Most of Breivik’s victims were teenagers attending a summer camp on Utoya island for the Labour Party’s youth wing
Just 10 years after carrying out the deadliest peacetime attack in Norway, right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik on Tuesday asked a court for parole, a request widely expected to be denied.
Wearing a black suit, white shirt and beige tie, Breivik, 42, appeared before the district court in the southern region of Telemark, convened for security reasons in the gymnasium of the Skien prison where he is incarcerated.
The families of his victims have expressed fears Breivik would use the three-day hearing, which is being broadcast live, as a stage to air his political views, and have called for him to be deprived of the attention he is seeking.
In 2012 Breivik, who killed 77 people during the massacre, got 21 years in prison, which can be extended indefinitely as long as he is considered a threat to society.
He had to serve at least 10 years before he could make his first request for conditional release.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik killed eight people when he set off a truck bomb near the government offices in Oslo, then gunned down 69 others, most of them teenagers, at a summer camp for the Labour party youth wing on the island of Utoya.
“As in any other state governed by the rule of law, a convict has the right to request conditional release and Breivik has decided to exercise this right”, his lawyer Oystein Storrvik told AFP.
But the hearing is seen as a test of Norway’s rule of law.
“He shall have the rights conferred on him by the rule of law. Not for his sake. But for ours. No terrorist should be allowed to change the way we are governed and the rule of law that applies to all Norwegian citizens.”
The verdict was overturned on appeal.
In the courts and in his communications, including those to AFP, Breivik has in the past claimed to have distanced himself from violence.
“He has in no way distanced himself from the mass killing he committed and which he considers totally legitimate.”
Ahead of the hearing, a support group for the families said it wanted to “encourage as little focus as possible on the terrorist and his message.”
The 2011 massacre has inspired other attacks, including that in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, as well as other foiled attacks around the world.
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Originally published as Decade after Norway massacre, Breivik seeks parole
