The 19-year-old from Stavanger who was arrested in England last year, armed with a pistol and a revolver, is being investigated by British anti-terrorism police and has been charged with planning murder. VG and Stavanger Aftenblad now present him as a victim of human trafficking. His parents, who are journalists at Stavanger Aftenblad, believe it has been a disadvantage to be journalists, but have been given access in all Norway’s nationwide media and have obtained an audience with the Minister of Justice.
On 2 June 2026, a 19-year-old Norwegian will appear before the court at the Old Bailey in London. He is charged with unlawful possession of weapons, which he has admitted. In addition, he is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, which he denies. This was written in the Yorkshire Post on 2 October last year.
On 8 April 2025, the British press, including the BBC, reported that a Norwegian teenager had been arrested at a hotel in the United Kingdom, in what they described as a case affecting national security. The British press are entirely open about the identity of the accused, while it is kept hidden in Norway.
He was arrested in an armed operation at a hotel in Huddersfield in Yorkshire. The arrest took place on 19 March last year. He was then in possession of two handguns with ammunition, a Luger pistol and a revolver.
He had arrived in Manchester by air from Stavanger two days earlier. Following the arrest, the British police’s anti-terrorism and counter-intelligence body, which usually handles espionage and threats from hostile states, took over the case. It was also reported that the case has international ramifications.
Both Norwegian and British police believe he was sent from Norway to England to carry out murder. It is not known who the possible murder target was to be, who else he has co-operated with in the United Kingdom, or how the weapons were procured. Strict firearms control makes it likely that the weapons were hardly brought on the aircraft from Stavanger.
NRK, Aftenposten, VG, and Stavanger Aftenblad have linked the 19-year-old to a milieu in Stavanger with ramifications to the Swedish gang war and the criminal network Foxtrot.
A 16-year-old who has had residence at a child-welfare institution in Stavanger, who is charged with complicity in two murders in Sweden, two attempted murders, and a series of other serious crimes, is given a central role and described as the client of the arrested 19-year-old.
Stavanger Aftenblad has stated the following at the bottom of each article: “A close relative of the 19-year-old who is imprisoned in England is employed by Aftenbladet. In spring 2025, Aftenbladet entered into a collaboration with Aftenposten, which is interviewing this 19-year-old and his family in Stavanger. Aftenbladet covers the case according to ordinary journalistic principles and, as always, adheres to the Code of Ethics of the Norwegian Press (Vær Varsom-plakaten).”
Victim of human trafficking?
To Aftenposten on 16 September last year, the 16-year-old charged with murder who is assumed to be the 19-year-old’s client stated that young people who are recruited do so of their own free will.
On 5 May this year, however, the case acquired a new angle in the Norwegian press. VG wrote: “Believes Norwegian teenager is victim of human trafficking.” “Now several people believe that the police must view him as a victim of human trafficking,” it was written in the ingress.
VG bases this on general statements from a former British gang criminal who is titled a “human-trafficking expert”, a head of the OSCE’s group against human trafficking, and a Swedish professor who refers to how minors are recruited into criminal networks.
Although the arrestee was of legal age when he was apprehended, the VG article gives the impression that human trafficking is a plausible explanation for his journey to Huddersfield with two live-loaded weapons.
Document has contacted journalist Håkon Høydal at VG about the basis for this angle, without receiving a reply.
The same day, the VG article appeared in Stavanger Aftenblad, as a shortened quotation article with the title “Believes the 19-year-old from Stavanger is victim of human trafficking” and “Several people believe that the police must view him as a victim of human trafficking” in the ingress.
There, only the “human-trafficking expert” is quoted, without his criminal background being disclosed. The article, written by journalist Øyvind Ulland Sandsmark, opens with the quotation from the human-trafficking expert:
“The police ought to view the teenager as a victim of human trafficking. Instead, they are making this young man, who had been recruited, into a criminal. While the principals who wanted the murder go free.”
He believes that the Norwegian teenager awaiting trial in England, charged with having travelled from Norway to England for the purpose of executing a person, is a victim rather than a criminal.
It is clear that he has not familiarised himself with the case, because further down he is quoted as saying that he does not know the whole case and why the Norwegian teenager was recruited to commit a murder.
Since the arrestee’s parents are respectively employed and formerly employed at Stavanger Aftenblad, this angle in the same newspaper arouses curiosity in the editorial office of Document. We contacted Stavanger Aftenblad.
“As editor of Aftenbladet, I publish every day arguments and claims from various quarters as part of ongoing news coverage. It is part of public debate to show many sides and arguments in a case. It has never been the case that the editorial office only admits viewpoints with which one is oneself “in agreement”, writes editor Kjersti Sortland at Stavanger Aftenblad in an e-mail to Document.”
“One must view the entire ongoing coverage in context, and in any case not give the impression that a brief quotation article from VG constitutes the whole of Aftenbladet’s coverage, as this is far from reality, she emphasises.”
In the quotation article in Stavanger Aftenblad, there is a link to the VG article in which the mother of the addressee says that her son was mentally ill when he travelled to England. She is further quoted as saying that it is incomprehensible that Norwegian authorities hide behind the fact that they cannot interfere in British sovereignty.
Sortland writes in the same e-mail that “I would otherwise think that it is normal jurisdiction in most countries in Europe that one is tried in the country where the offence is alleged to have occurred”.
“Rather been a disadvantage”
Document has contacted the 19-year-old’s parents with two questions.
“VG appears uncritical in its angle that he is a victim of human trafficking. What gives the VG article an additional dimension is that they know or must know that both of you are journalists at Stavanger Aftenblad. The move to present him as a victim of human trafficking will be perceived as an attempt to control the narrative.
I have full understanding that parents do what they can to save their children. You are journalists at a central regional newspaper and have an opportunity to set the agenda, more than others.
VG, which ought to know better, will be perceived in the direction of running collegial errands in a very serious case that affects people’s perception of security.
What is your comment on VG’s article?
When did you notice that things had begun to go wrong with (son’s name)?
I can see from a picture of him, posted on 23 October 2023, almost a year and a half before the arrest, that something had changed and was not in place.”
The mother, journalist Ellen Kongsnes at Stavanger Aftenblad, was clear that she did not wish to contribute to any article in Document. She emphasised that the profile picture uploaded to her son’s Facebook page on 23 October 2023 is not of her son.
In an e-mail to Document.no she writes that it has been a disadvantage rather than an advantage” that she and her husband are journalists.
Access to NRK, Aftenposten, VG, the Storting, and the Minister of Justice
Despite this disadvantage, Kongsnes has been heard in both NRK, VG, and Aftenposten, and a Member of the Storting has become involved and obtained an audience with the Minister of Justice.
On 20 September last year, NRK published a reportage article by London correspondent Gry Blekastad Almås. There, Kongsnes speaks about her son being mentally ill and her struggle to have him transferred to Norway.
To VG on 10 December, Kongsnes says that he travelled to England six weeks after he was discharged from Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
In Aftenposten on 3 August 2025, she tells of the son who was academically able and outgoing, who played football, but developed major problems during the pandemic, followed by drug problems and admission with psychosis, and was discharged against his parents’ wishes.
It emerges from the articles that the parents are working intensely for his case to be conducted in Norway. It further emerges that Kripos has received a refusal from British authorities to have him transferred to Norway.
On 13 April this year, Stavanger Aftenblad wrote about Member of the Storting Ingrid Fiskaa (SV), who had asked the Minister of Justice whether there is anything in the way of requesting the transfer of the 19-year-old to a Norwegian prison, on the grounds that he was apprehended in England following a tip from Norwegian police.
“As minister, I can neither comment on nor intervene in cases being handled by the prosecuting authority”, writes Minister of Justice Astri Aas-Hansen (Ap) in her reply to Fiskaa, adding that no exception can be made from the prosecuting authority’s independence.