Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Professionals warned against release Betew – the courts did not listen – Aftenposten

There was no lack of warnings when Metkel Betew applied for parole from detention sentence of 16 years.

Betew was sentenced five times before he was sentenced to 16 years’ detention for his participation in Nokas robbery, including robberies of cash transports.

Lack of empathy, lack of guilt, very low tolerance for frustration and violence and antisocial personality disorder are some of the designations professionals has spent about the man who has served over half of his life in prison.

– Not ready for society

– Metkel Betew is not ready for society, it was clear message from Attorney Tormod Haugnes in Rogaland.

However, both in Asker and Bærum District Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, he spoke to deaf ears; judges thought it was not obvious danger of new, serious crimes.

And thus was Betew 1 December parole from detention sentence, which still remained six years off.

After 295 days in freedom he was therefore on Monday arrested in a major police raid. He is now charged with serious drug crime.

If Betew being judged or it is established that he has extensive contacts with criminals, he risks being put into Ila to serving the rest of the custodial sentence.

The experienced prosecutor based his conclusions on detailed reports from Ila Detention and Security Prison and the assessment given by psychiatrist Randi Rosenqvist.

Defiantly, difficult and threatening

From Ila was Betew described as defiant, difficult, menacing and as someone who constantly tried to push the boundaries. He was described as a person who lacked empathy and who only cared about their own needs. He had also declined an offer to participate in programs or psykologbehanding whose purpose was for him to develop and improve as a person.

Betew refused any cooperation with the management at Ila in connection with an application for parole – He would not talk to a psychiatrist Rosenqvist when she was going to make a risk assessment. He also refused to give details about his participation in schools and curricula.

In his ten years in Ila completed Betew high school, and he took some individual courses at the University of Oslo that he planned to pursue a bachelor’s degree in sociology.

Would work with children and adolescents

– I want to work with disadvantaged children and youngsters. I was young myself, and know how wrong it can go. I have sat half his life in prison, but has a different focus today, he explained in court.

He described himself as structured, purposeful and stubborn – qualities that he had previously used heavy crime.

– But now I have a different focus, now I want to study and have time for family and take care of my elderly parents, he said in court.

Special Adviser and Psychiatrist Randi Rosenqvist, both as a witness and in declarations have been aware that Betew eventually should be released into the community under controlled – through an open prison where he supervised could gradually get more and more freedom.

– Unrealistic future plans

Rosenqvist was highly critical of Betews’ career choices. “

– He has unrealistic future plans. Betew will use his crime resssurs. But his crime is no resource. He that celebrity criminal will be traveling around schools and tell is not appropriate if he really wants to get away from the criminal environment. When should he changed his name and got an education without a high profile, and got a regular job, said Rosenqvist when she testified in Asker and Bærum District Court in April last year.

She was also critical of the fact Betew still had extensive contact with other criminals and their families, including David Toska who considered “brain” behind the deadly Nokas robbery in Stavanger.

– In my opinion it does not seem as if he has taken distance from his criminal identity, rather play it, wrote Rosenqvist in a statement.

The Supreme Court found that there was no obvious danger of serious crime and Betew was thus released from Ila 1. December 2014 to move back home to his parents in Oslo. One of the conditions was that he cut out all contact with the criminal environment.

Now Betew arrested again and Randi Rosenqvist seems to have been right in their assessments. She says to Aftenposten that there seems to be a gap between the way the courts and experts considering a custodial sentenced.

She notes that psychiatrists and lawyers have completely different assumptions for estimating the risk of release .

– The psychiatric opinions depends on a medical judgment which naturally is no exact science. The legal judgment based on other assumptions. I am amazed that the courts in some cases make psychological assessments, says Rosenqvist.

Published: 18.aug. 2015 3:24 p.m.

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