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– To use a popular expression: it was a shock. A surprise.
This was said by former Justice Minister Tor Mikkel Wara when asked about his reaction to the arrest of co-inhabitant Laila Bertheussen in March last year.
Wara has offended status in the case in which the partner is accused, but did everything possible to defend her in court.
“I didn’t think she was behind any of these incidents,” Wara said.
He also criticized the work “Ways of seeing”:
– I thought what they did was wrong, said the 55-year-old.
– Ridiculous
The prosecution believes that Bertheussen is behind the various accusations against the house in which she and Wara live, to draw attention to the work, where a photo of his house was shown, and suggested that the then Minister of Justice was part of a racist network.
– How did you react to “Ways of seeing”? asked state attorney Frederik Ranke in court.
– At first I thought it was quite ridiculous, Wara said – and expressed that he thought the play was marketed by calling him and other community leaders “cow dung, pig dung, the root-eating parasites of hope.”
– One wonders who in the world are these people? This is a pretty cynical public relations strategy for a theater to fill your house. That’s why I thought we shouldn’t pay so much attention to them, said the former minister. And added:
– He didn’t mean he didn’t think it was problematic. It’s expensive to advertise, but cheap to stand at “Dagsnytt 18” and talk.
– It is a terrible work, which not many can bear to see, he added.
– How did it affect your partner? asked Attorney General Ranke.
– She was worried about what they said about “seeing you through the windows.” What they showed is one thing, what they filmed is one thing. To this day, we don’t know what they actually filmed. Her agenda was to get the movie.
– Did it affect your mood?
– That she was “featured” in “Dagsnytt 18”, I think she took more seriously. She is a private person. They led her into the open room. That is why she wrote the article [i VG]. That was an adequate response.
Bertheussen’s biggest problem
– I did not know about the incarceration
Tor Mikkel Wara said in court that he was unaware that the cohabitant in the 1980s was serving a sentence at Bredtveit prison in Oslo, not until the PST informed him about it after the indictment in the ongoing case.
– I have some questions at the end that I unfortunately have to ask. When did you realize that your partner had served a sentence at Bredtveit? asked prosecutor Frederik Ranke.
– In police questioning, Wara responded in cash.
As Filter Nyheter has reported, Bertheussen had a criminal record before meeting the future Minister of Justice in 1994. She served a sentence in the Bredtveit women’s prison starting in 1986.
The cases for which Bertheussen was convicted were fraud, forgery and theft. The last sentence in 1989 was conditional imprisonment, as the court saw potential for improvement and the convict agreed to go to therapy.
Website: Bertheussen has been convicted three times
Rullebladet does not have a direct connection to the criminal case that is currently pending in the Oslo District Court.
– Mob
Wara said in court that he thought the first incident, on the night of December 6, 2018, could be a mob.
– Obviously it was a political message, but it could have been random, it could have been mobs that passed. Subsequent consultations had a clearer message. For example, “pull the review”. It was addressed to Laila, it was he who had denounced, not me, said the 55-year-old.
– Then came several threatening letters. It was an order. The letters had different styles and we thought there might be different senders. That he was an “imitator,” explains Wara, who is now an advisor and partner at First House, after he resigned as minister on March 28 last year.
When he got up?
The prosecution also spent a lot of time asking Wara questions about when he got up on the night of December 6, when he thought he heard a suspicious sound. Wara said her roommate was in bed when she woke up, but she didn’t know when he got up. On questioning him, he has estimated both at. 03-02 and 04-03, but he kept saying he wasn’t sure.
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– For me, there were no mysterious things that night. I thought the sound might have been something to do with the cat or something to do with the tiles the craftsmen had laid.
Data from the health app on Bertheussen’s phone has shown that she was up and walking tonight. Additionally, she conducted several web searches related to “Ways of Viewing”. She has admitted to doing the searches, but says she got up and cleaned herself up a bit because she was not allowed to sleep. In court, Wara said he might as well vote.
– At least it was clean when I got up. That wasn’t when I went to bed, he said.
– inconvenient
Bertheussen is accused of having “threatened democracy”. In court there were interviews that Wara did while still Minister of Justice, including an interview with Dagbladet TV. In this and subsequent interviews, he said that he perceived the events as a threat to democracy, but that he did not know who was behind it. In court, he has expressed himself somewhat differently and, among other things, said that he did not feel threatened.
– As Minister of Justice, you cannot comment on ongoing investigations. What I said there, I think a Minister of Justice said well. Now I am here as a witness and I can explain myself more freely, he said in court.
But one thing he did not want to explain freely: the content of the conversations he has had with his partner after she was accused. Nor did she want to be questioned.
– I really thought the questioning was inappropriate. An extreme situation occurs when it is stopped and there is great mental tension. What we are talking about in that crisis situation, I think we should keep it to ourselves.
– Having access to private conversations after the incident is inconvenient. It is also inappropriate that they ask me to speculate on things that I do not know. I thought it was a strange way to do it and tried to steady myself. He just wanted to respond to the facts of the case, he said.
– a speculation
During interrogation, Wara said that if the partner was behind the incidents, “it must have been done by mistake”, or that, hypothetically, she may have been “mentally driven”.
– It was about the “if I had” motive. It is speculation that he may not have entered. It makes no sense for him to do so, he said in court.
Towards the end of his questioning, the prosecutor Frederik Ranke asked, referring to a message dispute between Wara and Bertheussen, if a message that the latter would publish in connection with his appeal of the Oslo police closure of his report against “Modes to see “:
– To what extent do the accused go their own way in matters that affect them both?
– In the discussion you refer to, I asked you to delete a paragraph. Then I asked him if it was urgent, and if we couldn’t wait, he was at an intergovernmental conference without a phone. I had no illusions about preventing her from publishing it. I am an independent woman who has no desire to be an attachment to me. Then I would see it in the context of the appeal (complaint) about the review.
