Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, is again taking the Norwegian state to court to protest against his solitary confinement.
Unlike his previous public appearances, Brevik, his head shaved and wearing a dark suit and tie, refrained from any provocation as he arrived in the gymnasium of Ringerike prison, where the five-day trial began on Monday.
Held alone in a high-security section of the prison, the 44-year-old extremist, described by his lawyers as "suicidal and on antidepressants," believes his solitary confinement for almost 11 and a half years violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
On 22 July 2011, he first detonated a bomb near the government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people, then killed 69 others, mostly teenagers, by opening fire on a Labour Youth summer camp on the island of Utøya.
In 2012, he was given the then maximum sentence of 21 years in prison, with the possibility of an extension.
Since then, "he has remained in solitary confinement, and the more time passes, the more this constitutes a violation of the Convention," his lawyer, Øystein Storrvik, told French news agency AFP in October.
In the court documents, Storrvik argues that "the long period of isolation and lack of real interaction is now translating into (psychological) damage for Breivik, including the fact that he is now suicidal."
"He is now dependent on the antidepressant Prozac to cope with his days in prison," the attorney asserted.
The State, for its part, justifies Breivik's isolation - which it insists is only temporary - on the grounds of his dangerousness and the need to guard against the risks he poses to society, other inmates, guards, and himself.
