Norway Mass Murderer Anders Breivik Wins $40K In Human Rights Case Against Norwegian Government

UPDATE: 11:11 a.m. EDT – The verdict in favor of Anders Breivik’s human rights case upholds the humanity owed to all people, Bjørn Ihler, an activist and one of the survivors of Breivik’s massacre on a youth camp in Utoya, Norway, wrote in a tweet posted to his unverified Twitter account Wednesday. A Norwegian court had ruled in favor of Breivik earlier that day in a case in which the convicted murderer alleged he had been mistreated in prison.

Original Story:

Anders Breivik, the Norwegian right-wing extremist who murdered 77 people, including dozens of children as young as 14 years old, in a massacre in 2011, won a case Wednesday against the government for violations of his human rights in prison. He was awarded 330,000 Norwegian krone, or approximately $40,542, to pay for his legal fees. Breivik accused the government of inhumane treatment for naked searches, isolation and not allowing him to receive visits in prison from fellow far-right extremists.

The court upheld some of his claims and ruled them "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," such as the naked searches, with the verdict reading in part, "The prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment represents a fundamental value in a democratic society. This applies no matter what — also in the treatment of terrorists and killers."

Government lawyers dismissed some of Breivik's claims concerning the limitations on whom he was allowed to correspond with and receive visits from. Breivik openly says he hopes to start a fascist movement from prison, and authorities asserted that they were well within their power given by the European Convention on Human Rights to bar Breivik from seeing fellow extremists in order to prevent him from creating a militant network from his cell.

Breivik set off a bomb outside a government office in downtown Oslo in 2011 and went on to shoot and kill dozens of adolescents who were attending a summer camp for left-wing youth on Utoya Island. He dressed in a police uniform to gain access to the camp and to confuse the campers, many of whom mistakenly ran toward him, thinking he had come to their rescue. "You are going to die today, Marxists," he reportedly said as he walked through the island, killing the campers who attempted to flee.

He is currently serving a 21-year sentence – the longest sentence possible in Norway – and it can be extended indefinitely.