Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik slams prison food, praises Hitler in court speech

Skien, Mar 17: Norway's worst mass killer pledged allegiance to Nazism, compared himself to Nelson Mandela and complained about being served cold coffee and microwaved food as he testified on Wednesday in a trial over his prison conditions.

Anders Behring Breivik, 37, accused the government of trying to sap his will to live by isolating him from other prisoners and denying him mail correspondence with other right-wing extremists.

"This is inhuman treatment," said Breivik who killed 77 people in 2011 in a bombing in Oslo's government district and a shooting massacre on Utoya island, where the youth division of the left-wing Labor Party had gathered for its annual summer camp.

Testifying in a prison gym temporarily used as a courtroom, Breivik was given three hours to explain why he thinks his human rights have been violated in a prison system widely seen as among the world's most lenient.

He said the government had abused him through 885 strip searches, frequent handcuffing and restrictions on pen pals and visitors. His long list of grievances included being served microwaved food and having to eat it with plastic utensils.

But he also used his first chance to speak to an outside audience since his 2012 criminal trial to declare himself a pure "national socialist," or Nazi.

After the attacks he had described himself as a commander of a Christian militant group, which investigators found no trace of. Throughout his rambling speech, Breivik's focus was on himself, his political views and the perceived injustices he faces in prison, not on the lives he took and the families he destroyed.

"This is a waste of time. He has nothing to complain about," said Freddy Lie, whose teenage daughters were on Utoya when Breivik attacked. One of them died and another was seriously wounded.

Lie, the only family member of a victim attending the trial in Skien prison, said the judge should have stopped Breivik from making "irrelevant" political statements.

Norwegian authorities insist Breivik has the same rights as any other inmate to challenge his prison conditions. Judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic repeatedly urged Breivik to speed up his monologue to the court, but didn't stop him from describing his ambitions to lead a fascist party from prison.

Though he refrained from doing a Nazi salute, like he did on the first day of the trial, Breivik explained how he became a Nazi at age 12 and how Adolf Hitler's teachings helped him endure his isolation in prison.

AP