Mass killer Anders Behring Breivik told a court on Wednesday that Norway was trying to kill him with years of solitary confinement, complaining of degrading prison conditions, including micro-waved meals that were “worse than waterboarding”.
Only his commitment to the Nazi creed had sustained him, said the man who murdered 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage in 2011 and is now accusing the state of violating his human rights. The government denies the charges.
In a long statement at the hearing in his prison’s gym, he said he found regular strip searches “bothersome and offensive”, felt isolated without visitors and grumbled about cold coffee and plastic cutlery.
The first day of the hearing had heard he had his own treadmill, PlayStation, spin bicycle and reclinable chair with integrated foot stool, and took part in the prison’s Christmas gingerbread-house baking contest. Lawyers for the government had said he also received newspapers, magazines, books, jigsaw puzzles, watched DVDs and listened to music. “The worst is isolation ... I am locked up 23 hours a day,” Breivik said, answering questions from his lawyer, Oeystein Storrvik on the second day of the proceedings.
“For five years the state has tried to kill me with this treatment ... It would have been better if they had shot me than treating me worse than an animal,” he added later.
He did not repeat a Nazi salute he made at the start of the four-day hearing, which had earned him a rebuke from judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic.
