A major human trafficking trial in southern Norway must start again with new judges after the main defendant's original lawyer was arrested, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reports. The lead defendant, a 28-year-old man from Grenland, is charged with trafficking women from Colombia for prostitution, pimping and ordering a killing in Colombia. He admitted facilitating prostitution but denies the trafficking and murder charges.
His lawyer, Knut-Erik Storlykken Søvik, was arrested in mid-October on suspicion of interfering with evidence, which he denies. The defendant then lost confidence in his whole defence team, and two of the three accused now have new lawyers who need time to study thousands of pages of evidence. Lawyers for the three Colombian women said the delay was a heavy extra burden after waiting three years for the case. Prosecutors said it was unclear whether video of their earlier testimony could be reused.
Source: NRK