On the evening of 3 August 2021, a terrible fire broke out in a one-storey house in Sketsmokorset in the municipality of Lilleström.
While the son in the house died, two others came out of the house and are safe. The fire spread to another house in the chain, causing heavy smoke and fire damage.
Two weeks after the fire, a 60-year-old man was arrested in the case and jailed for violating the so-called arson ordinance.
Romerike Fire: Certainty of one’s death
Sleeping pills and flammable liquids
Two years later, state prosecutor Jeanette Hegna filed charges against the man, where the charges were upgraded from arson to murder.
The indictment described the man as giving his son sleeping pills and then pouring a flammable liquid into the house and setting it on fire. The man’s defense attorney, lawyer Ole Christian Ringnes, tells Dogbladet that his client denies criminal guilt on all counts in the indictment.
– He has been insisting that he had nothing to do with it since day one. Ringnes says it was the biggest tragedy and accident of his life.
– He tried to save his son
The 60-year-old man was detained in August 2021 but released a month and a half later. He later came out of jail, says the lawyer.
– After the incident, my client found the fire and did everything he could to save his son. Yet, it went wrong, Ringnes says.
The trial will go to Romerike and Glåmdal District Court, but has not yet been scheduled.
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