The man, who is in his 50s, has been described as an euthanasia activist and has taken a stand in favor of active euthanasia in various social media forums.
He has now been convicted of murdering a woman in Trollhättan in 2024, Norwegian media report. According to the verdict, he killed the woman by suffocating her with a pillow.
NRK reports that the court found in its verdict that the man had shown a “personal interest in the actual execution of the deaths.” He was sentenced to 15 years in so-called detention – a form of punishment for prisoners deemed to be particularly dangerous, with a minimum term of 10 years.
Fooled by TV shows
Vestfold District Court also ordered him to pay 930,000 Norwegian kronor (equivalent to approximately 910,000 Swedish kronor) in damages to the woman's relatives. His defense attorney, Gaute Nilsen, told Norwegian media that the verdict will be appealed.
It was in September 2024 that a woman was found dead in her home in Trollhättan. It was initially investigated as a suicide, but the now convicted Norwegian was later arrested and remanded in custody.
The man was arrested after journalists from the Norwegian TV2 program "Norge bak fasaden" (Norway Behind the Facade), using a fictitious identity, tricked him into a meeting at a hotel in Sweden.
Freed in Sweden
The investigation was moved to Norway after a while.
In parallel, however, he was suspected of four cases of incitement to suicide – in Norrköping, Nyköping, Västerås and Trollhättan/Stockholm – for which he was recently acquitted in Vänersborg District Court.
According to the Swedish indictment, he sent instructions on how to commit suicide after contacting the people via a Facebook page about active euthanasia. He also sent medication to two of the people.
According to the district court, however, merely providing aids is not enough to convict someone of the crime of incitement to suicide.
The Norwegian was convicted as late as the summer of 2024 for aiding and abetting the suicide of a Norwegian woman in Strömstad in 2023.
It has also emerged that he murdered a seven-year-old girl at the age of 15 and was imprisoned in child and adolescent psychiatry for ten years.
