Hamse Ali is charged with giving a false statement to the police after, in September 2024, he reported that he had been subjected to racially motivated violence in Nygårdsparken in Bergen.
In Gulating Court of Appeal on Monday, Ali was confronted with surveillance images from the police. The images show Ali riding an electric scooter at high speed in central Bergen, on the same evening as the alleged assault is said to have taken place.
Was shocked
Ali acknowledges that the images show him, but claims that he does not remember the journey.
– I was shocked when I saw the image of myself on an electric scooter at the police station, Ali said in court.
The police believe the entire incident in Nygårdsparken is fabricated, and that Ali’s injuries stem from a fall on the electric scooter.
But Ali maintains that he was subjected to violence and racist shouting.
The Spleis money
After Ali told his version to the media, a Spleis (‘to chip in’, ‘whip-round’) fundraising campaign was created, which collected 253,000 kroner. In court, the prosecutor wanted to know what the money was used for. Ali replied that he had no comment on that.
Bank statements showed, however, that around 90,000 kroner was used to pay down debt collection debts shortly after the money came in. A further 110,000 kroner was transferred to 37 different private individuals.
Ali was initially acquitted in the District Court after neuropsychologist Knut Dalen stated that it could not be ruled out that he had acquired false memories because of a head injury and high alcohol consumption. Chief Public Prosecutor Jan-Inge Wensel Raanes, however, believes that the explanation from the neuropsychologist was not sufficiently quality-assured, and that the case must be heard again with a clean slate.
– It is a full new hearing. We are beginning here with a clean slate, so what happened in the District Court has in many ways been crossed out, Raanes says to NRK.
Full condemnation in the media
As is customary, the media react far more strongly when an immigrant is subjected to violence than when an ethnic Norwegian is subjected to the same. When one then, on top of that, smears it with accusations of racism, it becomes a nationwide story in which the whole country condemns the incident.
The city of Bergen, with the football club Djerv at the forefront, responded with a torchlight procession and the creation of the Spleis fundraising campaign for Ali.
In court, Ali’s defence counsel, Anette Vangsnes Askevold, said that Ali himself has taken the initiative to repay people who supported the Spleis campaign.
But he thus still claims that he is innocent.