16 years in prison for killing his pregnant wife in front of the children – Document

A man in his late 20s from the Congo has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for the murder of his own wife in Stjørdal.

The prison sentence is one year longer than the prosecutor requested.

The killer, who was also a wife abuser according to the court documents, met his future victim and future wife in a refugee camp in Uganda, where they married and had their first daughter in 2019. The murder victim had also fled the Congo.

Later that year they came to Norway as quota refugees, and in 2021 had a son.

The murder victim was pregnant when she was killed with a chef’s knife in front of her own children on 23 August last year. The killer was aware of the pregnancy.

At sentencing, it appears that the Trøndelag District Court does not regard the 16-centimetre-long baby boy who was killed together with his mother as a living human being.

– Punishment must be determined for one murder and two cases of gross abuse in close relationships, the judgment states.

The killing was assessed as intentional, not premeditated.

The defendant was convicted of one count of murder and two counts of mistreatment by allowing the children to watch their mother bleed to death in front of them.

After consultation with a native language teacher in Værnes, the woman called the municipality’s refugee contact shortly before the murder to get help arranging new housing for her and the children. The municipal employee offered a place at the crisis centre, but the woman declined and thought she should get through the weekend. They agreed to talk again on Monday.

The following day, she was killed with four stab wounds to the face, neck and throat.

An audio recording of the entire incident, which the murder victim himself recorded on his mobile phone, was played in court.

The short distances in the apartment’s living room and kitchen area, the children’s howls and screams on the audio recording and, moreover, the blood trace examinations from the crime scene and the children’s clothes and shoes, leave no doubt that both children were in the immediate vicinity of [domfeltes] knife attack on [drapsofferet]writes the court.

While the wife was still alive, the killer took the children with him and drove to the police station, where he reported:

In his legal statement, he said he saw no reason to help [drapsofferet] or call an ambulance when he passed her on the stairs, as her life was beyond saving.

The woman died even though paramedics arrived at the scene just minutes after she had been found unconscious in the building’s exit by a neighbour.

The children are now looked after by an aunt and grandmother who live nearby, both originally from the Congo.

They are both strongly influenced by what happened and show this through regression in functioning. Both have major challenges in day-to-day life in the nursery school. Among other things, they have challenges in social interaction with other children, and an abnormally large need for sleep during the day. [Den yngste sønnen] had the traumatic experience before he had a developed language, with the additional challenges this can entail for the stress response system, writes the court and is based on witness interviews.

– I am satisfied that the court has delivered a thorough and good judgment. The court has fully followed the prosecution’s statements and arguments, but has taken a more serious view of the criminality of the act. We take note of that, says the prosecutor in the case, State Attorney Rikhard Haugen Lyng, to Adresseavisen.

The Congolese, who has not finished high school, was sentenced to pay nearly five million kroner in damages to his own children.

The verdict was announced today and is not yet legally binding.