This is stated by police lawyer Cecilie Gulnes in the Oslo police district to TV 2.
The old rape report has been updated after the Oslo police found it almost by chance in connection with the new investigation of the Baneheia case.
A woman reported Jan Helge Andersen (41) in 2009 for a rape she believes he committed once in the years before the Baneheia murders in 2000.
Got 200,000 kroner
The case was quickly dropped by the Agder police district because they thought Andersen must have been under 15 years old and thus could not be punished.
At the same time, the woman became awarded NOK 200,000 in compensation for victims of violence. The Compensation Board for Victims of Violence, which made an independent assessment of evidence, thought it was “Clearly probable” that the rape had taken place.
For Viggo Kristiansen’s (42) defenders, who for years tried to get Kristiansen’s case reopened, the rape case was unknown until recently.
– GAVE THE MESSAGE: Last summer, lawyers Arvid Sjødin and Bjørn André Gulstad visited their client Viggo Kristiansen in Ila prison for the last time. Photo: Frode Sunde / TV 2
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The prosecution has stated in all years that they have no information that Andersen ever abused children or adults before the Baneheia murders.
Kristiansen’s defenders believe that the rape report puts Andersen in a new light, and that it thus also has great significance for the Baneheia case. They therefore react strongly to the fact that it has not been known before.
Had to contact Agder
When Kristiansen’s case was reopened in February last year, the Oslo police took over the investigation. It then took eight months before they came across the rape report.
The reason is that the Agder police in April 2009 gave the case status as protected.
– Usually, settled cases against a person come up in our case processing system. We can go in and read settled cases in this case processing system, explains police attorney Gulnes.
– Shielded cases must be actively searched for in another system, and we do not get access to the case documents. When we discovered this case, we asked the Agder police district for access and got it, she says.
The fact that a case is screened means that only selected police officers have access to the case documents.
– Totally illogical
On Sunday, TV 2 was able to report that it was police attorney Ingrid Thorsen in the Agder police district who dropped the case in 2009.
Then she was the cohabitant of the then crime boss Arne Pedersen, who also led the Baneheia investigation. Today they are married. Pedersen, who is retired, still believes firmly that the verdict against Kristiansen was correct.
– HENLA CASE: Police attorney Ingrid Thorsen, pictured here in 2012, was Arne Pedersen’s cohabitant when she dropped the rape report against Jan Helge Andersen. Today she and Pedersen are married. Photo: Tor Erik Schrøder / NTB
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The last month has Attorney General Erik Erland Holmen, Chief of Police Kjerstin Askholt and The head of the readmission commission, Siv Hallgren everyone told TV 2 that they think the rape report should have been known to the actors in the Baneheia case.
Kristiansen’s defenders, lawyer Arvid Sjødin and Bjørn André Gulstad, have called the case a scandal and suspect the Agder police of deliberately keeping information about the rape report hidden.
Pedersen has clearly rejected that accusation.
– No one would decide to do that, because the report is registered with a case number in the criminal record, which both the police and the public prosecutors have access to. And the case is still in the register even if it is closed. Every experienced criminal lawyer knows this, he writes.
– BACK: In the spring after the killings, Jan Helge Andersen was at the scene to reconstruct the incident. Photo: Police
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Pedersen says he only found out about the report from 2009 when the Oslo police found it.
– It is also totally illogical that the police should have an interest in withholding the case from 2009 against a perpetrator convicted of his participation in the crimes in Baneheia.
Had access
Police attorney Thorsen has explained to TV 2 that she did not inform the Joint Criminal Unit, of which colleague and cohabitant Pedersen was the leader, about the rape report when she dropped the case in 2009.
Thorsen himself worked at the section for serious violence and sexual abuse, which was part of the Joint Criminal Unit.
– We neither thought, nor had reason to think, that this case should have any relevance in relation to the specific evidence and conditions for criminal guilt in the Baneheia case, she explains.
– BATHING PLACE: Here, at the 3rd stomp in the popular hiking area Baneheia, the two girls bathed the night they were killed. Photo: Terje Frøyland / TV 2
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From the Oslo police, TV 2 is nevertheless informed that Pedersen was one of those who were given access to the case when the Agder police gave the status that shielded.
Police attorney Gulnes makes a reservation that she has not seen the physical case file – only that which has been sent electronically to the Oslo police.
According to Gulnes, Pedersen is not directly involved in the case, and she can not see that he himself has produced any documents in it.
“However, it appears from the case processing log that Pedersen is one of those who was given access to the case when the case was screened on April 6, 2009”, she writes to TV 2.
“Furthermore, it appears from the log that the case file was taken to Pedersen on 5 November 2009 and from Pedersen to another location on 23 November 2009,” Gulnes writes.
The letters of resignation that Thorsen has sent to Andersen and the woman who reported him, are dated 19 November 2009, ie while the case file according to the log was with Pedersen.
“I emphasize that we do not know if the physical case file has actually been with Pedersen,” Gulnes writes.
– No practical significance
When asked how common it is to shield decided criminal cases, Gulnes answers that today it is unusual, but that it can occur.
At the same time, she emphasizes that she cannot answer what was the practice in another police district 13 years ago.
– AFTER THE FINDING: Detective Chief Arne Pedersen (in the middle) led the press conference after the two girls were found dead. Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB
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Ex-crime boss Pedersen responds to this in an e-mail to TV 2:
«Oslo pd has no overview of the local case routines in the Agder police district 13 years ago, but has nevertheless chosen to give some comments on the routines in Agder which obviously only contribute to new speculation. The case routine in Agder may be answered by the police district management. “
“I will only note that the registered criminal cases in Agder were not shielded for me in the computer system due to my role as the police chief’s department head. But it had no practical significance in my role as leader because I did not have the capacity to monitor whether matters were shielded or not. These were internal routines. “
The Chief of Police: Only in exceptional cases
TV 2 has asked Agder’s police chief Kjerstin Askholt about their routines for shielding decided criminal cases today.
Askholt refers to the national instruction for the police case processing tool for criminal cases.
It states: “The shielding shall be lifted as soon as the need ceases, and at the latest when the case is decided. Only in exceptional cases can cases to be archived be kept protected. “
– OPENED: Chief of Police Kjerstin Askholt in Agder police district stated earlier this month that the police should inform the prosecution about the abuse charges against Jan Helge Andersen. Photo: Frode Sunde / TV 2
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The national instruction that Askholt refers to was first introduced in 2017.
Beyond this, the chief of police does not want to answer questions about the rape report from 2009 or specific questions to shield the case.
“As I have previously conveyed, there is a desire that the investigation of the Baneheia case in the first instance be given as much calm as possible until the work is completed in Oslo,” she writes.
TV 2 has asked police attorney Thorsen questions about shielding the case. She does not want to comment on this.
When the prosecuting authority has made a final decision in the Baneheia case, Askholt opens up for an external review of the Agder police district’s work with the case.
“The Agder police district’s handling of the” 2009 case “is part of this, and we therefore do not wish to comment on details about this,” she writes.
– Unworthy attention
Kristiansen’s defense counsel is very critical of the fact that the 2009 case has not been known before.
– That this case is shielded in the registers, can only mean that one has tried to keep the information hidden. I do not think we would ever have known this if the case had not been transferred to the Oslo police district, says lawyer Sjødin.
He justifies the accusations by saying that the Baneheia case is “the largest and most high-profile case in the Agder police district ever”.
– I note that Arne Pedersen had access to the shielded case and at the same time I think it is completely unthinkable that he was not informed or found out that Jan Helge Andersen was charged in a rape case against a minor girl a few years after he led the investigation, says Sjødin.
If the 2009 case had been made known to the prosecution immediately, Sjødin believes that Kristiansen would have had his case reopened already in 2010, when the Reopening Commission rejected his first request for reopening.
Pedersen does not want to respond to the accusations from Sjødin beyond his previous rejection that he has deliberately kept the 2009 case hidden.
– It is totally pointless to have any kind of factual dialogue with the attitudes and the agenda he has in the case, and I do not intend to contribute to such unworthy attention in the media, he says.
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