Throughout the account of Nawid Bayan’s relationships with Norwegian women, the use of violence is a recurring feature. Normally, this should lead to the recognition of a pattern and to reports and circumstances being taken seriously. But not with Bayan, even though Maren Sømme died the day after she was found. Defence counsel Arvid Sjødin even insists that he believes his client, who is charged with murder.
This is not legal protection for women in violent relationships. It is a breach of everything we have learnt since the 1990s, when intimate partner violence was seriously placed on the agenda.
It may seem as though the police are reluctant to see what other ordinary people see: When women arrive at hospital with serious injuries and say they have fallen down a flight of stairs, alarm bells should ring. But not with Bayan. What could account for that? Had the police responded adequately, Maren Sømme would have been alive.
They themselves possessed the knowledge.
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- On 18 July, he was arrested by the police. They opened a case against him for violence, but \released him shortly afterwards\. According to the man, Maren Sømme’s injuries were caused by her falling down a flight of stairs, his defence counsel Sjødin says.\
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Does Sjødin believe what he himself is saying? Why did the police release Bayan, given his history?
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- In 2019, the man was sentenced to \one year and two months’ imprisonment\ for, among other things, aggravated bodily harm against a former girlfriend.\
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- In 2017, the man was convicted of aggravated violence against another former girlfriend. In the appeal proceedings the following year, \he was acquitted\. It was in this case that the woman in this article testified on behalf of the man who is now charged with murder.\
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This woman helped secure Bayan’s acquittal because she testified against her friend. She believed Bayan more than she believed her. Then they became a couple. It did not take long before she saw an entirely different side of Bayan.
This is not an unusual modus in relationships between a man from an Islamic country and a Norwegian woman. The authorities have a wealth of experience to draw upon. But here they reset the case with every turn and give the violent man the benefit of the doubt.
When Maren was killed, the woman’s counsel for the aggrieved party, Brage Nordgård, said it was a “forewarned tragedy”.
His client said, when she had finally broken with Bayan and was living with security alerts and cameras, that the next victim would not get out of it alive. She was right.
It took four days from the police receiving the first report until the case was dropped.
We saw the same conduct in the case of the Sri Lankan dentist who was killed outside Elverum hospital. She had been stalked for a long time and understood what was about to happen. But the police did not respond.
Considering all the women who work in the police, including at the very top, it is striking that developments are moving in the wrong direction: Violent men from Muslim countries are to be spared. They are to be treated empathetically.
This is the same development that we see in Britain, where empathy for perpetrators has reached grotesque proportions.
When VG interviews the woman, the journalists largely use expressions such as that she “believes” she was subjected to violence. Even though she can document the violence with photographs and medical records.
That is what the press does when it wants to weaken statements. It distances itself from them.
It was not the woman’s testimony that led to Bayan’s acquittal in the Court of Appeal. It was because the police managed to ruin the photographic evidence by removing the date and time. They were therefore useless as evidence.
The woman and Bayan developed a relationship in the autumn of 2023.
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In the autumn of 2023, they became a couple.\
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\– It did not take long before I saw a completely different side of him, \she tells VG\.\\
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The story of the Middle Eastern man who changes character once the woman is in his power is a classic one. It is well known among journalists and the police. Yet both manage to pretend that it does not exist and that Bayan’s assurances that he is not violent are credible.
Norwegian women are naive. Until they brutally encounter reality.
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She was on the phone with a female friend who told a joke the man did not like. He reacted by violently knocking the mobile phone out of her hand, she says. She was shocked.\
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– The mobile phone was completely smashed. My hand hurt, I became frightened, and I ran to a bouncer for help.\
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Defence counsel Sjødin makes an appalling statement that reveals his view of the role of the press.
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– This is a journalistic way of working that is very unfortunate. You are looking for people who can say negative things about someone who is charged with murder. It influences witnesses. If they read this and believe it, what will they do then? he says.\
Should the press refrain from interviewing witnesses in a murder case because it might harm the client? The mere fact that an experienced defence counsel can say such a thing is a sign of a mental shift. Is there a mental adaptation to the Islamic view of women taking place? There, the woman belongs to the man. She is not believed when she arrives at hospital with injuries.
That is what has happened in the Sømme case.
Ten days before she was killed, Maren was taken to the emergency department at Stavanger hospital. Who called the emergency services? What kind of injuries did she have? VG does not ask the questions, but skims gingerly over the events leading up to what ended in murder.
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It was early in the morning on 16 July this year that an ambulance reportedly went to the house where the man now charged with murder lives. The ambulance took Maren Sømme to the emergency department at Stavanger hospital. She is said initially to have said that she had fallen down a flight of stairs.\
That is the sort of thing women in violent relationships say. They are afraid.
But Maren is said to have confided in the staff: It was Bayan who subjected her to violence.
The following day, Bayan was arrested by the police. He claimed that Maren had fallen.
When it was Maren’s turn to give her account, she retracted what she had told healthcare personnel: She said that the injuries were caused by a fall.
Most doctors are capable of assessing the likelihood of such a statement, weighed against the patient’s power of conviction.
There is nothing about that in VG’s report.
They write as though Bayan’s word carries as much weight as Maren’s.
Maren did not indicate that she wanted a personal violence alarm or that Bayan should be made subject to a restraining order.
The police possess three audio recordings in which Maren insists that she was not subjected to violence. Sjødin uses them for all they are worth.
Are they worth anything when we know how it ended? Sjødin pretends that they are.
But the answer is clear: Ten days later, she was beaten to death.
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– We must be cautious about providing information in view of the investigation. What happens beforehand is a central part of the investigation, police prosecutor Unni Byberg Malmin \tells VG\.\
Why this restraint towards a defence counsel who comes out so forcefully?
Sjødin appears to have been influenced by Bayan’s manner.
Is this the new legal practice in the new multicultural Norway?
We are beginning an adaptation to sharia law with female police prosecutors at the helm.