new prison last year, and we hoped that there would be better conditions and that he could meet other people.”

Norwegian daily Aftenposten was the first to report about the case.

In 2017, Breivik lost a human rights case when an appeals court overturned a lower court verdict that his near-isolation in a three-room cell was inhumane.

Last year, a Norwegian court also rejected his parole application, saying he still posed a risk of violence.

Mr Storrvik said he expected the Oslo district court to hear the lawsuit next spring.