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Norwegian’s Filipina wife charged with murder

The Filipina wife of a Norwegian man found dead in his bedroom last summer has been charged by police for pre-meditated murder after an autopsy report revealed signs of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Published: 20 February 2015 08:31 CET

Norwegian's Filipina wife charged with murder

An autopsy room. Photo: Shutterstock.

The 30-year-old was arrested this week shortly after landing at Oslo’s Gardermoen airport after a two-month stay in The Philippines.

Helge Ove Irgens, 61, was found dead at his house in Sotra, outside Bergen on 25 June last year. Police initially concluded that he had died of natural causes, and it was only after they carried out an autopsy, under pressure from his two daughters, that evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning was discovered.

According to Norway’s VG newspaper, a police analysis of the woman’s computer later revealed that someone had used it to research different murder methods.

Inger-Lise Hoyland from Hordaland Police told VG that police had yet to ascertain the source of the carbon monoxide.

“There are signs that there has been fire in the bedroom, but we can not say anything more,” she said.

Irgen’s daughters told VG that it had been them, not police who had first spotted the signs of fire damage.

Regina (23), told the newspaper she had had to call police three times before they did anything about it.

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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