A Swedish court has sentenced a 57-year-old Norwegian man to three-and-a-half years in prison for hiding the body of his dead partner in the home they shared in Sweden’s Värmland region. His partner, in her 60s, was also a Norwegian citizen who apparently had died from cancer.
The couple were originally from Agder in Southern Norway but had settled on a small farm in Värmland. He kept her death secret and continued to collect her pension payments, opting to cut up and freeze her body instead. Investigators found her body parts in the freezer last spring, after her family had persisted with questions about her whereabouts and went to the police.
He was charged with fraud, mutilating a corpse, falsifying documents and violations of Swedish regulations when a death occurs. Prosecutors had sought a four-year jail term that the court reduced, but he was also ordered to repay just over NOK 1.5 million to the Norwegian state welfare agency that also handles pension payments (NAV).
The defendant had admitted to what the court called “shameful handling” of a dead body but denied pension fraud. He had, however, continued to withdraw money from her bank account until earlier this year. He also claimed in court that his partner isn’t dead and that they still communicate through telepathy. He was nonetheless determined to be capable of standing trial.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
