The two former comrades had close and extensive contact with each other in the hours and days following the assaults and murders in Baneheia on 19 May 2000. This despite the fact that Jan Helge Andersen not only himself experienced that Kristiansen would kill him if he did not participate in Baneheia- the actions. In court on Friday, Andersen claimed that Kristiansen had also threatened to “go following” his family if he went to the police.
The threat once morest the family did not appear in the original investigation in 2000, but is a claim Andersen made when he was questioned in 2021 in connection with the new investigation once morest him.
It emerged when state prosecutor Andreas Schei continued his questioning of murder accused Jan Helge Andersen (43) in Sør-Rogaland district court in Sandnes. He confirmed the information to the prosecutor that he and Kristiansen apparently did normal and everyday things together in the days following the events in Baneheia.
Schei was surprised by the frequent and close contact, based on Andersen’s description of the threats he claims to be exposed to, and the fear of his former best friend’s ability and willingness to take both him and his family.
– I don’t know what I was thinking so long ago. I’ve tried to forget all that. What I feel and think is gone, Andersen said.
Holidayed together
* Friday 19 May, the day of the murder: They met shortly following the murders were committed and hung out until around midnight.
* Saturday 20 May: He went down to his mate once more. They hung out for a while and went for a walk to town, before going up to Baneheia to see the search operation.
* Sunday 21 May: The two friends met in Viggo Kristiansen’s hut in the morning before eventually going up to the bathing water the girls had been lured from.
* Summer 2000: Andersen had a few days off from his summer job and chose to go on holiday to Denmark together with Viggo Kristiansen. It was Andersen himself who booked the trip for the two of them, since he might get a better ticket price through the job.
– What is it – if you perceive that you are in a threatening situation and Kristiansen has made you do something so extreme once morest your own will – that makes you choose to go on holiday with him followingwards, asked Schei.
– I do not know. It just happened that way, Andersen replied.
Repeatedly, he gave similar answers as to why he had such close and close contact with the man of whom he was allegedly terrified and who allegedly threatened him in the worst way. In his explanation on Thursday, Andersen maintained that he was put in a situation where he had to kill or be killed himself.
Pearl friends
Andersen and Kristiansen became friends when they were so young that they both had to be in prams, according to Andersen’s explanation. They grew up in the same neighborhood in Kristiansand and found each other, among other things, through their interest in military things and activities. They stayed very close together all the time from then on – until Andersen told a police officer in autumn 2000 regarding the Baneheia murders and his best friend’s alleged leading role.
Andersen explained on Friday that Kristiansen was the leader in the relationship between them, and that he himself was someone who allowed himself to be led. It was a distribution of power in the relationship Andersen reportedly lived with. According to an interrogation in 2000, he had never been threatened in any way by Kristiansen before the day of the Baneheia murder.
– We were like cat and mouse. By that I mean close friends, unfriended and then become close friends once more, Andersen said in the interview.
He maintained on Friday that his mate was seen as a quarrelsome and “very intimidating” type of person by those around him, and that he himself had been “warned once morest going with him”. Nevertheless, they were together “all the time”.
– I overlooked a lot of that and instead chose to see the good in him, Andersen said.
Sexualized data findings
When the police searched Andersen’s home during the renewed investigation in 2021, mirror copies of the contents of his computers were taken. On the copies, the police found deleted images and texts which they believe are illegal because they sexualize children.
Andersen confirmed that he had downloaded a lot of porn throughout, but maintained that he did not have a full overview of – or saw and understand – everything he had downloaded.
As for the images, the prosecution cannot prove that Andersen has acted with intent – that is, that he deliberately downloaded images that he understood or had to understand were in violation of Norwegian legislation. Fragments of deleted texts that should include children were also found, as well as one short story describing abuse. This case has not been fully investigated.
The pictures were nevertheless not shown in court because defender Svein Holden intervened and showed that Andersen had no criminal intent. He also questioned whether there is so far any information that Andersen had acted with intent when the text ended up on his computer.
Andersen himself claimed that he had copied texts from websites and pasted them into documents on the computer without having read them first.
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2024-04-19 17:53:34
