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Mass killer Anders ­Breivik gets ­thousands of letters each month from a band of sick ­supporters.

The Sunday Mirror can reveal prison chiefs in Norway have had to assign five guards to ­handle fanmail sent to the neo-Nazi, who was jailed for 21 years this week for the murder of 77 ­people.

Most of the letters are from fanatics who agree with Breivik’s vile view that the killings canbe justified in the ­fight to stop ­Muslim ­immigration. Some are feared to have come from British-based supporters linked to the English Defence League, with which Breivik has ­admitted having ties.

One of Breivik’s ­lawyers, Vibeke Hein Baera, who has been visiting him in prison every week, said: “He gets many, many ­letters every day from around the world.” She said he replied to as many as he could.

Breivik is being held in Oslo’s Ila Prison where it is costing £12­million a year to keep him in solitary ­confinement.He has been given access to a laptop, his own treadmill and writing ­materials to help ­finish his ­autobiography. He plans to use the book to disclose details he hid from ­police.

The move is likely to heap more misery on his surviving victims and the relatives of those he killed.

On July 22 last year, Breivik detonated a huge, homemade ­fertiliser bomb at an Oslo ­government building which killed eight people. He then shot 69 at a ruling Labour Party youth camp on Utoya Island.

After Friday’s verdict was ­delivered, Brievik smirked and ­apologised for not killing more.

A judge ruled he was sane and should go to prison – but under Norwegian laws he could be out within 10 years.

Yesterday, his stepfather said he hoped Breivik spent the rest of his life in jail. Tore Tollefsen, 75, said: “It is incomprehensible that a healthy human being would do something so terrible. He should remain in prison.”

Breivik’s legal team ­revealed new details of his behaviour after he was ­sentenced. Geir Lippestad said: “He said he was pleased with the sentence. Then he simply asked to go back to prison and said, ‘Thanks for all your help.’”

Meanwhile, a survivor of last year’s massacre said he wanted to visit Breivik in jail.

Adrian Pracon, 22, who hid under the dead bodies of his friends during the rampage, has made an official request to police to talk to the killer face to face.

He said: “Life has been a living hell and meeting Breivik is the only way I can stop feeling this agony inside me. Meeting him is the only way I will be able to sleep soundly at night again.”