Three private rooms, as many budgies and an Xbox: the lawsuit brought by Anders Behring Breivik against the Norwegian state's prison regime details conditions that would make many prisoners envious.

Since 2022, Breivik has been serving his sentence in the high-security wing of Ringerike prison, on the shores of the lake that surrounds the island of Utoya where he killed 69 people, most of them teenagers, on July 22, 2011. 

Mere hours earlier, he had detonated a bomb in Oslo, killing eight others.

The 44-year-old right-wing extremist now has three personal rooms to himself: a living room, a study room and a small gym.

Breivik has access to a living room featuring a TV and video game console.Photo: AFP

On the floor below -- which he shares with another prisoner, though never at the same time -- he has access to a kitchen, a TV lounge with a games console, a dining room and a room for visits.

"Breivik has much more space than any other inmate in Ringerike prison," the facility's director Eirik Bergstedt told Norwegian news agency NTB in December.

Although the decor is relatively plain, the gym includes several exercise machines and the lounge has a large flat screen TV and several armchairs so he can play Xbox with the guards.

Despite these conditions, Breivik, who in 2012 was sentenced to 21 years in prison -- which can be extended indefinitely -- has taken the Norwegian state to court this week to protest against his prison regime.

In a tearful address to the court on Tuesday he said authorities are trying to "push me to suicide".

It is not the first time Breivik has used strong words to protest his conditions: in a letter to AFP in 2014, he threatened to go on hunger strike in prison if he did not get, among other things, a Playstation 3 instead of the older Playstation 2.

However, it is not the material conditions of his detention that he is protesting.

Held apart from other inmates in high-security facilities for almost 12 years, Breivik claims his extended isolation is a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits "inhuman" and "degrading" treatment. 

 A 'dungeon'

"They built a dungeon around me" to "wall me in", Breivik complained on Tuesday. 

"I'm not a hamster, I need real human relationships," he said.

Sleeping quarters in the prison Breivik is held at. Photo: AFP

He is not totally isolated, and in addition to his contacts with the guards -- with whom he can play cards, cook or share a meal -- Breivik is allowed to see a pastor, a physiotherapist, a psychiatrist and a Red Cross visitor with a dog that he can pet.

He himself ended contact with a visitor appointed by the authorities, but for one hour a week he is allowed to meet another prisoner, also carefully hand-picked, with whom he can socialise with, for instance with activities such as making waffles.

Mostly, these meetings take place around a table, which he calls "Putin's table", with several guards sitting between the two prisoners for security reasons.

'Budgies are better than nothing'

In addition to activities such as basketball, walks or visiting the prison library, authorities have given him three budgies to comply with his request for a pet.

"I had asked for a dog, a goat or a miniature pig with which you can make empathetic contacts, which can be a good substitute for people in isolation", commented Breivik, adding that "budgies are better than nothing."

Larger mammals "are not very practical in a high-security area", state lawyer Kristoffer Nerland retorted.

"Moreover, veterinary authorities might have something to say about it."

The small gym that Breivik has access to. Photo: AFP

On social media, some users have commented on the conditions of detention, comparing them to "a hotel" or "a palace".

"The Norwegian system is the way it is, but as a mother whose daughter he killed, it's hard to see him complaining with his nice flat," Lisbeth Kristine Royneland, head of a support group for families of the victims, told AFP.

Royneland who lost her 18-year-old daughter on Utoya.

"But at least he's behind bars and he'll never get out again," she added.