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ACCIDENT: Through a series of articles, Aftenposten has revealed fraud in the expenses of travel in the Storting, including on the part of the representative of the Storting, Hege Haukeland Liadal (Labor). She is now charged with serious fraud. Photo: PETER MYDSKE
This is confirmed by his lawyer Erik Lea to Aftenposten.
According to Lea, Liadal does not admit criminal guilt for gross intentional fraud, but for gross negligent fraud. The case has now been sent to the prosecutor, writes Aftenposten.
“The case has been sent to the Oslo Public Prosecutor’s Office with a proposal that an indictment be brought against Liadal for serious fraud against the Storting related to 22 travel expenses in the period 2016-2018,” writes Police Inspector Ole Rasmus Knudsen in an email to the newspaper.
The Haugesund newspaper was the first to mention the case.
The Storting reported Liadal in April 2019, after Aftenposten revealed that Haukeland Liadal had submitted false travel invoices to the Storting for at least four years.
The charge applies to 22 travel bills in the period 2016 to 2018, according to police.
The case has been in the hands of the police for 17 months after the Storting denounced the Storting representative. Liadal has always expressed that he did not do it on purpose, but that it is about mistakes and misunderstandings.
The investigation has been complex and time consuming, according to police. In total, around 700 travel invoices have been reviewed.
– This has necessarily taken time and means that the investigation has differed significantly from that against Mazyar Keshvari, the police write in a press release, according to Aftenposten.
Extensive traps revealed
The disclosure came after Aftenposten gained access to travel invoices that Labor politics had provided since joining the Storting in 2013 until 2016, when Storting changed its travel invoice system.
The newspaper found a total of 30 cases where the Storting representative had submitted false travel invoices, was paid a driving allowance / allowance to which he was not entitled, or had demanded covered expenses that appear to be private.
In addition, you must have demanded at least 16 times the payment of an excessive driving allowance by indicating too long distances. The travel bills in question total around NOK 100,000.
Mazyar Keshvari, a former parliamentary representative of Frp, was sentenced in October last year in Nedre Romerike district court to seven months in prison after submitting false travel invoices for 450,000 kroner to the Storting, but the prosecution appealed the case.
He was also briefed after the Aftenposten revelations.
In October this year, the Supreme Court sentence was increased to a total of eleven months. The court emphasized that Keshvari has “seriously” abused one’s trust in members of the Storting.
