A Norwegian court is hearing a government appeal against a ruling that the isolation of the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is inhumane and violates his human rights.

The 37-year-old rightwing terrorist, who killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in 2011, sued the government last year, saying his solitary confinement, frequent strip searches and the fact he was often handcuffed during the early part of his incarceration violated his human rights.

The Oslo district court ruled in April that Breivik’s treatment in the maximum security Skien prison did breach the European convention on human rights.

It said: “The prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment represents a fundamental value in a democratic society. This applies no matter what – also in the treatment of terrorists and killers.”



It ordered the government to pay Breivik’s legal costs of 331,000 kroner (£35,000). However, it dismissed his claim that his right to respect for a private life was violated by restrictions on contacts with other rightwing extremists.

Speaking for the state, Fredrik Sejersted said the government’s view was that Breivik’s prison conditions did not violate his human rights in any actual or legal sense.

Describing Breivik as Norway’s most expensive prisoner, Sejersted said that “in many ways they are better than [those] of other prisoners to compensate for the fact that he cannot make contact with other inmates.”

“That is far from violating human rights,” he said.

Breivik made a Nazi salute as he walked into a courtroom on Tuesday, as he did at the start of his human rights case last year. Judge Oystein Hermansen asked him not to repeat the gesture, saying it insulted the dignity of the court.

“It also disturbs what we are dealing with here, so I ask you not to repeat it,” Hermansen said.

Breivik was convicted of mass murder and terrorism in 2012 and given a 21-year prison sentence that can be extended for as long as he is deemed dangerous to society. Legal experts say he is likely to be in prison for life.



Breivik is being held in isolation in a three-cell complex where he can play video games, watch TV and exercise. He has complained about the quality of the prison food, having to eat with plastic utensils and not being able to communicate with sympathisers.

The government has rejected his complaints, saying he is treated humanely despite the severity of his crimes and that he must be separated from other inmates for safety reasons.

Breivik had carefully planned the attacks on 22 July 2011. He set off a car bomb outside the government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people and wounding dozens. Dressed in a police uniform, Breivik then drove to the island of Utøya, about 25 miles (40km) away, where he opened fire on the annual summer camp of the leftwing Labor party’s youth wing. Sixty-nine people were killed, most of them teenagers, before he surrendered to police.

At the time of the attacks, Breivik claimed to be the commander of a secret Christian military order plotting an anti-Muslim revolution in Europe. He now describes himself as a traditional neo-Nazi who prays to the Viking god Odin.

The massacre shocked the Scandinavian country and many feel Breivik has had too much attention and visibility.

The gym of the Skien prison where the appeal hearing will be held. Photograph: Lise Aaserud/AFP/Getty Images

The appeal opened on Tuesday in a makeshift courtroom in the gym of Skien prison in southern Norway. Six days have been reserved for the hearings before the Borgarting court of appeals hands down its verdict.