– This is a serious case under investigation, where there are very likely to be several victims. It is very good that the district court has given the police four weeks to work undisturbed with the case, says lawyer Sigrun Dybvad to Dagbladet.
Dybvad is an assistance lawyer for a woman in her 20s who is one of two victims after a Trondheim man in his 40s was arrested on Sunday, charged with raping two women.
In isolation
Trøndelag police district stated on Tuesday that they has been contacted by several women in his 20s who wants to report the man for sexual abuse, after local media reported the accusation. On the same day, he was remanded in custody in Trøndelag District Court for four weeks with a letter and visitation ban. For two of the weeks he is subject to complete isolation.
– I have 24 hours a day to ponder
The accused man, who is self-employed, has explained himself to both the police and the court. He does not understand the accusations and denies criminal guilt after the charge. According to NTB, his defender Kolbjørn Lium believes that the basis for imprisonment is weak, and requested that the client be released.
It was night until Sunday that the police moved out to a house in the center of Trondheim after reports of a party riot. A number of weapons and some drugs were found in the home. After this, the man in his 40s was arrested, and eventually charged with raping two women, in addition to possession of weapons and drugs.
Claims volunteering
The other victim is a woman, also in her 20s, who according to her explanation met in the nightlife neighborhood Solsiden on Saturday night.
ASSISTING INSULTED: Sigrun Dybvad is an assistance lawyer for one of the offended women. Here from a trial in 2013. Photo: Ned Alley / NTB
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The woman and several others went home to the man, where, according to him, they had voluntary sexual intercourse. The party ended when the police showed up on Sunday night, and the woman reported him for rape later in the day.
– It surprises me extremely that allegations are made about this, the self-employed man explained in court.
Dybvad’s client has had a close relationship with the accused, and the police assume that he has raped her one or more times. She was interrogated on Sunday night, with the assistance of a lawyer.
Exonerated for eight of nine rapes
– We have had contact last night. She has it, the conditions taken into account, relatively good, Dybvad told Dagbladet on Tuesday.
– More likely
The district court believes that there is a great chance that the accused man would have tried to forfeit evidence if he had not been imprisoned, for example by contacting and influencing the two offended women and others.
“It is more likely that the accused has subjected the two victims to rape, than that it is not,” the court writes, and thus chooses to keep him detained for four weeks while the police investigate the case.
Dagbladet has not succeeded in getting a comment from the accused’s defender Kolbjørn Lium on Tuesday night.
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