The Reykjavik Confessions Read online

  Half an hour later, Bjarnasson appeared at Sidumuli. Saevar’s lawyer, Jon Oddsson, was not there at this time of the night, but then the suspects’ lawyers only made fleeting appearances during the interrogations. Eggert questioned Saevar for almost two hours, finishing at 4.20am. Eggert then spent an hour with Kristjan Vidar and left the prison at 5.20am when the city was starting to wake, the local fishermen already headed out into the unforgiving Atlantic.

  The detectives were engaged in a flurry of activity. They spent all of the next day interviewing Kristjan, and Saevar again. They also took them for trips out of the prison to Keflavik to refresh their memories of the scene.

  These interviews with the suspects had solidified the detectives’ suspicions about Klubburin and whether the men running the club were involved in some way in Geirfinnur’s disappearance. By the evening of Sunday 25 January they now had enough evidence from Erla, Kristjan and Saevar to make their next move.

  PART 2

  8

  On 26 January 1976, the police staged a series of early morning raids and arrested three new suspects. The first to arrive at the prison was Valdimar Olsen, followed by the Klubburin manager, Magnus Leopoldsson, and Erla’s brother, Einar Bollason. The three men were in total shock. Unlike the other suspects they had never been in trouble with the police before.

  All three had short interviews where they denied any knowledge of Geirfinnur Einarsson. Magnus told them he had previously been interviewed about the case by the Keflavik detective, Haukur Gudmundsson, but didn’t know anything. Valdimar said he had heard about Geirfinnur’s disappearance but knew nothing about the case and had never met the man. Einar was pretty sure he had been at basketball training when Geirfinnur went missing. Despite their denials they were brought before the court and remanded for 45 days.

  With seven prisoners now being held in Sidumuli in connection with the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur cases, the guards made sure there was a strict security regime. The suspects weren’t allowed to see their lawyers alone and all messages between them had to be in writing and passed via the police. They were also prevented from having any contact with each other or other prison inmates. They were totally cut off from the outside world.

  Guard and former academic Hlynur Magnusson, who now had even more inmates to look after, saw that ‘there was one cell that was shorter than the others’ and it was decided by the police and chief warden that this was where they would place the tall basketball player, Einar Bollason. ‘He was put in that cell so that he could not stretch out. That bed was too short for him and they did that to make his life worse… it was special treatment to be in this cell.’ Not only was it smaller than the other cells but the police knew that Einar had rheumatism so this would add to his discomfort and increase the pressure on him.

  It didn’t take long for the effects of solitary confinement to kick in. Within a week, the prison doctor, Gudsteinn, was being called for Einar and Magnus to give them sedatives to help them sleep. Klubburin’s owner Sigurbjorn Eric was also arrested, evidence of the police’s determination to prove a link between the club, alcohol smuggling and the disappearances.

  The arrest of the owner and manager of Klubburin gave the case a new political impetus. Inside the Althinghusid, home to Iceland’s parliament for almost a century, questions were being asked about the links between Klubburin and Justice Minister Olafur Johannesson. In the vaulted debating chamber with its duck egg blue walls and elaborate hanging lights, one MP, Sighvatur Bjorgvinsson, was determined to bring the issue out into the open. He demanded answers about Olafur’s links to Klubburin and to the Geirfinnur case. Olafur shifted uncomfortably on his seat. This was the first time he had been personally attacked like this and he didn’t like it. Olafur was forced to address Parliament and defend himself: ‘I’m being accused of obstructing the investigation of a disappearance, even implying I’m covering up murder.’

  Bjorgvinsson reminded the other MPs that the minister’s unhealthy links to Klubburin went back to 1972. Four years earlier, the chief of police in Reykjavik had closed down Klubburin for a variety of misdemeanours. The club had to fight for its survival, and Magnus and Sigurbjorn Eric appealed to the Justice Minister. Johannesson was a former law professor with an unassuming lifestyle for a senior politician, often getting the bus to work rather than using his official car. He studied the evidence supporting the closure and its legal merits. Having reviewed it, he told the chief of police in no uncertain terms that the closure was ‘utterly premature and unnecessary and not supported by the proper administration of justice’. He ordered the police to allow the club to re-open.

  Olafur’s political opponents believed there was another reason for his decision: the links between Klubburin and the Progressive Party. Not only did the club rent their premises from the party, there were rumours the club was even being bankrolled by the party. There was no documentary evidence to support this, but that didn’t stop them from taking root.

  It was a story Johannesson didn’t want to revisit, and he already had enough on his plate as Iceland was again in the middle of a dispute with the United Kingdom over fishing rights. Fishing was the engine that had turned Iceland from a poor agrarian community into a growing, vibrant economy. Each morning, trawlers would set off from ports around the country to face the dangers and collect the riches of the Atlantic Ocean. It was second nature to many families who for generations had looked to the sea for their livelihood. Other nations, however, also wanted to harvest from the Atlantic, hauling in the tonnes of cod and haddock.

  Iceland’s dispute with the UK had started back in the 1950s when catches of Icelandic cod began to drop from overfishing. Iceland’s government felt it had to act to protect its key industry, so they extended their territorial fishing grounds to 12 miles off the coast and set a deadline for all foreign vessels to fish outside of these limits. This was highly damaging to the British fishing fleet which also wanted the Atlantic cod, haddock and plaice found off Iceland’s coast. The UK government objected, backed by European partners, including France, Germany and Spain. So began what quickly became known as the ‘Cod Wars’. British trawlers ignored the new limits and were accompanied by warships that were pitted against the handful of vessels in the Icelandic coast guard. After two-and-a-half years of skirmishes and diplomatic manoeuvres, Britain agreed to Iceland’s 12-mile limit.

  A decade later, with the cod population dropping once more, Iceland extended its fishing territory to 50 miles. This time all Western European countries opposed it. German and British trawlers ignored the new limits but the Icelandic coast guard had a new weapon: net cutters. If foreign trawlers refused to move outside of the 50-mile limit, the Icelandic coast guard cut the trawler’s nets, forcing them to return to port empty handed.

  Johannesson, who was prime minister at the time, led the negotiations in this second Cod War. Iceland played hard ball, refusing to back down and the dispute led to calls for Iceland to leave NATO, which would have been devastating for the country’s economy and its standing in the world. Johannesson tried to get the Americans involved, asking the United States to send jets to monitor British warships protecting the trawlers, to no avail. Eventually an agreement was reached, but this didn’t assuage Iceland – they wanted to extend their territory even further.

  In 1975 the Icelandic government declared it was extending its fishing grounds to 200 miles from its coast, prompting the hardest fought of all the Cod Wars. There were frequent clashes between British trawlers and the Icelandic coast guard, culminating in an international incident in territiorial waters, when, in December 1975, the Icelandic coastguard vessel Thor was involved in a dramatic collision with a Royal Navy frigate, HMS Andromeda. Andromeda’s hull was dented but Thor came off far worse, sustaining a hole in its hull and coming close to being sunk.

  With this latest clash proving the most serious of all, the Geirfinnur case was an unwelcome distraction. Having been dragged into an embarrassing session in Parliament, the Justice Min
ister wanted to make sure it was wrapped up so that he could concentrate on bigger political issues. He needed someone from outside who was more professional and could pull together the disparate threads and get the case to the Prosecutor and the judges.

  Inside the investigation offices at Borgutun 7, Orn Hoskuldsson could not have envisaged he would be running such a complex investigation. The arrest of the Klubburin suspects had upped the ante significantly. Magnus, Einar, Valdimar and Sigurbjorn Eriksson were prominent figures in Iceland, well liked and respected. The only evidence the police had linking them to the case were the testimonies of thieves and drug dealers. The police were convinced Kristjan, Saevar and Erla had repeatedly lied to them, but in this instance they chose to believe them, as it suited their purpose: they could finally nail the Klubburin guys, who for years they had suspected of being alcohol smugglers.

  The team were now coming under huge pressure from the press and public. Lurid headlines like, ‘Geirfinnur, Gudmundur and Drugs: the large crime ring working in Iceland’ were appearing with increasing regularity, as were articles complaining about a lack of progress or information from the police. This only added to the political pressure on the Justice Minister, too. Inside the small detective force, Arnprudur Karlsdottir could see the effect first-hand: ‘The police were desperate, the nation was desperate, the media were desperate, so they started to pressure the suspects more and more.’

  And yet there was still no physical evidence to link any of the seven men being held in Sidmuli to the deaths of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur. If the case was going to stick, all of the suspects had to confess.

  There was one witness the detectives could always depend on to help them: Erla Bolladottir. Having implicated her brother Einar she felt even more isolated, alone in her mother’s apartment with her baby. She was trapped again, like she had been in Hafnarfjordur when Saevar would leave her alone while he tried to play the big man in town. She was more dependent than ever on the police for support, and particularly her confidante, Sigurbjorn Eggertsson.

  Ten days after her first statement about the involvement of the Klubburin suspects, Erla was brought back to Sidumuli for another interview in the room the detectives all referred to as ‘the Corner’. Along the corridor were her lover, her brother and the other men she had helped to put into isolation. Erla was caught in a web of her own making and each time she was questioned, she spun new threads. Their patterns became ever more elaborate, expanding and drawing in more people, who became trapped. She would try to remember the shape and structure, but each time she returned she could never make the same web again.

  The interview lasted three hours, relatively short for the detectives. The resulting story was broadly similar to the one Erla had given ten days ago, but she changed some important details about the drive to Keflavik. This time, rather than Magnus Leopoldsson driving them straight to the harbour, they had gone around Reykjavik, stopping at a place that sold ammunition. She thought they were going to buy some bullets but that didn’t happen. They picked up Kristjan and another passenger on their way to meet Geirfinnur Einarsson. When they arrived at the location, her brother Einar and Valdimar were there and they were all wearing gloves. She couldn’t be certain whether Klubburin’s owner Sigurbjorn Eriksson was there too.

  The changes in Erla’s statement and the longer drive were significant for the timing of the night’s events.

  Saevar had maintained that on the evening Geirfinnur went missing he had gone with Erla and his mother to watch a film at the cultural centre in Reykjavik. The film was about Vestmannaeyjar on the Westmann islands, a volcano that had been dormant for 5,000 years when it erupted in January 1973. A population of 5,000 people had made their home in the fishing town below, in the shadow of the sleeping giant. Early in the new year, a fissure opened up one-and-a-half kilometres long, less than half a kilometre from the startled inhabitants. A plume of bright orange lava shot 150 metres into the air, releasing huge clouds of ash. There was no option but to flee. Nature dealt the islanders a lucky card: there had been a storm the previous day so the harbour was packed with fishing boats. These became the lifeline for the islanders, used to ferry the villagers to safety. The eruption lasted for six months and destroyed hundreds of homes but miraculously, no one was hurt. It was a seminal moment for Iceland; a huge eruption which had been successfully dealt with but reminded the people just how susceptible they were to the ground beneath their feet.

  It had been a powerful film, one that they would remember. What happened after the film would be contested by the police and suspects. The police believed Saevar and Erla left at around 8.40pm. This gave them plenty of time to drive around Reykjavik picking up the other passengers before heading to Keflavik where they met Geirfinnur around 10.30pm. Saevar’s mother had given the police a very different set of timings. She had made a sworn statement saying she had been dropped home by Saevar and Erla at approximately 10pm. (She was sure of the time as she was diabetic and needed her insulin injection. The timing was backed up by Saevar’s sister, Anna.) This would have only left a half-hour window to drive the 50 kilometres to Keflavik. Erla’s new statement had them driving around the city beforehand so to reach Keflavik in time to meet Geirfinnur they would need to have raced around the city and be going well over the speed limit.

  An aggressive defence lawyer would have made more of this and the statement from Saevar’s mother to pull apart this timeline, but the detectives weren’t worried. Erla’s lawyer barely saw her and Saevar’s was little better. When they did get the chance to see their clients, Orn Hoskuldsson would decide whether or not they could meet in private – normally their discussion would take place in front of a police officer. Despite these restrictions, the lawyers chose not to cause any problems. One eminent lawyer at the time, still practising and who didn’t want to publicly insult his colleagues, summed up the actions of Erla and Saevar’s lawyers: ‘They were passive, rarely present. If they had been present, things would have gone differently.’

  The police believed Erla’s fanciful story about the Klubburin men who were now languishing in their cells unable to see or speak to their families. They were at least able to get some luxuries to make their time slightly more bearable. Their wives brought fruit, socks, tobacco and even beer. This didn’t deal with the most pressing problem: spending virtually their whole lives in a green concrete box. They weren’t used to this; they had never seen the inside of a cell or had to trudge out to wash in the basic shower or to call the guards to ask permission to use the toilet. They had been warned by the detectives that unless they confessed, they could be held like this indefinitely. Their families and comfortable existence would be gone. Their children would grow up without fathers, their reputations destroyed.

  As the Klubburin suspects continued to struggle with the strictures of solitary confinement, Magnus came up with a rigid daily timetable, breaking down menial tasks like washing and eating to try to bring structure to the day and maintain his mental health. Guard Hlynur Magnusson said in spite of this, it was clear to him Magnus ‘broke down mentally and physically’.

  Einar was also struggling in the harsh environment. Desptie the cocktail of prescription drugs to help his mental state, Einar stopped eating, subsisting on tea, juice and the occasional biscuit. Hlynur said it was sad to watch a noted athlete, someone with such self-confidence who had spent years thinking about his physicality, collapse so quickly.

  The police believed that Saevar and his gang had linked up with Einar and the Klubburin men for a smuggling operation and it was during this that Geirfinur had been killed. The police spent months trying to find evidence of Klubburin’s involvement, looking at the club’s finances and debts for a motive. The earlier Keflavik enquiry had already been over this ground, but found nothing. The Reykjavik team ignored this, viewing their colleagues in Keflavik as rank amateurs.

  The police needed more than Erla’s testimony; Orn Hoskuldsson was painfully aware of that. They called in other witnesse
s such as Geirfinnur’s wife Gudni, who they hoped could provide some clues about the link between her husband and Klubburin. Gudni had been left in a dreadful limbo for the past two years with no concrete proof her husband was dead. (What did she explain to her son who had seen his dad leave, never to return? Did she tell him his father was dead or that he was missing?) But when the police asked about the Klubburin men she told them she had never heard Geirfinnur mention them, nor Saevar and the other suspects. Erla stuck to her story that the Klubburin men were in Keflavik when Geirfinnur was killed and Kristjan had said they were there too, although he was far more circumspect about their presence. He, Erla and Saevar had been shown photos of 16 men and after some hesitation, had independently picked out Einar and the Klubburin suspects as being in Keflavik when Geirfinnur was killed. The police focused on Magnus and Einar – they were the weak links.

  In February 1976, a month after he was arrested, Einar Bollason was presented with the statements from Saevar, Erla and Kristjan implicating him in the case. Despite his weakened state Einar stuck to his guns and said their claims were ‘totally baseless’. Why would these three people individually pick on him? He didn’t know why Kristjan would do it, he had never met him, but he knew Erla had a grudge against him. He’d desperately wanted her to split from Saevar and he tried to get her to break off any communications between them. When this didn’t work, Einar tried limiting Erla’s contact with their father, whom she adored. It was for these reasons that he thought his sister had made up the whole story.