Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer who killed 77 people in 2011, gave a Nazi salute in a Norway court Tuesday while arguing against his isolation in prison.
Breivik, who was sentenced to 21 years in 2012 for a central Oslo bombing and shooting spree at a Labour Youth camp, claims that his rights are being violated by the
"inhuman" conditions in prison, BBC News reported.
The 37-year-old right-wing extremist is fighting the Norwegian government over his solitary confinement and general conditions that include what he calls the excessive use of handcuffs.
According to Agence France-Presse, Breivik insists that Norwegian authorities are breaching two clauses of the European Convention on Human Rights, one which prohibits "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," and one that guarantees the right to respect for "private and family life" and "correspondence."
AFP stated that Breivik has been separated from the main prison population and his contact with visitors is strictly monitored. His mail is censored by prison officials to keep him from creating an "extremist network" while in prison, according to authorities.
Breivik has compared his prison conditions to "torture," the news agency said.
"[Breivik is] very stressed due to his isolation," his lawyer Oystein Storrvik told AFP. "One of his main things to do [in prison] was to study and he has stopped that now, and I feel that is a sign that isolation has been negative to his psychological health."
But Norway's office of the attorney general says that Breivik's prison conditions are "well within the limits of what is permitted" under its constitution.
"There are limits to his contacts with the outside world which are of course strict . . . but he is not totally excluded from all contact with other people," Marius Emberland, the lawyer for the state, told AFP of Breivik's contact with penitentiary staff.
Breivik will get a chance to address the court Wednesday with a judge expected to rule on the
charges in the following weeks, Reuters reported.