Norway in court defends treatment of mass murderer Breivik
SKIEN, Norway (AP) — Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a 2011 rampage, is in touch with fellow right-wing extremists from behind bars, a government attorney said Wednesday, arguing that Breivik must be held in solitary confinement.
Attorney General Fredrik Sejersted spoke during the Norwegian government's appeal against a court decision that ruled Breivik's isolation in prison violated his human rights.
Officials maintain the 37-year-old right-wing extremist is still dangerous and must remain isolated from inmates in the high-security prison in Skien, 135 kilometers (85 miles) southwest of the capital, Oslo, where the appeals case was being heard in a makeshift gym.
Breivik sued the government last year, arguing that his solitary confinement, frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed in the early part of incarceration violated his human rights.
[...] Sejersted told The Associated Press that Breivik is still "very deeply engaged in his political right-wing, extremely neo-Nazi project" — after the July 2011 bomb attack at government headquarters where eight people died, followed by the Utoya island shooting spree where he shot and killed 69 other people.