Viggo Kristiansen pressed for old police statements. Full argument in court.

SANDNES (Aftenposten): The defenders of Jan Helge Andersen went right down the throat of acquitted Viggo Kristiansen with their questions on Wednesday. Several times the judge had to calm down the parties in the courtroom.

In a blue jumper, jeans and with the same forward-leaning attitude over the witness box, acquitted Viggo Kristiansen (44) continued his testimony in the Baneheia case on Wednesday. Murder suspect Jan Helge Andersen had also worn a blue sweater and jeans. He sat three meters away from his former comrade, who had his arms crossed and often looked away from Kristiansen.

In 2002, they were both indicted for the murders in Baneheia, one of the most harrowing murder cases Norway has had. After serving over 20 years in prison, Kristiansen was acquitted in the case in 2022. And from the witness box today he attacked the police’s handling of his arrest on 13 September 2000.

– I had nothing to hide. I hadn’t been up there. The police tried to push me as hard as possible, he said.

And he believes that his comrade Andersen at the time was helped by the police to try to portray him as a scapegoat.

– Unfortunately, it took 21 years to show the truth, said Kristiansen.

– Didn’t think about the fact that I had been there

The two best friends Stine Sofie Sørstrønen (8) and Lena Sløgedal Paulsen (10) were raped and killed in Baneheia on 19 May 2000. Andersen admitted at the time to having killed the youngest girl. Now he is accused of having also killed the elder.

The prosecution believes he raped and killed both of them alone. He has denied that for all these years, and he still does. Andersen believes it was Viggo Kristiansen who carried out the murder of Paulsen. So that he was with Baneheia on the night the murders took place.

For Jan Helge Andersen’s defenders, Andersen’s testimony was very important. It is absolutely crucial in their job of trying to get Andersen acquitted of the murder. And there was an intense atmosphere in the courtroom and at times intense. Several times the judge had to turn to Kristiansen, who said there was much he did not remember and that much was speculation.

– I’m not sure if you answer as well as you can, said the judge at one point.

– Didn’t think about the fact that I had been there

The defenders wondered why Kristiansen, in the first round of questioning after the murders on 22 May, told the police that he had not been in Baneheia the Friday before. Nor did he say anything about this in the first witness interview with the police on 4 June 2000.

– For me, it was everyday fare to cycle through there. I didn’t think about the fact that I had been up there. It was everyday details. I hadn’t done anything wrong, Kristiansen replied.

Only in an interrogation on 14 July that same summer did Kristiansen admit that he had been in Baneheia on the night of the murder, 19 May.

They also wondered why Kristiansen, according to a witness, should have said that he spent the night with his own grandmother on the evening of 19 May.

– I can’t remember what I did in my childhood, Kristiansen replied.

At one point, the prosecution broke in and complained about the questions to the defense. Then one of the lawyers assisting the parents told the prosecutor and asked them not to interfere with what the defenders were asking about. Eventually the referee had to step in.

Eventually, Kristiansen was pressed on what he should have explained in the police interrogation and what he meant by several of the things he said in the interrogation in 2000. The defenders confronted him with the fact that several of the things he said were positively wrong, and wondered why.

Coming into previous judgement

They will also ask questions about Kristiansen’s previous criminal history. We are talking about two different things that happened for the murders in the year 2000: sexual assaults and intimidating behaviour. He was sentenced to nine months in prison for these in 2022.

One case concerns several sexual assaults against a girl who was seven or eight years old when the assaults were committed. Kristiansen has also admitted that he climbed onto the veranda of a neighboring woman several times and looked at her, most often when she was going to bed.

These cases are not connected with the Baneheia case. Kristiansen was between 15 and 17 when it happened.

In court on Wednesday, Kristiansen admitted that he was worried about this when he was drawn into the Baneheia case.

– I had committed an assault and looked at a woman, he said.

– I have not been my mother’s best child. I have made things up, which I later regret having done, he said.

On Wednesday, the judges decided that Kristiansen must explain the abuses behind partially closed doors. This means that the press may be present and make references, but that all other listeners must leave the courtroom.