A Norwegian court on Wednesday rejected mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik’s request for early release from prison, the local media reported. TASR refers to Reuters. Breivik’s lawyer did not immediately comment on the verdict. At the same time, the court rejected Breivik’s second request for parole.
On July 22, 2011, the mass murderer committed the most serious crime in Norway’s post-war history. First he planted a bomb in the government quarter in Oslo – the explosion killed eight people. He later moved to the island of Utöya, roughly 40 kilometers northwest of Oslo. There, dressed in a fake police uniform, he shot dead 69 mostly young people who were at a summer camp of the youth organization of the Social Democratic Labor Party (AP). He justified the mass murder with right-wing extremist and Islamophobic motives.
In 2012, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison, at the time the most severe sentence in Norway. If Breivik is considered a threat to society, the court can extend it. Since then, he has been kept separately from other prisoners for more than 12 years. After serving the first ten years of his sentence, Breivik can apply for early release at regular intervals. He did it for the first time in early 2022.
According to prosecutor Hulda Olsen Karlsdóttir, he has not distanced himself from his radical political views and, combined with his narcissistic and antisocial personality traits, there is still a high risk that he will commit new acts of terrorism. She stated this in the second half of November during the final day of the court hearing in Ringerike Prison.
