Anders Behring Breivik: ‘Government is trying to kill me’

Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011, has told a court the Norwegian government is trying to kill him by holding him in isolation but his Nazi ideology has helped him survive so far.

The 37-year-old has sued the government, insisting that his prison conditions are “inhuman” and violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

The government disagrees, noting that Breivik has access to three cells and the right to receive visitors and communication with the outside world — except for other extremists, who could be inspired by his “poisonous” ideology.

“It would have been more humane to shoot me than to treat me like an animal,” Breivik told a court hearing in the gym of Skien prison, where the trial is being held for security reasons.

Breivik was convicted of terrorism and mass murder for his attacks on July 22, 2011. He killed eight people with a car bomb in Oslo’s government district and shot 69 others, mostly teenagers, dead in a massacre at a summer camp for left-wing youth activists on Utoya island.

He was sentenced to a 21-year term, Norway’s maximum sentence, which can be extended for as long as he’s considered a danger to society, most likely for the rest of his life.

In court he described himself as a die-hard national socialist.

Reading from a prepared statement, he accused the government of trying to drive him to suicide by keeping him isolated. He said he drew strength from principles he had learned from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

“Those principles are the only reasons that I am alive today,” Breivik said.

“I don’t think most people would have survived as long as I have.”

Prison psychiatrist Randi Rosenqvist testified that she found no signs that Breivik had suffered serious mental health problems due to his isolation.

“Everyone has headaches from time to time,” she said, adding that could be remedied with painkillers and water.