Anders Behring Breivik, who admits killing 77 people in twin Norwegian terror attacks on 22nd July, is to be released from solitary confinement while he awaits his trial. Police said last week that the decision has been made as they become more confident that he acted alone, although the 32 year-old right-wing extremists will still remain largely isolated.
“He will not be allowed to receive mail or visitors and he will have no access to media,” police prosecutor Christian Hatlo told AFP. “He will also be kept apart from other prisoners for his own safety,” he added.
The Norwegian has been kept in solitary confinement at the high-security Ila prison near Oslo since his arrest. Breivik referred to the isolation, which is usually only enforced for 12 weeks at a time, as “torture” at a custody hearing.
Police were originally concerned that Breivik could tamper with evidence and contact accomplices if he wasn’t kept on his own. “For every day that passes we are increasingly sure [that he acted alone]”, Hatlo said. “We have found nothing to suggest that accomplices exist, even though we refuse to definitively rule out the possibility,” he added.
The Norwegian-born extremists admits killing 69 people, most of them teenagers, at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoya Island shortly after setting off a car bomb outside the government offices, killing eight. In a ‘manifesto’ published online before the attacks, Breivik claimed he was crusading against the multicultural society of Norway and Europe.
He is expected to stand trial next spring.