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Norway millionaire ‘forcefully denies’ wife’s murder

The Norwegian energy entrepreneur Tom Hagen has denied involvement in the disappearance of his wife, after he was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of murder.

Published: 28 April 2020 17:19 CEST
Updated: 29 April 2020 07:19 CEST
Norway millionaire 'forcefully denies' wife's murder
Tom Hagen's lawyer Svein Holden arrives at Lillestrøm police station near Oslo. Photo: Terje Pedersen/NTB Scanpix/AFP F
“He forcefully maintains that he has nothing to do with it,” Hagen's lawyer Svein Holden told NRK after meeting his 70-year-old client in detention at Lillestrøm police station outside Oslo. 
 
“Obviously he is affected by the situation, there is no doubt about it,” Holden added. “He finds it very difficult to be accused of something he maintains that he has nothing to do with.” 
 
On Wednesday morning Holden said in another interview with NRK that he expected his client to be released later that day when police ask Nedre Romerike district court to extend his detention. 
 
“This is a very tenuous basis for an arrest,” Holden said as he arrived. “I expect the court to release him.” 
 
Hagen was arrested on Tuesday morning on suspicion of “murder or complicity in the murder” of his wife, Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen. 
 
His denial came as several Norwegian media outlets, including the VG newspaper and state broadcaster NRK were passed a copy of a marriage agreement Hagen had struck with his wife back in 1987. 
 
Under the deal, all she would be entitled to in the case of a divorce would be a plot of land, 200,000 kroner, and a Citroën BX 14 RE, or car of a similar standard.
 
Everything else was to go to her husband, with the agreement stating: “everything Tom Hagen in the future acquires either through inheritance, endowment, salary, investment return, or otherwise, is his peculiar property.”
 
According to VG, the police lawyers believe that the marriage agreement is so lopsided and unfair that if it had ever been taken to court, it could have been declared invalid, entitling Anne-Elisabeth Hagen to a much larger share of her husband's fortune. 
 
This, the Norwegian media speculated on Tuesday, may be a possible motive for the murder. 
 
The lawyer Mette Yvonne Larsen, who is not involved in the case, agreed that the contract could easily have been annulled. 
 
“If she had tried to challenge this marriage agreement as part of a request for divorce, her husband would have been ripped apart by a court,” she told VG. 
 

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SPORT

Norwegian police charge Olympic champion’s father for domestic violence

Norwegian police said Monday that Gjert Ingebrigtsen, father and former coach of 1,500m Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen, had been charged with domestic violence against a family member.

Published: 29 April 2024 16:41 CEST
Norwegian police charge Olympic champion's father for domestic violence

Jakob Ingebrigtsen and two of his brothers, Henrik and Filip, who are also athletes, shocked Norway last October when they accused their father of being violent.

“We grew up with a very aggressive and authoritarian father, who used physical violence and threats as part of his upbringing,” the brothers wrote in an op-ed for newspaper VG. “We still feel a sense of discomfort and fear that we have felt since childhood,” they added.

Police opened a probe into the abuse claims and on Monday said prosecutors had decided to charge Gjert Ingebrigtsen, 58, with domestic violence against one of his children.

According to a source close to the case, the acts in question do not concern the trio of known athletes but another, younger child.

Over a period of four years, from 2018 to 2022, Gjert Ingebrigtsen allegedly manhandled, insulted, threatened and hit the child in the face with his hand or with a towel.

Responding to questions from AFP, Therese Braut Vage, who led the investigation, would not confirm this account.

Police said they had closed investigations into other events concerning the six other children in the home either due to a lack of evidence or, in one case, because the statute of limitations having expired.

Gjert, who coached Jakob until after the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo — where Jakob won the gold — has always denied the accusations against him.

“As far as the dismissed cases, we agree that there is no evidence to prove that Ingebrigtsen committed any wrongdoing,” his lawyer John Christian Elden told AFP on Monday.

“For the rest, Ingebrigtsen disputes the description of the facts on which the indictment is based — and he therefore does not admit his guilt,” he continued in an email.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the most successful of the three brothers, twice winning gold in the world championships 5000m in 2022 and 2023, as well as the Olympic 1500m gold.

The 23-year-old is also preparing for the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.

Henrik, 33, and Filip, 31, were European champions in the 1500m in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

After breaking with his sons, Gjert Ingebrigtsen shocked Norwegian athletics by becoming the trainer of another runner, Narve Gilje Nordas.

The Norwegian Olympic Committee has said that Gjert will not be granted accreditation for the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, as was the case at last year’s World Athletics Championships.

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