In February 2021, a black car drove at least 180 kilometers per hour on the E6 through Østfold.
In the car sat the driver, a man in his 30s, and his then wife.
The journey ended with the car crashing into the rear end of a red car at Grålum in Sarpsborg.
The driver has now been sentenced to ten years in prison for attempted murder of both his wife and the woman who drove the red car.
He denied criminal guilt during the trial and has announced that they are appealing the verdict.
Reveals the dramatic minutes
Coincidences
– The case has been difficult and stressful for my client, says Tore Øydne, assistance lawyer for the man’s ex-wife, to Dagbladet.
Elna Kristin Holbye is an assistance lawyer for the woman who was sitting in the other car.
– She was seriously injured in the accident. By chance, ambulance personnel were not far away, and were able to help her quickly. You would think that is crucial for her to live, she tells Dagbladet.
The injury the woman suffered has led to several sequelae, which means that she can still not be at work, according to Holbye.
– There are a number of things she is currently being rehabilitated for.
French police sounded murder alarm in Oslo
Holbye believes that the verdict is correct.
– Then it lies in the fact that we think that imprisonment, as the case was informed to the district court, is correct. The opposite – not getting an ordinary penalty, which could have been the case – we would have thought was wrong.
If the court had concluded that the man was insane, he would not have been sentenced to prison, but to compulsory mental health care.
– Disagree
The man’s defender has announced that they will appeal the verdict, because they do not agree with the district court that the convicted man was sane.
Much of the trial was about determining whether he was psychotic when the collision occurred.
– Why are you killing me?
After lengthy discussion, and despite the fact that the experts had concluded that he had acute psychosis, the district court decided that he could be sentenced to prison.
– But even though the district court assumes that the defendant was diagnosed with acute psychosis at the time of the action, the court has after a total assessment of the defendant’s functioning concluded that it is not reasonable and fair to exempt the defendant from punishment, the judgment states.
The convicted man does not agree with this, and takes the case to the Court of Appeal.
– He disagrees with the premises for the decision. He maintains that he was ill, and had a failure in his understanding of reality, said defense attorney Gaute Nilsen to NRK when the verdict fell last week.
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