Should have been resumed 13 years ago – NRK Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
– My main conclusion was that there was no DNA evidence for Viggo Kristiansen, says Farmen.
She is an expert in DNA and has been an expert in several criminal cases. In 2009, she made a report on the Baneheia case on behalf of Kristiansen’s defenders.
– Was there DNA evidence for several people?
– DNA of the same type as Jan Helge Andersen was found, including a pubic hair at the crime scene. DNA findings of unknown origin had also been made, but these have clearly been checked out of the case.
Central to the case was DNA evidence, which was previously interpreted as evidence that it had to belong to the perpetrators. This view has now changed:
– In a total of nine of the samples taken from the girls, a DNA contribution in the form of a complete or partial profile, compatible with the convicted, Andersen, has been detected. No similar findings have been made in the case of Kristiansen, says Attorney General Jørn Sigurd Maurud.
Should have ended earlier
The conclusion the attorney general refers to comes from a Danish report that was drawn up two years ago. Farmen believes the findings in the Danish report are almost identical to what she said eleven years earlier.
– Do you have any thoughts that this case could have been closed earlier?
– Absolutely. After all, it has been eleven or twelve years since we came up with the first report, and it is many years to sit and wait for the case to be reopened.
Lawyer Sigurd Klomsæt represented Viggo Kristiansen when the case was requested to be reopened the first time. There are also commissioned reports from Farmen.
– It is obvious that Viggo Kristiansen has been wrongfully imprisoned in these years. It is not just that he has been in prison, he has had an extremely strict regime, he says to NRK.
Helen Sæter, who led the readmission commission when Klomsæt tried to get the case reopened, does not want to comment on this case.
In 2010 concluded the commission with the fact that new DNA analyzes did not help to weaken the evidence against Viggo Kristiansen, and therefore did not shed new light on the case.
Do not attach importance to the report
Farmen believes that the re-admission commission did not attach importance to her report in 2010, when the commission believed that nothing new came to light.
– We thought there were several new things.
She refers to the assessment of the DNA evidence, which she believes was overinterpreted the first time.
The farm also notes that the Spanish DNA experts who analyzed the biological material in 2000, reported an uncertain fun. This uncertain finding did not appear in court in 2001.
– If they had come forward and reported on those findings at the time, the pollution issue would have been addressed from the start, she says.
It is about the fact that the previous assumption that it had to be for perpetrators is probably due to the fact that the samples have been contaminated.
On Friday, State Attorney Maurud said that it has been proven contamination in two of the samples. This helps to strengthen the hypothesis that the results in the original samples may be due to the fact that they have been contaminated.
– There is no DNA evidence which establishes that Kristiansen is guilty, says the Attorney General.