Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity, is set to be transferred to another prison, the Norwegian Correctional Service (KDI) announced in a statement on Tuesday.
Breivik will be moved from the Skien facility where he has been held since 2013 to Ringerike prison, some 90 kilometers northwest of the capital Oslo, “in the near future,” KDI said. The reason behind the relocation is that the convicted killer is apparently tired of serving his sentence in the same ward for almost a decade.
The service added that it couldn’t have been more specific about the timetable due to “security and privacy reasons.”
The transfer has been “under consideration for a long time,” the KDI said, explaining that it was necessary because “the convicted person had served the sentence in the same ward with a particularly high level of security for many years, and – for that reason – a change of environment would be appropriate.”
Breivik, who was referred to in the statement as “the person convicted in the July 22 case,” will get the same strict incarceration conditions at Ringerike as he had at Skien, the service assured.
On July 22, 2011, the far-right extremist killed eight people with a truck bomb in Oslo and another 69 in a mass shooting at a youth camp on the island of Utoya. Incidentally, his new prison will be located about a 30-minute drive from Utoya.
During the trial, Breivik insisted that he was a hero, who carried out a “pre-emptive attack against traitors” he said were planning to commit “cultural destruction” of Norway. He’s also displayed a Nazi salute in court on numerous occasions.
He was sentenced to the maximum term of 21 years for his crimes, with the judges being able to extend his time behind bars if he’s still deemed to be a threat to society.
A week ago, Breivik’s bid to be released on parole was denied, with the court saying that ten years in prison didn’t change the 42-year-old and that he still “appeared to be devoid of empathy and compassion for the victims of the terror.”