The Orderud murders – Complete scandal

LILLESTRØM (Dagbladet): In Whitsun 1999, the parents and sister of Per Orderud were shot and killed in the kår housing on Orderud farm in Romerike.

Three years later, his son Per, his then wife Veronica Orderud, her sister Kristin Kirkemo and the now deceased Lars Grønnerød were convicted of complicity in murder. They have finished serving long sentences.

No one has been convicted of the murder itself.

In 2018, Per Orderud submitted a petition to have the case raised again before the legal system. The 68-year-old has always denied having anything to do with the murders.

“A scandal”

– We submitted the request for reopening to the Commission for the reopening of criminal cases in the summer of 2018, says private investigator Tore Sandberg.

He characterizes the Readmission Commission’s treatment as a scandal.

– The way Per Orderud has been treated is a complete scandal, and not worthy of the rule of law.

– After two years – in 2020 – we were promised an answer. We have still not received a response to the petition, says Tore Sandberg.

sorry

– It is regrettable that so much time has passed, and it is understandable that questions are being raised about the processing time, says Acting Chair of the Commission, lawyer Trude Marie Wold.

She explains the unusually long proceedings as follows:

“It is a very extensive case with a large amount of case documents and there have been regular requests for investigative steps that the commission must carry out. The commission also depends on external parties to carry out many of the investigations and we have to wait for the work they do. Another point is that the commission has had many large cases for consideration at the same time and it is also important that all parties have their say on the work being done. All in all, this takes a lot of time, but the commission also has a desire to have the cases decided long before five years have passed.”

– The revolver could be the murder weapon

– The Commission understands that criticism is directed at the processing time, and as mentioned, this is not a desirable situation. We have limited resources, but we utilize our resources as well as possible, says Wold.

“Not sustainable”

Former Minister of Justice Odd Einar Dørum is seen as the “Father of the Readmission Commission”.

– We established the commission in 2004. Now the commission will be evaluated and assessed. It seems obvious to me that the commission needs more resources, says Dørum to Dagbladet.

The former justice minister points out that the commission has had large and difficult cases to consider in recent years – including the Baneheia case.

– It is obviously not tenable that Per Orderud has waited for almost five years to get an answer to his petition for reinstatement, says Odd Einar Dørum.

No understanding

Tore Sandberg has no understanding that the commission has not been able to come up with an answer to Per Orderud.

– It is indecent, we are not talking about a bicycle theft. We are talking about Norway’s most talked about and most serious triple murder. Per Orderud was imprisoned for 14 years. Now the commission has spent five new years without reaching a decision. It is not understandable, says Tore Sandberg.

Last autumn, the commission visited Orderud farm again.

– When we criticized the commission, we were told that it was not appropriate or usual for the commission to give information along the way, says Tore Sandberg.

– We then made written contact with all commission members, and asked if they supported such a method of treatment. We have not received an answer from any of them, says Tore Sandberg.

A few weeks later, Per Orderud nevertheless received a briefing from the commission’s head at the time – Siv Hallgren.

New witness

– In 2019, we found a new witness, who we immediately notified the commission about. The woman said that she had been in a working relationship with an ex-Yugoslav in Copenhagen. According to the witness, the man had said that in 1999 he had been present at a villa on a farm some distance outside Oslo, where three people were shot and killed. He himself had been standing guard when the murders took place. The commission waited for more than three years to contact the witness, says Sandberg.

The unknown “Orderud” sister comes forward

– One of the investigators for the commission then made a report, and established that the ex-Yugoslavs had been imprisoned in Germany when the murders of Orderud took place, therefore the witness statement was disregarded, says Sandberg.

Legal certainty

The problem was – according to Tore Sandberg – that it was not the same ex-Yugoslav that they had warned about.

The ex-Yugoslav has still not been identified by the commission, and naturally not questioned.

– I have had 10 serious sentences in the judiciary converted into acquittals. In the extension of the legal scandal in Baneheia and the Birgitte Tengs case, and the commission’s processing time of the Orderud case, it is clear to me that the Norwegian legal system is not working, says Tore Sandberg.