Lie down in open cut

The contrast between the dry tone of the investigators and the anger of the accused It could hardly have been bigger.

– It’s a lie that he said no to the surveillance of the house, Laila Anita Bertheussen said in court on Thursday.

Preferably, you should not expose yourself to telling lies, if you want to be perceived as credible.

Prior to this, the head of investigation Kim Sæter had calmly explained whether the various measures that the Police Security Service would take to protect the house and car of the Minister of Justice against various attacks. He described in detail where and how many PST cameras he wanted to install in the house to secure the camera angles of the entire frame, and that they also wanted to put tracking and camera on the car. Sæter had to personally urge Tor Mikkel Wara repeatedly to respond to this query, saying that PST would invest large resources on short notice. They wanted surveillance and reconnaissance on television so they could catch the possible perpetrators. In a petition, the Oslo District Court gave the green light for surveillance, but the police had to obtain approval from the victims themselves. Bertheussen so na. She didn’t want it.

– The result was that we could only film in a public place and that we had to filter with a black square next to the house, says Sæter in court.

The rejection is suspicious. This happened in a situation in which there had been repeated attacks and threats against the Bertheussen Wara family. One of the strangest points about Bertheussen’s explanation is that she must have been upset and invaded by a blurred image of the house on a theater stage, but she was not afraid of physical attacks and threats against her own home. In any case, the latter seems much scarier to me and in such a situation I think I would have been willing to accept most of the security measures proposed by the police. It was not Bertheussen.

Can anyone else be left behind?

She herself claims that there was only one camera she said no to, in addition to monitoring the car. In court, she claimed this was out of consideration for neighbors, whom she would not give permission to monitor.

The problem of accusing the police of lying, is that the subsequent presentation of evidence will likely reveal whether it was Bertheussen or Sæter who spoke the truth. When the judge asked prosecutor Marit Formo if she had any questions or comments about Bertheussen’s accusation, she answered in the affirmative. But she would like to wait with them, until the prosecution “presents more documentation.” Then we can find out if it is PST or Bertheussen who is lying.

In any case, the dispute over security measures shows that the cooperation between the defendant and the police was tense even when she only had offended status in the case. It provided a bad starting point to catch the perpetrators.

A Bertheussen middle finger

Lies and interpretations It will also be essential in the future. PST explained in court that they had no suspicions against Bertheussen before the last attack on the house, when the car was set on fire on the night of March 10 last year. But when she was arrested four days later, the police believed they had ruled out other possible perpetrators. Bertheussen was shocked and had something of an anxiety attack when the police came to the door and read the indictment to him. They took her to Kripos, while the forensic scientists moved into the house. PST’s Snorre Mortensen explained in court Thursday what they brought with them. We were able to see photos of all the rooms in the big house and a sample of what comes in the additional evidence. Among other things, Mortensen spent a lot of time with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol that he believes Bertheussen bought from CC Vest just before the car fire, and that police found half empty in the garage afterward.

That the cohabitant of the country’s Minister of Justice had carried out such attacks and at the same time conspired with other important politicians on how a free theater group can link with threats is truly an incredible scenario. As a member of room 250, I find myself thinking the same as what Bertheussen told the police when they arrested her:

“I can’t believe this is really happening.”