Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

JULY 22ND

Norwegian court told Breivik as dangerous now as a decade ago

Anders Behring Breivik, who is seeking conditional release just 10 years after carrying out Norway's deadliest peacetime attack, poses the same danger to society as a decade ago, a psychiatrist said in court Wednesday.

Published: 19 January 2022 14:25 CET
Far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.
A psychiatrist said Wednesday that Breivik, pictured in court in 2016, poses the same danger to society as he did a decade ago. Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP

A psychiatrist has said that terrorist Anders Behring Breivik poses the same danger to society as he did a decade ago on the second day of his parole hearing. 

“The risk of future acts of violence has not changed since 2012 and 2013 when I did my first evaluations,” Randi Rosenqvist, who has conducted several assessments of Breivik over the past decade, told his parole hearing.

READ MORE: Breivik seeks parole from Norwegian court decade after July 22nd attacks

Neo-Nazi Breivik was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, which can be extended as long as he is considered a threat.

He has argued at his parole hearing that he has distanced himself from violence and wants to be released after serving the minimum court-ordered 10 years.

Breivik still suffers from “asocial, histrionic, and narcissistic” personality disorders, Rosenqvist told the Telemark district court. She was speaking on the second day of the hearings, which for security reasons are being held in the gymnasium of the Skien prison where he is incarcerated.

On July 22, 2011, the far-right terrorist set off a truck bomb near the government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before killing 69 others, mostly teens, at a Labour youth wing summer camp on the island of Utøya.

The testimony by Rosenqvist, the only psychiatrist called to the bar during the parole hearing, is considered key in determining whether Breivik will be paroled, which most experts believe very unlikely at this stage.

Breivik sat calmly throughout Wednesday’s hearing, but shook his head at times while Rosenqvist was speaking.

His request for early release has upset families of the victims and survivors, who feared he would use the hearings, broadcast live by several media, to spread his ideological propaganda.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

CRIME

Norway says terrorist Breivik still poses risk of ‘unbridled violence’

Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right terrorist who killed 77 people in 2011, still poses a risk of "totally unbridled violence", the Norwegian state argued Tuesday in a lawsuit over his prison conditions.

Published: 9 January 2024 14:52 CET
Norway says terrorist Breivik still poses risk of 'unbridled violence'

Breivik has sued the state, claiming his extended isolation is a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhumane” and “degrading” treatment.

Now 44, he has been held apart from other inmates in high-security facilities for over 11 years.

The trial, which opened on Monday, is being held for security reasons in the gymnasium of Ringerike prison where Breivik is serving his sentence.

More than 12 years after committing the bloodiest attack on Norwegian soil since World War II, Breivik still poses “an absolutely extreme risk of totally unbridled violence”, the state’s lawyer Andreas Hjetland told the court.

On July 22nd, 2011, Breivik set off a bomb near government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before gunning down 69 others, mostly teens, at a Labour
Party youth wing summer camp on the island of Utoya.

He was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, which can be extended as long as he is considered a threat, which was Norway’s harshest sentence at the time.

“Breivik represents the same danger today as on July 21st, 2011,” the eve of the twin attacks he prepared meticulously for years, Hjetland said, citing
assessments written by psychiatrists and prison wardens.

“His ideology remains the same, his aptitude for unlimited violence is evident and his personality… further reinforces all these factors,” he said.

On Monday, Breivik’s lawyer Oystein Storrvik had asked for an easing of his client’s prison conditions, claiming that they had made Breivik “suicidal” and depressed.

Citing another article of the Convention on Human Rights that guarantees the right to correspondence, Breivik has also asked for an easing of restrictions on his incoming and outgoing letters.

In 2016, Breivik sued the Norwegian state on the same grounds, with a lower court ruling in his favour before higher courts found in the state’s favour. In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed his case as “inadmissible”.

SHOW COMMENTS