Anders Behring Breivik isn’t being kept in inhuman conditions after all.
An appeals court has ruled Norway did not violate mass murderer Anders Breivik’s human rights by being held in isolation.
Breivik, an anti-Islam neo-Nazi, killed 77 people in Norway in July 2011. He killed eight people using a bomb, before gunning down 69 people at a youth meeting of the then-ruling Labour Party.
“The Borgarting Court of Appeal has determined that Anders Behring Breivik is not, and has not been, subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment,” the court said in a statement.
“Breivik is not, and has not, been subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment,” it said.
The 38-year-old right-wing extremist will file an appeal against the verdict to Norway’s highest court, the supreme court, his lawyer Oystein Storrvik announced immediately after the ruling was published.
In April 2016, an Oslo district court stunned survivors and families of the victims when it found the Norwegian state guilty of treating Breivik “inhumanely” and in “degrading” fashion, in breach of article 3 of the European convention on human rights.
Strict conditions for Breivik, who has no contact with other inmates and has not repented for the attacks, were justified because there was a “high risk” that he would use violence in future and because other prisoners might attack him, it said.
Survivors and relatives of the 77 dead welcomed the verdict after denouncing last year’s ruling as a perversion of a Convention that starts with the sentence “everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law”.
