The Baneheia case: – Reported rape – pointed to “Bernhard”

SANDNES (Dagbladet): Three hours of critical questions from state prosecutors, public prosecutors and experts in psychiatry summarize the start of day five of the trial against Jan Helge Andersen.

Time after time, the 43-year-old was confronted with explanations from interrogations, allegations of poor memory and results from psychiatric examinations.

A report from 2009 was also taken up, when the new investigation against Andersen became the subject. A report by Andersen for an alleged rape which, according to the woman who submitted it, must have been committed several years before the murders of Stine Sofie Sørstrønen (8) and Lena Sløgedal Paulsen (10) in Baneheia in 2000.

– Hasn’t happened

According to the prosecutor and state attorney Andreas Schei, the alleged rape may have occurred before Andersen was over the criminal minimum age, i.e. before he turned 15. The report was partially hidden in the police computer system until the new investigation. On Tuesday, Andersen himself said that it came as a shock when he heard about the case.

– That has not happened, said the 43-year-old in court.

– Are you sure?, asked the public prosecutor.

– Yes, Andersen stated.

– The whole thing seems strange

However, the topic did not end there. Several questions were asked from the prosecutor’s side, including why it appears in the interrogation that Andersen is reasoning about the subject, if he is so sure that it did not happen.

– Even if you are sure that it hasn’t happened, you have to. The whole thing seems strange, Andersen explained.

The woman has recently received NOK 200,000 in victim compensation for the alleged rape. According to the law, the requirement for granting such compensation is that “the criminal act is clearly probable”. Andersen’s defender, lawyer Svein Holden, also followed up on the topic.

– She says in questioning that you were allegedly threatened to do this by someone called Bernhard?, asked the defender.

– I don’t remember any Bernhard, answered Andersen.

– A lot I don’t understand

Holden then read out parts of the woman’s interrogation, without this changing the 43-year-old’s memory. He maintains that he has never been close to, had contact with or been threatened by anyone named Bernhard.

– I don’t know what’s going on in her head […] There’s a lot I don’t understand, Andersen said.

Specialist in neuropsychology and expert in the case, Karin Susanne Nordby Johansen, also asked Andersen a number of questions about the review. The 43-year-old insisted that he believes the woman who reported him is lying.

– Why do you think that?, Johansen asked.

– I don’t know that, Andersen said.

– It surprises me that in your answers, you often answer that someone else has said or done something. What is your role in that, when you come back to the fact that it is not about you, but someone else who has done it to you?, the expert followed up.

– I do not know. I think it’s coincidence, replied the 43-year-old.

– A perfect result

Andersen’s memory has been a recurring theme throughout his testimony in court. In particular, questions have been asked about how something is remembered in detail, while a number of questions are answered that he does not remember. Expert Johansen followed this up during Tuesday’s questioning, and referred, among other things, to a test she had carried out at Andersen.

– I showed you fifty pictures that you had to look at, then you had to remember the pictures. Do you remember what you scored on that?, asked Johansen, without Andersen being able to give any answer to this.

According to Johansen, the result was described as perfect.

– You remembered 50 out of 50 pictures. What does that say about your memory?

– I don’t know, answered Andersen.