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BREIVIK

Prison plans to hire cell buddies for Breivik

The Norwegian prison where Anders Behring Breivik may be locked up for massacring 77 people last year will hire people with whom he can socialise, to keep him away from other inmates, media reported on Thursday.

Prison plans to hire cell buddies for Breivik
Ila prison director Knut Bjarkeid (Photo: Gorm Kallestad/Scanpix)

If jailed, Breivik could not have normal contacts inside the prison due to the risk of a hostage situation, Ila prison director Knut Bjarkeid told the Verdens Gang (VG) daily.

"Many of the measures surrounding Breivik are being created to avoid a hostage-taking, which would be the only way for him to get through all the different layers of security that have been established between him and freedom," he told the paper.

"That makes it impossible to allow normal contact with others," he added.

To avoid keeping the confessed killer in total isolation, the high security prison, north-west of Oslo, could let him play sports with the guards and hire someone to play chess with him, among other things, he added.

"We are planning a professional community around him, with employees and hired personnel," he told the paper.

Bjarkeid did not know how much the measures would cost.

Norwegian law forbids keeping prisoners in total isolation for long periods of time because it is considered an unduly cruel punishment.

On July 22nd 2011, the today 33-year-old right-wing extremist first bombed a government building in Oslo, killing eight people, before going on a shooting rampage on the nearby island of Utøya, where the ruling Labour Party's youth wing was hosting a summer camp.

He killed 69 people on the island, most of them teens.

Breivik has confessed to the twin attacks but has refused to plead guilty, insisting they were "cruel but necessary" to stop the ruling Labour Party's "multicultural experiment" and the "Muslim invasion" of Norway and Europe.

While he has been charged with committing acts of terror, the focal point of his ongoing trial is to determine the question of his sanity. That in turn will decide whether he will be sent to prison or a closed psychiatric ward.

A first court-ordered psychiatric evaluation conducted last year said Breivik was psychotic, suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia" and therefore not responsible for his actions. A second opinion however concluded that Breivik was sane enough to be held responsible.

If found of sound mind when the five Oslo district court judges hand down their verdict in July, he will likely face Norway's maximum 21-year prison sentence. That term can be extended for as long as he is considered a threat to society.

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BREIVIK

Norway mosque shooter ‘has admitted the facts’: Police

A Norwegian man suspected of killing his step sister and opening fire in a mosque near Oslo last weekend, has admitted to the crimes though he has not officially entered a plea, police said on Friday.

Norway mosque shooter 'has admitted the facts': Police
Philip Manshaus appears in court on August 12. Photo: Cornelius Poppe / NTB Scanpix / AFP
Philip Manshaus, 21, was remanded in custody Monday, suspected of murder and a “terrorist act” that police say he filmed himself committing.
   
Answering police questions on Friday, “the suspect admits the facts but has not taken a formal position as to the charges,” Oslo police official Pal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said in a statement.
   
Manshaus is suspected of murdering his 17-year-old step sister Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen, before entering the Al-Noor mosque in an affluent Oslo suburb and opening fire before he was overpowered by a 65-year-old man.
   
Just three worshippers were in the mosque at the time, and there were no serious injuries.
   
Manshaus appeared in court this week with two black eyes and scrapes and bruises to his face, neck and hands.
   
Police have said he has “extreme right views” and “xenophobic positions” and that he had filmed the mosque attack with a camera mounted on a helmet. He had initially denied the accusations.
   
The incident came amid a rise in white supremacy attacks around the world, including the recent El Paso massacre in the United States.
   
Norway witnessed one of the worst-ever attacks by a rightwing extremist in July 2011, when Anders Behring Breivik, who said he feared a “Muslim invasion”, killed 77 people in a truck bomb blast near government offices in Oslo and a shooting spree at a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utøya.