After almost two years of waiting it now seems that the public prosecutor in Oslo (Norway) has awakened as Ole Kristian Aabø-Evensen now officially is under investigation for several serious crimes.

On May 7 2007 I filed Extortion Charges against the Oslo-based lawyer. Aabø-Evensen had forced his former client to settle a dispute with him and in addition to pay him money, threatening to go after me if she didn’t comply with his threats. She obeyed. Following this “settlement” the lawyer forced himself into the position that I had had for the last 9 years and immediately thereafter started to attack me.

On June 19 2007 I filed a second criminal complaint against the same lawyer, based on his attempt to extort me close to Christmas the year before. The core of his criminal attempt was this time that if I didn’t waived my rights in the estate of the late Consul Riis (Monaco) he would file a law suit against me. Simple and plain extortion.

On March 24 2009, 22 months after the first filings, I received a batch of documents from the local public prosecutor in Oslo, notifying me that at least 10 of the 31 criminal charges filed in this case now were in some kind of a progress. One of the criminal charges that now has been registered and thus seems to be under investigation is the one against this lawyer. So what is the base of these charges then?

For several years Aabø-Evensen was the enemy of the infamous Amelia and Einar Riis. In earlier years, while representing the Riis-family in a law suit against Amelia Riis’ brother, the ship owner Kristoffer Olsen, Aabø-Evensen committed wrongdoings against the family and acted in the interest of the counterparty. His actions were the sole reason why the family lost this case. This is by the way not my conclusion but rather a conclusion of the words of the judge who administered the case.

A few days before the main hearing in that specific case, Aabø-Evensen called for a meeting with me and the late Consul Riis. In this very meeting he dropped his little weird bomb as he had decided to build this damaging case on six hypotheses and not on the base of facts which was the original sound plan.

We protested, Einar loudly, but in vain. The lawyer left the late Consul Riis and his wife with two alternatives; either accept his plan or find a new lawyer! The old couple were in duress. The main hearing was about to begin within days, and they felt they had no choice but to show up in court and in the meantime try their best to convince this lawyer that this plan was ludicrous and a solid plan to loose the case. As the history can tell, they didn’t make it. The judge in charge had an easy task when he was to pass his decision:

“A hypothetical course of events can not establish a basis for actions for damages”,

and the case that had been living its own life in the Norwegian court system for some 16 years was lost by a single but all so predictable sentence. I filed a complaint against Norway to the ECHR in Strasbourg (breach of the principle of “reasonable time”), and won in 2007. The ECHR granted me the legal cost which I although never got as this lawyer – which was the sole reason for the defeat in the Norwegian courts – put the money and the ECHR-victory in his own pocket.

Especially after this predictable disaster the late Consul Riis considered Aabø-Evensen as a traitor aligned with the other lawyers (and Labour Party-politicians) that allegedly had betrayed the family during the years. Before Aabø-Evensen was kicked out by the Riis-family ha had sent off an uncompleted and halting appeal on the lost case, thus he claimed that the Riis-family were obliged to pay for this work, while the Riis-family on the other hand refused as they considered that this lawyer had lost the case by will and that nothing of what he was doing was in the interest of the family. The Riis-family and Aabø-Evensen thus ended up as counterparties in court several times.

As I have described before, Amelia Riis settled the dispute with this lawyer shortly after the murder of the late Consul Riis. The problem here is how this dispute was settled, and how it was settled is the reason why I filed criminal charges against this Legal500 lawyer.

On August 17 2006 Ole Kristian Aabo-Evensen threatened Amelia Riis to settle the dispute between them and pay him what he wanted. If she refused to settle and pay, he threatened to file lawsuits against Mr. Herman J. Berge (that's me). Well that sounds like a lawyer, doesn’t it? Mrs. Riis was under duress, and signed the settlement. This threat combined with a demand of money is obviously a criminal offence according to the Norwegian Criminal Act, §266.

Here you can read a transcript of a conversation between me and Amelia Riis (and listen to it while reading) which took place the day after the settlement of August 17 2006. Reading the transcript and listening to the voice recording gives you a picture of an old woman suffering under a lot of stress and pressure: I have paid. I’m done with him. Don’t say anything! Don’t do anything! He is dangerous! etc. This conversation give evidence that Mrs. Riis was forced to settle the dispute and that she was forced to handle me as well. The conversation and the transcript are only in Norwegian, but the core of the conversation was that:

1) I had to understand that this lawyer is very dangerous (which she underlined for me seven times during this short conversation);

2) if she didn’t settle the case, and paid him what he wanted (which was a lot more than he was entitled to even if he had won the dispute), then this lawyer would drag me to court and tell all sorts of bad things about me. This is extortion in its simplest form.  At this point I was Mrs. Riis in-house lawyer and co-partner in claims against the Government and against Aabø-Evensen himself, representing the family’s interests in court. By this act the lawyer was forcing the old lady to settle by attacking her representative;

3) she insisted that I should stay put and do nothing, otherwise the lawyer would do some bad things with me;

4) she did her very best to convince me that as long as I didn’t do anything the lawyer wouldn’t do anything either.

5) the lawyer forced Mrs. Riis to sign a Press Release. Originally this press release was a three-page document where Aabø-Evensen, the author, had made in print that me and the late Consul Riis had forced Mrs. Riis to file a law suit against him. Basically this press release was the tool for this lawyer to wipe out all that I hade done for this family during almost ten years of work and to safely attack me in Norwegian newspapers thereafter.

I would like to remind the readers who might have forgotten it, that this guy claims to be a Legal500 lawyer and a partner in his own law firm and not a dark-alley villain which he obviously acts as.

It now remains to be seen how long and how much effort it will take the public prosecutor to break through the framework of the corrupted shelter that this lawyer, together with his organisation of small time judges, lawyers and journalists, has constructed around himself, and only then be able to take him to court forcing him once and for all to answer upon these serious facts.

As almost anything is possible in Norwegian courts, one should not be surprised if the courts or even the public prosecutor would make effort to find their way around even hard evidence as mention above.

After all, the Director General of Public Prosecution has stated more than ten years ago that he will never investigate allegations raised against a Norwegian judge. Up till today this rule of tradition has been a pleasant protection for numerous well-connected high profile lawyers as well. Thinking like this though is one thing, but stating it publicly is either a proof of madness or a message to the people that the courts and the prosecutors, two of the most important institutions in protecting the citizens, by now are juiced in corruption and thus are untouchable.

This situation is a cry for changes, and you, the reader, are the only one that could make a difference.

Herman J Berge
Luxembourg

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For an in-depth reading on Ole Kristian Aabø-Evensen, please read these articles:

31.05.07 (Advokat - "med rett til å drepe")

08.12.07 (Domstolen - den nakne Keisers høyborg)

10.01.08 (Infiltrasjon i domstolen - Lars Borge Andersen & Ole Kristian Aabø-Evensen)

11.01.09 (Hvem lurer hvem? Konkursrytter Strandskogen korrumperer Tore Sandberg)