UPDATED: A young British woman who attacked a Norwegian government minister with a cake during Saturday’s Pride Parade in Oslo was ordered jailed for four weeks on Monday. Norway’s police intelligence unit PST has asked that she be held in custody even though Minister Solveig Horne, in charge of policy involving children and equality, was not injured.
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported Monday that Horne was the target, according to PST, of an “attack on democracy.” Signe Aalling, a prosecutor at PST, said the alleged cake attack falls within PST’s jurisdiction and within the responsibility PST has for protecting government officials.
“This involves a foreign citizen and we want a quick judgment,” Aaling told NRK. She noted that the defendant, a woman in her early 20s, can face a prison term of up to 10 years.
Motive unclear
NRK reported that PST (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste) has attempted to question the woman, who faced a custody hearing. “I have no comment on why she did it (the cake attack), it’s not especially common,” Aalling said.
The charged woman’s defense attorney, Kaja de Vibe Malling, said her client was in Oslo over the weekend to visit friends. She denied the woman planned to throw a cake at the government minister.
“I have spoken with her, she has not admitted doing this,” de Vibe Malling told NRK. “This is regardless not something that was planned. She was just here to visit friends.”
De Vibe Malling also told her client that she has no reason to fear a 10-year jail term, based on court precedent in Norway. The only other well-known cake-attack in Norway involved a man who did indeed throw at cake 10 years ago at Norway’s finance minister at the time, Kristin Halvorsen. He was sentenced to just 30 days in prison.
Parade set new records
Horne’s ministry confirmed there was an “incident” tied to Horne’s participation in the Pride Parade on Saturday that attracted record-high numbers of both participants and spectators. Organizers reported that at least 30,000 marched in the parade while police have estimated the crowd size at as much as 160,000 people.
Horne declined to comment in more detail on the alleged cake-throwing incident, telling NRK that she felt “well-taken-care-of” by the police, who had boosted the presence and preparedness in connection with Oslo Pride activities.
newsinenglish.no/Nina Berglund
