From alleged abuse within Norway’s Ingebrigtsen sports family to a Sami uprising and various high-profile murder cases: Norwegian courts have conducted a rush of court cases this spring. Now they’re wrapping up before the summer holidays, and here’s a rundown of the action:
Gjert Ingebrigtsen, who’s coached his well-known offspring to numerous victories in track and field events around the world, was recently all but acquitted on various charges of child abuse and domestic violence. His most famous son, runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and a daughter had accused him of both verbal and physical abuse and were supported by various other siblings after their family feud went public.
Their mother Tone Ingebrigtsen sided with their father, however, and he ended up with just a 15-day suspended sentence (for one case of slapping his daughter with a wet towel) after a lengthy trial in the Rogaland county court. Sports commentators claimed he was otherwise acquitted in practice, but warned that he could still face problems ahead in his work coaching other athletes. Gjert Ingebrigtsen has, for example, been denied accreditation at athletic events and will continue to be, according to the Norwegian sports federation Friidrettsforbundet.
On Monday came news that state prosecutors won’t appeal the county court’s decision. They acknowledged that the court had “a different evaluation” of the case against Gjert Ingebrigtsen after his seven-week trial, and his defense attorney called for “peace on both sides” and for everyone to get back to work on their “athletic presentations.” Ingebrigtsen’s daughter said she was “surprised and disappointed” by the prosecutor’s decision to drop the case.
Norwegian Sami demonstrators, meanwhile, have won more support from the Supreme Court. It declared late last week that they can’t be punished for occupying or blocking entrances at the finance- and energy ministries in Oslo a few years ago, while protesting the government’s failure to abide by a Supreme Court decision that wind turbines disturb reindeer grazing.
The high court upheld earlier rulings that the Sami had a right to protest and that their protest actions were within the realm of the law. “In this case the demonstrators acted peacefully and correctly, their actions were no more disturbing than necessary to get across their message,” wrote the court, adding that arrests made were “unnecessary.”
Neither the government nor police were within their rights to physically remove the demonstrators. Several Sami activists also refused to pay fines they were issued, which was also within their rights, according to the Supreme Court.
An investigation has been launched into how police handled complaints filed by a young man in Hønefoss, Jonas Aarseth Henriksen, who was the target of vandalism, harassment, threats and violence over a long period of time. Henriksen was later found murdered, after being lured into what prosecutors viewed as a trap.
Henriksen had filed a total of 14 complaints with police in Hønefoss over six months in 2023, but felt he was never taken seriously. Despite Henriksen’s own video-taping of prowlers around his home, vandalism to his vehices and spray-painted threats around town, police never tracked down the source of, or the reason for, the harassment. I August 2023, Henriksen answered a call for a job at the hytte, where he was later found shot to death.
Two men were later convicted for Henriksen’s death, with the man who shot Henriksen sentenced to 13 years in prison and another 14 years for having ordered what police said amounted to an execution. The motive, according to prosecutors, was apparent jealousy over a short relationship Henriksen had earlier had with the girlfriend of the man who ordered his death.
A former doctor in the small community of Frosta in Trøndelag, central Norway, has appealed his conviction and 21-year jail term for sexually assaulting scores of his patients over a period of many years. Arne Bye had admitted to 21 of the assaults, defined as rapes with various objects at the doctor’s office, and 44 cases of misuse of his position during his three-month trial, but is now retracting his testimony as well.
The appeal means his victims, all women who had no other medical alternative in Frosta, will need to endure another trial and undergo further questioning in court. Bye’s defense attorney, Frode Wisth, told state broadcaster NRK that Bye “is appealing everything he was convicted of.” That includes 70 rapes and 82 cases of misusing his position on the public payroll to attain sexual gratification.
Bye also lost his license to work as a doctor in the county court’s ruling. He’ll have three new defense attorneys handling his appeal, meaning all will need to review the videos of his medical examinations that he taped himself. His patients view that as yet another invasion of their privacy, and that the appeals trial itself will add to their trauma. Bye’s former defense attorneys had earlier accepted a jail term of between 17- and 18 years.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
