The short version
- Jan Helge Andersen left the courtroom when explanations from his late father were read out
- Andersen’s father explained in 2000, among other things, that he did not remember much about his son’s movements on the day of the murder
- Andersen has maintained that he and Viggo Kristiansen were both involved in the murders. In 2022, Kristiansen was acquitted of the crimes in Baneheia
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After an intense day and a half, Viggo Kristiansen finished testifying on Wednesday the case againstAndersen is accused of killing Lena Sløgedal Paulsen (10). Jan Helge Andersen.
Initially, it was planned that he should also explain himself on Thursday, but after running a little overtime on Wednesday, the actors said they were done with him.
Kristiansen was acquitted in 2022 of having something to do with the murders of Stine Sofie Sørstrønen (8) and Lena Sløgedal Paulsen (10).
On Wednesday, he was strongly pressed by Andersen’s defenders about old explanations and previous offences.
Jan Helge Andersen enters courtroom 1 in Sør-Rogaland district court wearing a burgundy red jumper and blue ola trousers.
He goes straight to the dock, where his defenders Celine Krogh Fornes and Svein Holden are sitting.
Then the court is set once again.
Holden announces that Andersen would like to be allowed to leave the room when the statement to his late father is to be read out.
He gets that.
The Baneheia case explained
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After that, he returns to the courtroom, when police officers from the Oslo police testify about the possible illegal material that was found on Andersen’s devices.
Subsequently, it is the old interrogations that become the subject of analysis.
Then follows a review of the timeline.
The hours in Baneheia
It is Police Superintendent Ole Fjørtoft in the Oslo Police District who presents the central timeline and witness movements on 19 May 2000.
He says that much of the information was gone when the Oslo police started the new investigation.
– We managed to find a map in a room in Kristiansand police station that had some post-it notes on it with witness movements, he says.
Fjørtoft says they therefore started from scratch with building routes in Baneheia, by going through and systematizing all the witness statements.
Interrogation analysis
Police chief and associate professor at the Norwegian Police Academy Ivar Fahsing takes his place in the witness box.
He has been asked by the prosecution to carry out a professional police assessment of the interrogations of Viggo Kristiansen that took place in 2000.
The mandate he was given was, among other things, to assess today’s and then’s interrogation standards, and compare how the police conducted interrogations of Kristiansen and Andersen.
Based on a presentation, Fahsing shows points where he believes the police probably did not ask enough or good enough questions to Kristiansen.
After objections from the defense attorney and defense counsel, Fahsing acknowledges that it is difficult to interpret everything that was asked based only on how the interviews were written down by the police.
He then goes into more detail about the interrogations that were taken after the arrest.
– My conclusion is that towards Viggo, the explanations from Jan Helge were presented as a conclusion, says Fahsing.
He says that the interrogations do not seem to produce any evidence other than Andersen’s explanation. Despite that, everything Kristiansen says is considered a lie, says Fahsing.
– Based on this, I think I can say that both the interrogator and the investigation management seem to have had an almost blind belief that Andersen’s confession was true, he concludes.
Fahsing thinks he can say that there was enormous pressure to make a confession. It is based on his own experience as a policeman, and practice at the time.
– There was personal prestige in this, he believes.
Computer trouble
After the interrogations have been read out, Jan Helge Andersen is back in the courtroom. Police officers are now scheduled to explain themselves via video link.
But the data problem that the Norwegian Police Directorate reported on Wednesday is still not quite right.
Police officer Christian Hørthe in the Oslo police district is able to connect, but the connection is interrupted.
He explains about the possible illegal abuse material that was found on Andersen’s devices during the Oslo police’s new investigation.
Andersen is not prosecuted for this today, and some of the material has already been disposed of. Andersen said during his explanation last week that he has not downloaded abusive material deliberately.
Hørthe says 47 images were found which they categorized as illegal.
– Whether the images themselves have been opened and viewed or not, I cannot say anything about based on the data I have available, says Hørthe.
Hørthe describes how the files were found on the devices, and which programs were used.
Illegal short stories
Police Superintendent Daniel Bing Andersen in the Oslo police district finally, after a break in court, gets into court via video link.
He gives a statement about the material that was found when the police mirrored Andersen’s devices during the new investigation.
Among the files the police found were 22 or 23 short stories that describe abuse and are defined as illegal.
These are still under investigation.
– Andersen has explained that he has cut and pasted texts, and I assume that is compatible with your findings, says his defender Svein Holden.
– That’s it, answers Bing Andersen.
Jan Helge Andersen’s defender
– Can you say whether more texts have been found that have been cut and pasted than the 23 you are talking about now?
– That’s it, says the police chief.
When asked how many there are, he says that he does not know.
Bing Andersen in the police explains how the files were found on Andersen’s PC, how they were created, and time stamps for when they were opened.
The fateful day
The interrogation of Andersen’s father that is read out is from 21 June 2000, i.e. before Andersen and Kristiansen were arrested in September of the same year.
The father explains what he himself did on 19 May, and what he remembers Andersen did.
Andersen has explained that he first visited Kristiansen at home after the murders, before he went home and showered, and then went back to Kristiansen.
Andersen’s father explained in the interrogation in June that he did not know whether Andersen had been elsewhere until he came home and showered.
He also did not remember when Andersen came home after being at Kristiansen’s, but knew that the two of them had been sitting on the stairs there for a long time.
The father had heard them, he explained, through an open veranda door that faces down towards Kristiansen.
Andersen’s father explained in the interrogation in June 2000 that he thought his son would intervene if he saw injustice.
He gave an example where Andersen spoke out when a boy in Heimevernsungdommen was bullied for stuttering.
But he did not know how Andersen would have reacted if Kristiansen had done something wrong.
The father described that Andersen and Kristiansen had been unfriended for periods, but that they became “best friends” again.
After the arrest
State prosecutor Johan Øverberg reads on from an interrogation taken on 21 September 2000, after Kristiansen and Andersen were arrested.
Then Andersen’s father said that Kristiansen had called his son more than normal.
He explained that he saw Kristiansen as “the boss”, and that Andersen hung up.
During his testimony on Tuesday, Kristiansen said that he disagrees with the impression that he was the leader between the two.
Andersen’s father said in the interrogation in 2000 that “it was completely incomprehensible” that he had managed to keep the misdeeds in Baneheia a secret from him.
The father thought he could count on one hand the number of times his son had lied to him, and that they had an open and honest relationship.
Also read: Psychiatrist: – How do you explain that?
The father was asked many questions about Andersen’s relationship with the military and the Home Guard Youth. What kind of knives Andersen had was also a topic.
The knife that was used to commit the murders in Baneheia has never been found.
The father was asked to describe Andersen’s attitude towards telling the truth. In the interrogation, he described his son as a “type who got a bad conscience”.
He used an example of vegetable slang, where Andersen as a child had unprompted admitted it to his parents.
It had happened many years before, and the father had no recent example.
The keys
On 19 May 2000, Andersen went out for running training with the Heimevernsungdommen in Baneheia.
The father explained in the interview in September that he thought his son had left home at 5pm.
About half an hour later, Kristiansen called and asked for Andersen because he had locked the keys to the house inside, the father explained.
Read background: The lessons of fate in Baneheia (from 2021This case was published in 2021, and therefore does not reflect developments in the case that have occurred since then.)
Maintained his explanation
Andersen explained himself last week, and his memory became a topic for the court-appointed expertsExperts who give their opinion in a court case on specific topics, such as mental health..
He is accused of killing ten-year-old Lena Sløgedal Paulsen.
The public prosecutor’s officeThe legal representatives who work for the state and who are responsible for prosecuting people accused of criminal acts. believes Andersen killed her with a knife on the evening of 19 May 2000 in Baneheia in Kristiansand.
They believe they can prove that he did it to cover up sexual abuse he had committed against her and Stine Sofie Sørstrønen
Andersen, for his part, has maintained his explanation that there were two of them about the murders, and that the other was Viggo Kristiansen.
Unsolved
The murder of the ten-year-old has remained unsolved since Viggo Kristiansen was acquitted.
Andersen left the Court of AppealA higher court in Norway that hears appeals against judgments from the District Court. in 2002 sentenced to 19 years in prison for the assault and murder of Stine Sofie Sørstrønen and complicity in the rape of Sløgedal Paulsen.
He was acquitted in the district court for the murder of Sløgedal Paulsen.
He was released from prison at the end of 2015. If he were to be convicted again, he could be sentenced to a new term behind bars.
Also read: The murders in Baneheia: This you must know
How much one remembers, 24 years later, has been a common thread throughout both Andersen’s and Kristiansen’s explanations.
They have both said they do not remember more questions, and relied on old explanations.
Andersen suggested that he might have memory problems, which the court-appointed experts rejected.
VGs The crime podcast follows the trial closely.
You can hear their reflections on Kristiansen’s days in the witness box via VG+ or on Podme.
