A Norway court on Tuesday rejected a request for parole from neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik 10 years after he was convicted of killing 77 people in the country’s deadliest peacetime attack.
“There is a clear risk that (Breivik) will resume the behaviour that led to the July 22nd 2011 terrorist attacks,” said the court in Norway’s south-eastern region of Telemark, dismissing his request for conditional early release.
Breivik has never expressed any remorse for his twin attacks, and Tuesday’s ruling was widely expected.
His lawyer, Oystein Storrvik, told Norwegian media he would appeal the decision.
On July 22, 2011, the right-wing extremist set off a truck bomb near government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before heading to the island of Utoya where, disguised as a police officer, he shot dead 69 others, mostly teens, attending a Labour Party youth-wing summer camp.
He said he killed his victims because they embraced multiculturalism.
Now aged 42, Breivik was in 2012 sentenced to 21 years in prison, Norway’s then-harshest sentence which can be extended as long as he is considered a threat to society.
He was at the time ordered to serve a minimum of 10 years before he could request parole, which he did during a three-day hearing last month.
Speaking before the court, he gave his “word” that he had renounced violence and said he wanted to work for the neo-Nazi movement in a non-violent manner.
“We cannot assume that (Breivik) is now non-violent. His verbal assurances and his word of honour are of little value, even if he believes what he says”, the three judges wrote in their ruling.
– ‘Lex Breivik?’ –
While his chance of parole was minimal from the start, Breivik took advantage of his court appearances and the media attention they garnered to try to spread his ideological propaganda.
In her closing arguments, prosecutor Hulda Karlsdottir lamented that Breivik’s parole request was nothing more than a “PR stunt”.
His lawyer seized the opportunity to ask for an easing of Breivik’s prison conditions. He is kept apart from other inmates and has little contact with the outside world.
Prison officials and a psychiatrist who has observed Breivik for several years had told the court that he was as dangerous now as when he committed his attacks.
Breivik “appears obviously disturbed, with a world of thoughts difficult for others to penetrate”, the judges said, noting that “he has the same ideological basis today as in 2011”.
In theory, Breivik can seek parole again in one year, and he can continue to apply each year if his requests are rejected.
In the manifesto he published online just before carrying out his attacks, he wrote that court proceedings should be used to spread propaganda.
Throughout his hearing, he greeted the judges with Nazi salutes and held long ideological tirades on “white supremacy” and “culture wars”.
His court appearances have therefore been difficult for the survivors and families of the victims.
A former prosecutor general, Tor-Aksel Busch, has suggested that the period between parole applications could in some cases be extended.
“We need to have a judicial review but I can see that in some cases, such a procedure every year could be both offensive to people and not absolutely necessary,” he told legal journal Rett24.
Some judicial and political officials are however opposed to a “Lex Breivik”.
Norway’s prison system is aimed at rehabilitating convicts and reintegrating them into society, regardless of their crimes, and as a result Norway has made a point of treating Breivik like any other inmate.
