Police have paid Pakistani lawyer half a million

Euro chineseEuro bank notes. Photo: pixabay.com

A Pakistani lawyer has received a down payment of 52,000 euros, half a million kroner, to help Norwegian police in the investigation of the grocery chain Lime. So far without any results.

The newspaper VG writes that the lawyer was engaged to determine whether the defendant has assets in Pakistan which can be confiscated. They still haven’t got a performance report from the lawyer, and it is unclear what he has actually found.

–  A lot of money has left Norway, and we are sure that they are invested in assets in Pakistan. We had a hope that the lawyer would be able to determine this, since one of our objectives is to seize those values, public prosecutor Geir Evanger said.

In the autumn of  2014 the police took action against 20 stores in the Lime chain in Rælingen, Oslo,
Bærum, Asker, Sandefjord, Larvik and Ski, in a case that is referred to as the largest human trafficking case in Norway ever, with ten Pakistanis having been taken to Norway to work under very harsh working conditions.

One of counsels for the defence in the case, Mette Yvonne Larsen, said that paying an attorney for these kinds of services is unacceptable.

– There are two problems with this: There is a danger  that just because you pay so much in money in advance, the attorney will just give you the results you want to keep you happy, and besides and there is also a danger that the one you have paid the money to will just run away with the money, she points out.

The trial has now been in progress  since January this year and the verdict is not expected until April 2017.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today