Baneheia Case - Challenges To The Conviction

Challenges To The Conviction

Viggo Kristiansen has always maintained that he had no involvement in the murders. No technical evidence has ever been presented against him, and the murder weapon has never been found, despite extensive searches. The only piece of evidence tying him to the crime scene was Andersens testimony which was questionable and weak at best.

A hair that was found on the scene where two girls were killed, did not match the police or the search party that was on site. There is thus still a mystery who the hair belongs to, since it also did not match any of the victims or the accused. The defense-attorney of Kristiansen, argued during the trial of the killings, that the hair strand came from an hitherto unknown assailant.

Additionally, some experts have claimed that phone records show that Kristiansen could not have been in the vicinity at the time of the murders, although this is disputed.

In 2008, Kristiansen filed a motion to re-open his case. The process involved DNA-testing of original biological samples stored at Santiago de Compostela-institute in Spain, and the Forensic institute in Norway. Material that had been reported dispatched by Norwegian authorities. The first samples gave a positive DNA-profile from Jan Helge Andersen, but no match from Kristiansen. The second samples gave no match from either suspects.

In 2010, the motion was denied by the authorities, stating that the case was not sufficient for re-opening. Kristiansen appealed this to the Supreme Court of Norway in February 2012, his lawyers hoped that he would be granted a new trial. In that case evidence that was not considered during the first court proceedings could be submitted. Viggo Kristiansen has famously argued that new evidence would acquit him.

On March 27 the supreme court rejected his appeal, which effectively exhausted his chance of acquittal in Norwegian courts. He has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.