– I am shocked. What he says never happened. I never heard the word “lawyer” the day my son was questioned about Silje’s death, says the woman. On 15 October 1994, 5-year-old Silje Marie Redergård was found dead in a toboggan run at Tiller in Trondheim. Just one day later, police chief Per Marum named three little boys aged four, five and six as the perpetrators at a press conference in Trondheim. decision to interrogate her five-year-old son without legal representation. The policeman is now in his 60s and still employed by the police in Trondheim. His accusations against his mother appear in documents news Brennpunkt has gained access to from the new investigation into the Silje case. The police claim that the six-year-old was questioned with the consent of the mother. – Pure lie, says the mother today to news. Photo: Svend Even Hærra / news It was ordered by the public prosecutor in Trøndelag in December 2021, after strong criticism of the police in Trondheim was advanced by experts in the documentary series “Murder in the sledge”. The commission to re-investigate the case went to the police chamber in Trondheim, which also investigated the case in 1994. The police speak for the first time None of the investigators in the Trondheim police who worked on the Silje case in 1994 have wanted to speak out or answer questions over the years Brennpunkt has worked on the matter. Now, through documents from the new investigation, we hear for the first time what some of the police officers themselves think about the work they did. Four officers have been questioned as witnesses in the case. They are the same ones who interrogated the three little boys who were blamed for Silje’s death. In “Murder in the toboggan run”, the interrogations of the three boys who were named as the perpetrators are particularly criticised. Several experts believed the police pressured the five-year-old and the six-year-old to confess. Asbjørn Rachlew, police superintendent and expert in questioning, went so far as to say that it was a violation of human rights that the boys did not have a defender present when they were questioned. Police chief and interrogation expert Asbjørn Rachlew talks about the police questioning a suspect in the toboggan case without a defense attorney present. In the new police documents, we see that the policeman who questioned the 5-year-old is particularly concerned with this topic. “The child was in a vulnerable situation” The policeman in his 60s explains, according to the minutes from his interrogation, that there was a meeting at the police station in Trondheim before the interrogation of the five-year-old. Here it was “assessed whether the child should have a defender”. Among others present at the meeting were prosecutor Harald Moholt, psychiatrist Michael Setsaas, the policeman himself and some of his colleagues. And the mother of the five-year-old, according to the policeman. Prosecutor Harald Moholt at the Trondheim police chamber, photographed during the investigation in 1994. Photo: news “The management was aware that the child was in a vulnerable situation, and was aware that the rights should be respected,” explains the policeman. But allegedly the mother pushed for the questioning of her son to be done “as soon as possible” – for the sake of her son and Silje’s next of kin. Psychiatrist Setsaas also agreed, according to the policeman, “to let the questioning proceed without a defense attorney present”. He justified this by saying that this was “a golden opportunity to get information from the young child that should be used”. Setsaas died aged 68 last year after illness. – It is a pure lie From the time you are charged, you have the right under the Criminal Procedure Act to be assisted by a defender of your choice at any stage of the case. Nevertheless, it was decided that the five-year-old’s rights could instead be safeguarded by “an unprivileged person” who would ensure that the questioning “was carried out within safe limits.” The five-year-old’s mother gave clear consent to this, claims the policeman in his 60s in his interrogation. And not just her: “Everyone who was present and took the assessment agreed that it was in the best interests of the child, including the mother.” The five-year-old’s mother becomes very upset to hear that she is accused of having accepted and pushed for her son not needing a lawyer. – It is a pure lie. I have already said that I was not present during the interrogation. I got to the police station in a taxi after my son was first taken there in a police car. When I got there, I suddenly learned from a policeman in the hallway that my boy had already admitted to the mistreatment of Silje, she says. The policeman in his 60s does not want to comment on his mother’s criticism. In the new documents, we can read that he who questioned her son, today “does not know how the boy got to the police station”. Blame the leadership in the police The old police documents from 1994 also do not support the explanation that an “unwelcome person” was present during the interrogation. Because in the policeman’s own report from the interrogation of the five-year-old in 1994, it is stated that only the boy’s mother and himself were present during the interrogation. There was no “unwelcome person” present. Only after the questioning was over, psychologist Setsaas was called because the mother had a breakdown. Psychiatrist Michael Setsaas during the investigation of the Silje case in 1994. Photo: news There is also no reference to the discussion or the decision to question the five-year-old without a lawyer in the police documents from 1994. In the new police documents we now see that the policeman in his 60s is concerned with this. He explains that he himself did not include this in his report from the interrogation of the five-year-old, because he thought that the management “would obviously record it, as it was a weighty decision and theirs”. It was, he clarifies again, “the management that made the decision not to have a defender present”. – He is just trying to protect himself. If my son had had a lawyer present, the case could have had a different outcome then, says the five-year-old’s mother. Can’t remember anything Lack of memory is central to the questioning of the four police officers in the new investigation. The now retired man who interrogated the four-year-old simply remembers nothing. The name of the boy tells him “absolutely nothing”. He briefly remembers “nothing at all about him having spoken to any of the boys involved in the case”. The questioning of the man, taken over the phone in September last year, lasts only nine minutes. The policeman who questioned the six-year-old, also retired today, has for his part completely forgotten that the boy changed his explanation during the questioning in 1994. Excerpt from the questioning of the five-year-old from 1994. Name and identifying details have been slandered. Photo: Svend Even Hærra / news According to his own report from the interrogation in 1994, the six-year-old first explained that he had seen three young people who were mean to Silje. He continued this explanation for a long time. But during a break when a female police officer entered the interrogation room, the six-year-old admitted to having thrown some ice cubes at Silje. “This boy was adamant that….” When the policeman continued the questioning, the six-year-old admitted more and more violence against Silje – both by himself and the other two boys. All this is in the report the now retired man wrote at the time. But now he remembers something else. According to the new police documents, he repeats time and time again that the six-year-old stuck to his explanation until the very end that it was young people who had used violence against Silje: “This boy insisted that it was someone else who had been mean to Silje. » “The witness explained that he does not remember that the boy changed his explanation during the interrogation. He remembers that he stuck to his explanation.” The policeman who questioned the five-year-old, on his part, does not remember that the boy initially gave the same explanation as the six-year-old. He only remembers that the boy admitted the violence against Silje. When he is told during the witness examination what he himself wrote in his report in 1994 that the five-year-old also first told about young people who were mean to Silje, he replies that he “doesn’t remember anything about it; doesn’t have anything that pops up in the memory there.” The cause of Silje’s death certain None of those who led the investigation in 1994 have been questioned as witnesses in the new investigation. On the other hand, there is a report in the police documents written by the then Chief of Police Per Marum, which initially writes the following: Per Marum was Chief of Police in Trondheim in 1994. He has submitted his own written explanation for the new investigation into the Silje case. Photo: news “I was the police chief in Trondheim at the time and I have not been summoned for questioning. I therefore allow myself to contribute with a personal report. I ask that my report be taken as a separate document in the case.” In his own report, Marum argues that their conclusion at the time was correct. It was the three little boys who were responsible for Silje’s death: “The cause of Silje’s death appeared to us to be certain and obvious when the children’s explanation, the autopsy report and traces were compared with each other.” Marum also adds that the policemen who questioned the five-year-old and the six-year-old have subsequently given him confirmation that “these were very skilled investigators with high ethical standards”. news has presented the information in this case to then police chief Per Marum and then head of public prosecution Harald Moholt. None of them have answered the inquiries. Do you know anything about this case? Contact news’s journalist here. The Attorney General asks an expert to carry out new investigations into the Silje case. What he discovers can have major consequences.
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The police management decided that the five-year-old did not need a lawyer – news Dokumentar
