Chief of Police Beate Gangås in Oslo asks the Police Directorate to review Sjøvold warning – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
Saturday revealed VG how the current PST chief Hans Sverre Sjøvold’s handover of weapons was started in a conflict at the weapons office in the Oslo police district.
Sjøvold was chief of police in Oslo from 2012 to 2019. In June 2020, he was fined NOK 50,000 for illegal possession and possession of three firearms for several years.
Sjøvold approved the fine. He explained that he received the weapons as a “friend service” from a widow in Vestfold after her husband died in 2008.
Threats and pressure
A former employee at the weapons office in the Oslo police district is said to have told the Special Unit for Police Affairs that in 2015 he refused to accept unregistered weapons that originated from Sjøvold.
Sjøvold was at this time chief of police in Oslo. The weapons did not come directly from Sjøvold himself, but via a colleague at the weapons office.
The employee is said to have explained that in both 2015 and 2016 he notified his managers of what he thought was an illegal handover of weapons. This is said to have led to threats and pressure from colleagues and superiors. He is today 100 percent before.
VG writes that in August last year he was paid almost 1.2 million kroner from the Oslo police district in exchange for resigning.
– The caseworker did nothing wrong. He just did his job, says former deputy police chief Sveinung Sponheim to VG.
Sjøvold tells VG that he did not know about the compensation case or that the former employee is now disabled.
According to the same newspaper, the Special Unit for Police Cases concluded that “evidence in the case with particular force speaks against Sjøvold having committed a criminal act against employees in the police district”.
Among other things, they pointed out that Sjøvold was never in direct contact with the whistleblower at the weapons office.
Requests external review
After receiving questions from VG about how the notification case was handled, Chief of Police Beate Gangås in Oslo now asks that the Police Directorate review the Oslo police’s handling of the case.
– There are learning points in this case for the Oslo police district, Gangås writes in an e-mail to the newspaper.
She does not want to be interviewed by the newspaper.
Gangås writes that the case was treated as a notification case from May 2020, but that there is a need for “further reinforcement and awareness in the processing of notification cases”.
– I see that the notification case should have been followed up in accordance with the notification routine after the summer, in addition to the follow-up in the personnel track, Gangås writes.
NRK has not succeeded in getting in touch with Beate Gangås for a comment.
Kristin Monstad is district director of NRK and married to Hans Sverre Sjøvold.