Most people forget that the two Norwegian prisoners have several death sentences each. When one of the death sentences is mentioned it’s always the murder sentence that is mentioned in Norwegian media and among Norwegian politics. Knut Moland has mentioned this in an earlier blog. The verdict for espionage is forgotten. Joshua and Tjostolv got another death sentence because they took the vehicle they rented when they were shot at in the jungle.
They were accused of stealing the car with a weapon at hand. The vehicle came back to Kisangani in good condition. If anyone shot at me in the evening in the jungle I had done the same as Joshua and Tjostolv – got away as soon as possible without it being the same as I stole the vehicle. Right after my last blog, I heard from the Foreign Ministry. Minister Endresen had a meeting with the cabinet director in the Justice Department in October 19th. She conveyed of course Norwegian authorities expectations to speed up the process of transferring the two Norwegians to Kinshasa.
The cabinet secretary said that as a consequence to the Norwegian/British common letter Congo’s Prime Minister has issued the Justice Minister to go to Kisangani. He was supposed to go in the middle of October, but was prevented. A new date is to be set for this trip. Congolese authorities maintain that it’s necessary that the Justice Minister goes himself to Kisangani to arrange for the transfer. We’ve heard this kind of promises several times before, so unfortunately I think its best not to get our hopes up again. The British authorities have not heard anything from the Congolese authorities yet about the common letter, but they will follow up on it.
The Frenchman got out last Wednesday after a couple of days in prison. He got a lot of help from the Norwegians. In the prison the days are as usual.
Kari Hilde French, October 24th 2011
