It has been revealed that the ten-year-old son of the Norwegian woman accused of killing her husband in Orihuela Costa, was injured during the incident. The child made a formal statement to the judge presiding over the case vis video link from the care facility he and his sibling, aged 6 and 8, were taken.
The authorities are trying to determine how the injury occurred. Isolated, injured, with his father dead and not knowing where his mother is, the child was in a state of shock and was not willing to testify. His version was contradictory, saying at one point that he was injured in the middle of the struggle and at another moment saying that it was when he was trying to defend his father.
The defence lawyer, Juan Francisco Sánchez Otharán, from the Quiroga Sánchez law firm in Alicante, believes that “in that mental state, he was pressured like an adult to talk when, from the beginning, he said he did not want to talk.” The defence said: “He was led to a state of psychological exhaustion that ended with him narrating some things in an incoherent way until he ended up exhausted, lying on the ground.”
The defence claims there were ” numerous irregularities and violations of essential norms and fundamental rights”, including ” unwarranted pressure and insistence on him to make a statement “. For more than 15 minutes, “he was pressured by the police officer who conducted the interrogation to make a statement, even though he was not obliged to do so and despite having stated on multiple occasions and from the very beginning of the evidence that he did not want to say anything”.
Retract statement
The lawyer has requested to the court to annul the statement with the possibility of making it again, “this time with all the guarantees”. Sánchez Otharán stresses that the child must be clearly informed that he is not obliged to make a statement, although he can make any statements he wishes. The defence team say the child was pressed for at least 15 minutes. “After all the pressure , the boy finally spoke, not because he wanted to, but because of the insistence of the officer who was questioning him and because he was unaware of the significance of his statement and that he had the option of not speaking,” argues the lawyer, who adds that he was asked ” biased questions , without giving the defence the opportunity to intervene or ask questions.”
He was also not given a report assessing his psychological condition and was given an English interpreter when his mother tongue is Norwegian, the language he understands best and which gives him the most security.