We don’t know yet when Joshua and Tjostolvs case will be handled in the Supreme Court in Congo. The Furuholmen Law Firm has prepared a memorandum in connection with the case and pointed out several points that are not worthy a country who wants to be a state of justice.
At the same time Joseph Middleton and the Death Penalty Project are working on other sides of the case and the verdicts, and the local lawyers have worked on procedure errors in relation to Congolese law. There is a lot of work behind this.
It’s possible that the memorandum will be posted here on the website later. It’s written in English.
The lawyers Furuholmen and Dietrichson have also written a letter to the Foreign Ministry, dated March 10th 2010. In this letter they requested that the Foreign Ministry address the abuse that Tjostolv and Joshua has suffered in Congo. Congo who has signed the UN’s torture convention is obligated to start an investigation of alleged cases of torture. Their Norwegian lawyers want the Norwegian government to ask Congo to fulfill their obligations in this regard, and that Congo implements an instant investigation.
The organization Reprieve wrote a similar letter to the British Foreign Ministry a while ago. They have responded to the request. In this regard I’ve written an e-mail to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry about this. It will be exciting to see if the Norwegian Foreign Ministry responds to this and how long it takes.
SKUP (the foundation for critical and investigating press) met in Tønsberg last week. Several awards were handed out. Nilas Johnsen and Co from VG got one of them, for “systematic and thorough work with sources” in Norway, Uganda and Congo. Apparently they have conducted classical, critical investigating journalism and under demanding conditions have disclosed good and important revelations. Their work has obtained documentation and evidence. Bullshit if you ask me. What kind of evidence have they discovered? And what does the evidence tell us?
They can’t have done any real source work in Norway. Who discovered that the “murder weapon” and the gun that the boys apparently had with them to Congo actually have been in Norway the whole time? It wasn’t VG, but Fredrik Græsvik from TV2. Another “important” revelation is the infamous training video. This is a 10 minute segment from a 10 days (fully legal) training on an island belonging to John Hunwick. It can’t have been too demanding to work this out. Lawyer Furuholmen managed on his trip to Uganda to interview all three of the men who was on the training video. VG interviewed only one of them. You can read Furuholmens interview here. Regarding the tape, it’s possible that the police in Norway have the original, but you can be sure that Hunwick or others has copies that have been for sale. Let’s just hope that the police in Norway haven’t been the ones allowing VG to get the video.
If classical and critical investigating journalism involves the purchase of stolen private documents, letters, pictures and videos from people who definitely needs to be subjected to critical journalism (like John Hunwick and Simon Foster) the award is definitely in the right people’s hands.
And where is the critical source criticism in Congo? Who discovered one of the “witnesses” contact with criminals? – Not VG this time either. Nilas Johnsen was at the scene when the deceased drivers brother told missionary Bregård and Rune Edvardsen that the bullet entered by the ear on the left side, not on the right side that was stated in the trial. Why hasn’t this been investigated further? And what about all the others who were out the night of the ambush? Many more people to interview. If VG and other Medias had been more critical to their sources from the beginning, I think this case could’ve been very different in Norwegian press.
VG has probably read some of Joshua’s experiences that we have posted on our website when he was arrested and imprisoned in the military jail. Has VG looked into Wawara’s brother who pretended to be a doctor? What about the prominent military person who wanted Joshua’s password for his bank account etc, and who also threatened to kill his family in Norway if he didn’t cooperate? Or what about second lieutenant Bayilogande and sergeant Amudi Michel in the military police battalion in Kisangani 7th military district? According to a UN report they were part of an ambush against the two Norwegians. This is just some examples of all the matters that haven’t been investigated by the “classical critical investigating journalism”. This investigating journalism also means a lot of bribery both in Uganda and in Congo.
There is no getting away from bribery in Congo. It’s a part of the culture there (we have to pay some every time food is brought in to the boys – it’s part of the guard’s “salary”). The question is how much and how far has the journalists gone when it comes to paying bribes. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall on several occasions.
We have written earlier how things that are written in Norwegian media are captured in Congo. Preben Aavitsland wrote a weird story on his twitter that Joshua’s grandfather who was in the “Sandal” Mission (In reality the Santal Mission in India) provided sandals to hundreds of thousands of Africans, has confused some people in Congo. They don’t understand that Preben Aavitsland is joking (whether it’s ignorance or other reasons) and wonders if Joshua’s grandfather has worked in Africa and what he did there. We know that what’s been written in Norwegian media (true or false, mostly false) has weighed considerably more for the prosecutions and the judges than notes from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry to Congolese authorities.
Kari Hilde French, March 25th 2010
