Hello, anybody home?

Hello, anybody home or is your paper run by a computer? I have been trying to get some response from you but no answer.

 If it counts for anything, now many years ago I had a letter published in one of the Copenhagen papers (Politiken I think). You were going to build a nuclear plant on an island just outside the City and I pointed out it might not be such a bright idea. That you are not glowing in the dark today should count for something.

 And if that isn’t enough, my great-grandfather was in the Royal Guard. According to my sister, he the one on the horse up front, the conductor himself (is the conductor still on a horse?). He was even sent to the front in the last war Denmark had with Germany. Mads Merrild.

 But seriously, if like I claim, the justice system of Iceland is failing through corruption, Denmark as Iceland’s master nation for centuries must hold some responsibility in the matter. Your paper in the second best country in the whole world has to consider the article I wrote and discuss it with me. I will put in a blog here or part of it, by maybe the most prominent attorney in Iceland, Mr. Sigurður G. Guðjónsson. He wrote this just a couple of days ago, my translation:

 Good to bike in the nice fall weather, temperature 7 degrees (44.6 F) and dry. On my way this evening I thought that soon five years have passed since the economy collapsed. Since then the inner timbers of society have been failing, the justice system done for, the courts like free-stall barns, the Supreme Court, in practice four courts. In the District Court of Reykjavik, the judges come and go so fast the same case is often dealt with by two or three judges. A political court was established and a prime minister found guilty.  An office of special prosecutor established, with the predetermined  task of putting all the guilt on the bankers……..

 He goes on, his take the justice system has been falling apart since the crash, mine the crash was because the justice system had failed already, couldn’t keep Icelanders on the straight and narrow because of political meddling, Iceland slowly turning into a banana republic. That Mr. Gudjonsson is defending these bankers as an attorney another story, explains his writings somewhat.

 

 I claim in my letter or article this corruption even reached all the way to Strasbourg, that somehow Icelandic interests were able to have my case dismissed there. You have to admit, it is strange, the crucial and deciding witness in the case, Mr. Alfredsson is married to one of the judges at the court and a fellow female judge from a neighboring country then singlehandedly is able to dismiss the case without any explanation what so ever. You will also have to admit it to be odd, this same witness then turns around and applies for a judgeship at the court and is nominated by Iceland. I accept that the truth often is stranger than fiction and this could all be seen as a string of coincidences.

 According to my information, the judges from the Scandinavian and Baltic countries are somewhat separated from the rest of the judges, have their offices in a separate hall of some sort, but of course this is something you can check out. If this is so, one has to assume these two women know each other quite well and then Ms. Päivi Hirvelä should have excused her self from the case, or in other words, corruption.

 It is discouraging dealing with you journalists who act as if there is no corruption in this world, as if we the public just suffer from paranoia busy making up conspiracy theories, your main duty as editors to be gatekeepers and keep us naysayers out of your pages. Here I am directly quoting two different editors of major newspapers in Iceland, Mr. Reynir Traustason and retired Mr. Matthias Johannesson. We all know there is corruption and your duty as journalists to try to ferret it out, that’s your job for crying out loud.

  This goes especially for corruption at the highest level when law enforcement, as in Iceland, is controlled by corrupt politicians as Mr. Sigurður G. Guðjónsson writes about in his blog.  And be forewarned, if you try to ask almost anybody in Iceland about this case, the national conspiracy against my family is for real, very few will tell you the truth.

 On lighter issues, many years ago my parents-in-law were traveling in Denmark with their baby daughter, my future wife. My American father-in-law was interviewed by a Danish journalist, probably about jazz or painting, the only thing he was interested in talking about and shark-attack stories.

 When the story came out in the paper (lets hope it wasn’t yours), my-father-in-law was made to say all kind of anti-American propaganda he would never ever have said, the journalist figuring he didn’t speak Danish and it would never come back to him.

 But he was married to my Icelandic mother-in-law who spoke Danish, she studied in Denmark and in my opinion, her painting more Danish than many realize. And to throw some more weight around, not mine but my mother’s-in-law, she eventually, now a few years back, received the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Cultural Award, handed to her by the King of Sweden at a ceremony here in New York and made fun of by Victor Borge at the occasion.

 Borge had the whole assembly repeat her strange Icelandic name Louísa Matthíasdóttir. Borge of course also made fun of the King and the Swedes in general, you Danes having a hard time accepting the Swedes are number one. My theory he went after my mother-in-law because he was just another bitter Dane, not able to forget the breakup and how it happened. Let’s not forget the Icelandic books, my wife just reminded me.

 And to end at the beginning, my great grandfather, the one who fought the Germans, played at a dancehall in Copenhagen with Borge’s father for extra money . People would pay for the dances, not exactly sure how it worked, before my time.

 Ingimundur Kjarval

 Ps. Through the years I have had some of these writings published in Iceland and been forced to pay for the space. There I have been much blunter. Defamation laws in Iceland are quit strict, but so far nobody has decided to sue me, they know silence is their only defense, that if any of this goes back into court, it will all blow up in their faces

 Ps. I sent the original article to newspapers in Germany, Holland, Britain and Scandinavia, the response scant so far, one from Holland and one from Norway, that’s about it. From now on, I will concentrate on Danish papers the Berlinske Tidende and the Politiken. As I wrote, Iceland has to be Denmark’s responsibility if it is becoming a “failed country”, it’s justice system braking down. I will also send anything I write to you in a certified letter and put on the web. Your silence makes you part of this corruption.

 Ps. And you can be assured, there are many more bizarre facts to this case, here I am just trying to focus on what happened in Strasbourg.