Five hundred billion dollars!

Everyone keeps pointing back to this blog, which hardly tells the whole story, but it should give you an idea.

Edit: Here’s another story.

Long story made short:
[ul]
[li]Two Norwegian citizens travelling in the Congo are arrested for the alleged murder of their driver. The two men initially claim they were just travelling in the region, sleeping under open skies. A regular walkabout. In war-torn Congo.[/li][li]It later transpired that the two men have served in the Norwegian army (as have I, so that means precisely nothing), which the media manages to spin into a fantastical story of the two men being highly trained special forces operatives with extensive mercenary experience. This turns out to be false, but the two suspects have been involved in setting up a military security company in Uganda.[/li][li]The alleged family members of the allegedly murdered man started making exorbitant claims, while the investigation and subsequent trial revealed that many of the claimants were not, in fact, part of the victim’s family.[/li][li]The trial devolved into a complete clusterfuck pretty quickly, complete with fabricated evidence and some quite fascinating juridical proceedings. The judges, lawyers and juries as well as the interpreters had a tendency not to show up, and most of the proceedings have been confusing to say the least.[/li][li] The court is in posession of the following NSFW photograph of one of the defendants, which certainly puts him in a tight spot. However, the court is also suggesting that the two men are involved in a vast conspiracy on the basis of this picture of a Norwegian journalist posing with a military beret in front of a map while pointing at Uganda. The defendants and the journalist claim the picture was taken as a drunken joke.[/li][li]The driver’s union or association (the news stories are a bit vague about exactly what kind of union or association we’re talking about) alone demands 3 million dollars, while two witnesses demanded ten million dollars each. The owner of the car the victim was allegedly murdered in demands one million dollar.[/li][li]After making some unfortunate remarks about skin colour and drawing parallels between this case and several other cases where states assumed responsibility for the actions of its citizens, the court decided Norway should pay 500 billion dollars in compensation to the victim’s family and community. [/li][/ul]

Trial of the century. Hope some of the big networks picks it up, although I kind of doubt they will – it’s not a big case, after all.

You’re right, noone’s talking about it.

To be fair, Erlend your last point is not correct. The prosecution demanded 500 billion dollars, the judge has not ruled on the compensation yet. Maybe we’ll get away with 400 billion?

And yeah, don’t get caught up in the Congo legal system. Like one of the defendants said “They’ll probably give us 4 death sentences”

Trial of the century indeed.

Ah, that’s right. Misphrasing on my part, actually, I was aware that Congo is not officially demanding 500 billion dollars from Norway.

where states assumed responsibility for the actions of its citizens

So who in Norway said “Yes, we are taking the responsibility for what these two men did”