The businessman has topped the lawyer team with John Christian Elden and Bernt Heiberg in Elden Advokatfirma. They assist together with his appointed defender, lawyer Jens Bernhard Herstad, they write in a press release on Wednesday evening. The 47-year-old has been detained for two weeks. He is charged with breaching section 4 of the Sanctions Act for having flown a drone over Norwegian territory in Svalbard. According to the charge, he flew in the period from July to 16 October, and this may also have happened in several other places in Norway. Satellite data shows that the boat sailed from Svalbard to Norway between 6 and 8 September. The businessman’s boat is docked in Hammerfest. It arrived on Sunday. Photo: Allan Klo / news – Illegal ban The sanctions that came after Russia’s war on Ukraine mean that Russians cannot fly on Norwegian territory. Now the lawyers claim that the ban cannot apply to Svalbard. They point out that the man also has British citizenship. A Briton cannot be treated differently from Norwegian citizens, claims Elden. – Furthermore, it follows from the Svalbard Treaty that there is an absolute prohibition on discrimination on the basis of nationality alone on the archipelago. This applies regardless of whether he is considered British or Russian, writes John Christian Elden in the press release. According to satellite data, these are the movements of the boat from 27 September. He says the man has been open about flying drones as a leisure activity when he was on Svalbard. – Our client has not broken the sanctions rules, and his imprisonment is therefore not legal either. The imprisonment will be appealed tonight, and we expect that the Court of Appeal will hear the case before the weekend, writes lawyer Bernt Heiberg.
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– Violates the Svalbard Treaty – news Troms and Finnmark
