Innocent in Baneheia murders?

Viggo Kristiansen. Arkivfoto: Photoline / SCANPIX

Author claims Viggo Kristiansen is innocent in Baneheia murders

Writer claims Viggo Kristiansen is innocent of the Baneheia murders

 

“Jan Helge Andersen raped and killed Lena Sløedal Paulsen and Stine Sofie Sørstrønen in Baneheia on Friday, May 19, 2000. Viggo Kristiansen was never a party to the deed ,” according to the author of the of the book “The murders in Baneheia” that was launched on Thursday.

In his book he writes that the explanations made by Kristiansen’s co-defendant  – Jan Helge Andersen – is “riddled by untruths and improbabilities”. Jahr has gone through the case complex and concludes that it was Jan Helge Andersen who raped and killed both girls. Kristiansen is innocent, he maintains to NTB.

– There was a made an impression of two men in place, but that is inncorrect. The only evidence that points to Viggo Kristiansen being involved comes from the explanation made by Jan Helge Andersen

– There were two stories, and they chose to believe in the one and reject the other, says Jahr.

– To me it is a mystery that Kristiansen could be judged, he says 15 years after the verdict was imposed.

DNA analysis

In addition to writing a book about the Birgitte Tengs case, Jahr during his time as a journalist in Kapital, Norway’s disclosed biggest fraud case: the Finance Credit case. That trial ended in a verdict against the two main defendants.

After reviewing the Baneheia case, Jahr believes there is a very significant uncertainty surrounding the DNA evidence that was presented in court – and that the cell phone evidence proves the opposite of what the court concluded with.

According to the DNA tests, the court ruled that Andersen and someone else, unidentified person had been present at the scene. This other person might have been Kristiansen, but it is impossible to guarantee this.

 

 

Recent analyzes substantiate the doubt about Kristiansen’s presence, says Jahr. There is nothing that places him on the scene – and the whereabouts of his mobile phone indicates that he was somewhere else, in his belief

–was somewhere else

– You on the one hand have very weak evidence and on the other one that is very strong. The police and the court have turned the evidence burden upside down, according to Jahr.

– The cell phone evidence indicates that he has been someplace completely else than the murder scene at the time. There can be no doubt about that. He has close to a base station near to his home while the girls were murdered somewhere that his cell phone could not register to,  Jahr states . He also claims that the police actively went into the interrogation of Andersen to make him change his original explanation and confess. Through the confession, the police had closed the child rape story and therefore a traumatized society had a long-awaited solutiion, according to him

Raped and then murdered

Eight years old Stine Sofie Sørstrønen and ten-year-old Lena Sløedal Paulsen were discovered raped and murdered in Baneheia near Kristiansand in May 2000. Two years later, two friends were sentenced to 19 years in prison and 21 years of enforced detention.

As Andersen confessed to the crime, he got a reduction in his sentence of two years, and avoided protective custody

Kristiansen still denies culpability and has on numerous occasions requested that the case be reviewed to no avail. In July this year he for the sixth time asked that his case should be reopened.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today