Mass killer Anders Breivik says life in prison is 'inhuman'

Mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has called his treatment in prison "inhuman" and "degrading".

The killer, who is serving 21 years in jail for the 2011 killing of 77 people, is suing the Norwegian state over his treatment.

Breivik is being held at a high-security facility in Norway and court documents said he has access to three cells – one for living, one for studying, and a third for physical exercise.

He also has access to a television, a computer without internet access and a games console, and that he was able to prepare his own food and do his own laundry.

A hearing will be held at the Skein prison, where the 37-year-old killer is being held, later this month.

Norway's attorney general has defended the conditions applied to Breivik's detention.

According to a document submitted to the Oslo district court, authorities believe "the measures which have been applied to the plaintiff ... are well within the limits of what is permitted".

Breivik is not allowed contact with other inmates, but he interacts with guards and professional staff.

"There are limits to his contact with the outside world which are of course strict - it pretty much has to be that way - but he is not totally excluded from all contact with other people," Marius Emberland, the lawyer who will defend the state at the hearing, told AFP.

Breivik's lawyer Oystein Storrvik claims his client has been suffering from "clear isolation damage".

Storrvik said in another document submitted to the court that "the only visit from a non-professional (in the first two years of Breivik's sentence) was that of the plaintiff’s mother" just before she died of cancer.

Breivik also accuses the state of not respecting "his private and family life ... and his correspondence".

Authorities say the restrictions are necessary to prevent Breivik from building up an "extremist network" outside the prison.

Breivik murdered eight people in a bomb attack on 22 July 2011. He then went on to kill a further 69 people when he opened fire on the island of Utoya.

He was sentenced to serve 21 years in jail in August 2012.