By Gwladys Fouche
Terrorist mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has told a court that Norway was trying to kill him with years of solitary confinement, complaining of degrading prison conditions, including microwaved meals that were "worse than waterboarding".
Only his commitment to the Nazi creed had sustained him, said the man who murdered 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage in 2011 and is now accusing the state of violating his human rights.
The government denies the charges.
In a long statement at the hearing in his prison's gym on Wednesday, Breivik said he found regular strip searches "bothersome and offensive", felt isolated without visitors and grumbled about cold coffee and plastic cutlery.
The hearing was previously told that he had his own treadmill, PlayStation, spin bicycle and reclinable chair with integrated foot stool, and took part in the prison's Christmas gingerbread-house baking contest.
Lawyers for the government said he also received newspapers, magazines, books, jigsaw puzzles, watched DVDs and listened to music on a Discman.
"The worst is isolation ... I am locked up 23 hours a day," Breivik said, answering questions from his lawyer, Oeystein Storrvik on the second day of the proceedings.
"For five years the state has tried to kill me with this treatment ... It would have been better if they had shot me than treating me worse than an animal," he added later.
He did not repeat a Nazi salute he made at the start of the four-day hearing, which earned him a rebuke from judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic.
But he said he had been a follower of the Nazis' creed of National Socialism since he was 12.
"I read (Adolf Hitler's book) Mein Kampf when I was 14 ... Those principles are the only reasons that I am alive today."
Breivik shot dead 69 mainly young political activists at a summer camp on Utoya island after setting off a car bomb outside the prime minister's office in the centre of Oslo, killing eight people on July 22, 2011.
The killings were the worst atrocity in Norway since World War II, traumatising a nation that prides itself on its reputation for peace and safety.
Reuters
