After the Oslo police took over the investigation of the reopened case of Viggo Kristiansen (42) in February last year, they have shown interest in several matters concerning Andersen that have previously been given little space in the case:
It gets TV 2 informed from several sources.
The arrests of Andersen and Kristiansen took place in September 2000, four months after the murders of Stine Sofie Sørstrønen (8) and Lena Sløgedal Paulsen (10) in Baneheia in Kristiansand.
Now the arrest of Andersen has become a topic in new interrogations with him. TV 2 is informed that the police have questioned several officers who participated in the arrest.
Before the coordinated arrests of Kristiansen and Andersen, they were both spied on for 24 hours, according to TV 2’s information. The officers who were spying on them were armed.
– Got handcuffed fast
At Andersen’s home, the police rang the doorbell and were shown into his bedroom. There lay the man accused of murder in bed.
One police officer says in interrogation that he saw a saloon rifle with a binocular sight set up next to the wall behind Andersen’s bed. The barrel on the weapon pointed upwards and should have been placed about 50 centimeters from where Andersen lay.
The policeman has subsequently said that he was happy that they went to work in cash and handcuffed him quickly, according to TV 2’s information.
– POINT OUT: It took four months from the killings to the arrest of Jan Helge Andersen (pictured) and Viggo Kristiansen. Photo: From the series «Baneheia, Kampen om Sannheten», Discovery / Monster
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Another officer who took part in the arrest has said in interrogation that the arrest was made within “a few seconds”.
Said gun part had been taken out
In new interrogations with the Oslo police, the rifle has become a topic.
The first time the weapon was taken for questioning last autumn, Andersen explained that during the arrest he was awakened by police storming into his room.
Andersen has said that he was “unsure whether this was the reason why he was told to hold out his hands”.
At the same time, the 41-year-old explains that the end piece of the weapon had been removed, which in that case would mean that it was not functional.
However, it is wrong, according to TV 2’s information.
In a later interrogation with the Oslo police, Andersen was confronted with the fact that the weapon was loaded. Both magazine and cartridges were in. It must be ammunition of caliber .22.
“Okay, it was a big roar”, Andersen answers confronted with this information, TV 2 is informed. He also says that he understands that the weapon could be perceived as a threat.
– Pass rifle!
Andersen remembers that one of the police officers exclaimed “pass the rifle behind the bed!” when he was arrested.
The 41-year-old repeats several times that he “can do better”, and that the weapon should not have been stored like this. He has no answer as to why the magazine and cartridges were in it.
– LEGAL INSPECTION: From this height, Andersen has explained that he and Kristiansen saw the two girls swimming in the 3rd lane Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB
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The police have wondered why Andersen had a loaded weapon close to where he was sleeping.
“The suspect had no intention of using the rifle against the police. He was relieved to be arrested. He also had no intention of using the rifle on himself “, it is stated in the police reproduction of the interrogation.
Andersen says that the rifle should be cleaned, but that it was only left up against the wall in case of an oversight. He repeats that through his background in the Home Guard he knows better than to store a weapon in this way.
Andersen’s defense counsel, Svein Holden, does not wish to comment on the information in this case.
No information about violence
The weapon is just one of several factors that the police in Oslo have paid attention to in the new investigation of the case, but which have not previously been given much space by the Agder police district or the public prosecutor in Agder.
– TAUS: Lawyer Svein Holden has to a very small extent commented on the new interrogations with Jan Helge Andersen. Photo: Ditlev Eidsmo / TV 2
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In May 2019, the Agder Public Prosecutor’s Office delivered a 63-page statement to the Reopening Commission, which at that time considered whether Kristiansen should have his case reopened.
There they write a lot about that they believe that Kristiansen had a deviant sexuality, that he has been convicted of an assault and that he had porn movies in his room.
The statement, which was written by Attorney General Eirik Erland Holmen, states the following about Andersen:
“There is no information that Andersen has previously abused either adults or children, or that he has behaved threateningly or violently. He is also not described by anyone as aggressive, sexually active or as particularly concerned with minor children.
The information about the loaded rifle – or the testimony of a school friend who says that Andersen as a youth must have said that he wanted to go to war to kill – is not mentioned.
Did not mention review
It is also not mentioned that in 2009, ten years before the public prosecutor wrote his statement to the Readmission Commission, he was reported for raping a minor girl.
The case, which was reported many years after the alleged rape, was dropped. The reason was that the Agder police believed that the incident, if it was punishable, must have happened while Andersen was under criminal age.
TV 2 has asked the Attorney General in Agder why they did not make the Resumption Commission aware of the information.
– As the case responsibility in the Baneheia case has been transferred from us to the Oslo Public Prosecutor’s Office, I must request that inquiries in the case be directed there, says Chief State Attorney Erik Erland Holmen.
Agder police district tells TV 2 that they do not find it appropriate to comment on the case before the Oslo Public Prosecutor’s Office has finished processing it.
Andreas Schei, who is the public prosecutor in Oslo and chief responsible for the new investigation of the case, will not comment on the information in this case.
Final phase
TV 2 has also asked the head of the Readmission Commission, Siv Hallgren, what she thinks about the fact that more information that the police are now concerned about was not mentioned in the police statement from 2019.
– Thank you for the question, but I do not want to comment on this beyond what may appear in the decision, she says.
These days, the Oslo Police District and the Oslo Public Prosecutor’s Office are in a final phase of the investigation of the Baneheia case. One of the last things that remains is to get answers very complicated DNA tests performed abroad.
The status is that the new investigation so far has revealed at least six new DNA hits on the victims that originate from Andersen. No technical traces have been found that link Kristiansen to the misdeeds.
Defender: Aware of the police
Kristiansen’s defense counsel, lawyer Arvid Sjødin, reacts to the information that has emerged through the Oslo police investigation.
– It seems more and more obvious that the police until today have withheld information about Andersen that would have affected the outcome of the trials and the time for reopening of the Baneheia case if it was known. It is absolutely necessary to get to the bottom of this, he says.
– If it turns out that the police have deliberately withheld information in the case, then they have not only violated the important principle of objectivity, but they are also directly responsible for the creation of a murder and have actively prevented the repair of this by opposing reopening the case.
– CRITICAL: Lawyer Arid Sjødin, here outside Ila prison when Viggo Kristiansen (42) was released in June last year, reaches out to the Agder police district. Photo: Frode Sunde / TV 2
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Sjødin believes that the Agder police have deliberately misinformed about several matters in the case.
– They did it to get Kristiansen convicted, despite the fact that there was no evidence of it, only because they “thought” he was guilty.
Confronted with the criticism, Chief of Police Kjerstin Askholt in the Agder police district says that she does not have access to the case documents as this has been sent to the Oslo Public Prosecutor’s Office.
– As I have said before, I therefore have no opportunity to familiarize myself with the case documents. It will also in principle be wrong to comment on details of our investigation before the Oslo Public Prosecutor’s Office has presented its recommendation, she says.
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