Iceland - Guðmundur Einarsson, 18, & Geirfinnur Einarsson, 32, Jan & Nov 1974

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Been looking a bit into this:

In August 1976 the Icelandic government brought in a 'supercop' from Germany, Karl Schutz. He had taken on and broken the Baader-Meinhof gang, a 1970s urban guerrilla group, so surely he could sort out straightforward killings?
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The British and their BBC have a way of playing things down a tad.
IMHO, bringing in a person like Karl Schütz, with this background, into rural Iceland because of the disapperance of two average citizens, was overdoing it a big fat lot.

Baader - Meinhof Group = (part of) Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF).

German Wikipedia:
Rote Armee Fraktion – Wikipedia

Die Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) war eine linksextremistische terroristische Vereinigung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Sie war verantwortlich für 34 Morde, mehrere Entführungen und zahlreiche Banküberfälle und Sprengstoffattentate mit einer Vielzahl von Verletzten und erheblichen Sachschäden. Sie wurde 1970 von Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, Ulrike Meinhof und weiteren Personen gegründet. Die Anzahl der Mitglieder des sogenannten harten Kerns aller drei Generationen der RAF betrug zwischen den 1970er und 1990er Jahren zwischen 60 und 80 Personen. 27 Mitglieder und Sympathisanten der RAF kamen durch Fremdeinwirkung, Suizid, Hungerstreik oder Krankheit ums Leben.[1]
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BBM

They committred 34 murders, many bank robberies, attacks with explosives (and ambushed NATO commander Alexander Haig, he survived).
In 1976 when KS came to Iceland, Baader and Meinhof were incarcerated (since 1972), but the RAF was still active, with virulent terrorism.

There are several Wiki -pages in English as well. They descrbe the RAF almost from a philosophical viewpoint. I am really shocked about this, and I cannot commend it, but here is the link: Red Army Faction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Better take the German Wiki as a starting point and hit the google translate button.

Long story short: Given his background, Karl Schütz probably was the worst man for the job. He should have taken a holiday instead, away from continuing terror and the tension. Maybe they needed a safe place for him and sent him to Iceland.
And did he speak Icelandic? it is not mentioned and I don't think so.
 
It does seem strange someone like Schutz should have been brought in for what appear to be purely local disappearances/possibly crimes - I believe Icelandic has the reputation of being one of the hardest languages to learn and I doubt he spoke it.

In such a tiny place, local knowledge would surely have been more valuable?
 
zwiebel said:
It does seem strange someone like Schultz should have been brought in for what appear to be purely local disappearances/possibly crimes - I believe Icelandic has the reputation of being one of the hardest languages to learn and I doubt he spoke it.

In such a tiny place, local knowledge would surely have been more valuable?
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Now I am curious ... do you speak Icelandic? I don't either! How do you plan to websleuth this case if you cannot access the original sources? And they all have the same names on top of that, too....

Þýskur rannsóknarforingi á eftirlaunum, Karl Schütz, var fenginn til að stýra rannsókn málsins sem þá var í miklum hnút. Ekki verður séð hvers vegna óupplýst mannshvörf hér á landi gátu talist verðugt verkefni fyrir þýskan lögreglumann á eftirlaunum sem einkum hefur sérhæft sig í málum er varða öryggi ríkisins, en eftir að dómur var fallinn hér á Íslandi í málinu lýsti hann því yfir að meðferð sakborninga hafi minnt sig á blómatíð nasismans í Þýskalandi og að hlutdeild hans í málinu hafi bjargað íslensku ríkisstjórninni [heimild vantar]. Í janúar 1977 lauk svo rannsókn Karl Schütz eftir sviðsetningu atburða við Dráttarbrautina í Keflavík en þar töldu rannsóknarlögreglumenn að Geirfinni hefði verið ráðinn bani. Þrátt fyrir umfangsmikla leit fannst ekki lík Geirfinns.
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Geirfinnsmálið - Wikipedia, frjálsa alfræðiritið

Not quite my cup of tea!

With Karl Schütz you will find similar problems. Btw, it is Karl Schütz and not Schülz, that search will get you to totally different persons. And there are also many of them, those names are common too.
His era was before the internet and not much can be found. I discovered some articles by the weekly Der Spiegel, that is all.

I suppose they had enough local knowledge themselves. Maybe they thought they were not up to the latets developments?
Young people were suspect in the 1970's, it was thought they might turn to drugs, extremism and terrorism any moment so to speak.
Probably the Icelandic police and the government were affected by the Zeitgeist.
 
Infuriating. I have just missed the live broadcast of the BBC documentary. I think it will be downloadable later. It was broadcast as the last of the 'Crossing Continents' series.

I caught the last few minutes. I am certain they were innocent of murder now. Not least because the convicted man who became a Minister/Priest is still wondering (seriously!) if he somehow committed murder 40 years ago without knowing it!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
 
ZaZara said:
Now I am curious ... do you speak Icelandic? I don't either! How do you plan to websleuth this case if you cannot access the original sources? And they all have the same names on top of that, too....



Geirfinnsmálið - Wikipedia, frjálsa alfræðiritið

Not quite my cup of tea!

With Karl Schütz you will find similar problems. Btw, it is Karl Schütz and not Schülz, that search will get you to totally different persons. And there are also many of them, those names are common too.
His era was before the internet and not much can be found. I discovered some articles by the weekly Der Spiegel, that is all.

I suppose they had enough local knowledge themselves. Maybe they thought they were not up to the latets developments?
Young people were suspect in the 1970's, it was thought they might turn to drugs, extremism and terrorism any moment so to speak.
Probably the Icelandic police and the government were affected by the Zeitgeist.
Click to expand...

It would be very nice if I spoke Icelandic. Sadly, I can't even speak German or French properly....and I am living in the former and have lived in the latter. :(

Nevertheless. I believe this case is sleuthable, because Icelandic people are mostly much better at languages than me, and speak English. All the convicted who were interviewed in the documentary spoke very good English, in my opinion. WS will start to come up on google searches, and maybe we will get a local posting? You never know. It would be great to have Icelandic posters on the thread.

I knew I would slip up with Karl Shutz.....I decided early on (for some reason) he was named Schultz. I kept correcting my posts, but one slipped through!

I will see if I can find a little more info to post, to help us.
 
zwiebel said:
Infuriating. I have just missed the live broadcast of the BBC documentary. I think it will be downloadable later. It was broadcast as the last of the 'Crossing Continents' series.

I caught the last few minutes. I am certain they were innocent of murder now. Not least because the convicted man who became a Minister/Priest is still wondering (seriously!) if he somehow committed murder 40 years ago without knowing it!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
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New link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01ypll4


No time to listen now.
 
I suspect that a great deal of what happened in these cases can be explained by the lack of professionalism of the Icelandic police at the time. Remember that this was a country of around 300,000 in which the TV station closed down every Thursday and for the whole of August because there simply weren't enough employees to keep things going. The other thing is that in order to roster police leave, especially in August, they had to drafted in non-cops to cover the cops' holidays. Did they draft in retired cops? Nope. They drafted in students. That's right - students. Put them in uniform, gave them guns and patrol cars and, especially in remote areas, largely left them to get on with it.
 
MelmothTheLost said:
I suspect that a great deal of what happened in these cases can be explained by the lack of professionalism of the Icelandic police at the time. Remember that this was a country of around 300,000 in which the TV station closed down every Thursday and for the whole of August because there simply weren't enough employees to keep things going. The other thing is that in order to roster police leave, especially in August, they had to drafted in non-cops to cover the cops' holidays. Did they draft in retired cops? Nope. They drafted in students. That's right - students. Put them in uniform, gave them guns and patrol cars and, especially in remote areas, largely left them to get on with it.
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I just wanted to say that police in Iceland have never carried guns while on patrol, not now and not in the 70's. Only our swat team, Víkingasveitin, carry them. The police force has guns but they are not a part of the uniform. Only batons and pepper spray.

This case and the mishandling of it is 100% the fault of the police. Everyone here knows it and people are very vocal about it and have been for years.

We've been hoping for decades that focus would be put back into it and I, for one, am very grateful that is has been opened back up. I feel incredible sorrow for the men and woman who was put through hell because of a corrupt and lazy system and the fact that most of them will never get to see it be solved. Their names will forever be associated with these disappearances and people will always have their doubts about them just because others didn't do their job.


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Apparently there is going to be a stand alone documentary or a series, can't remember, about these cases that Netflix is co-developing with Sagafilm, an Icelandic film company. Saw it in the paper. Will try to find it online.

Eta: I found it. It's in Icelandic though.

http://www.visir.is/netflix-fjarfes...ndar--og-geirfinnsmalid/article/2016160708962

Says that Netflix is investing in it, not developing. Will be called "Out of Thin Air". Ólafur Arnalds will compose the music for the film, he's very good and did the music for British crime drama Broadchurch. Will probably premiere early next year.

The movie is a project shared between Sagafilm, RÚV (Icelandic national broadcaster) and BBC.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Some new developments for those interested.

14 years ago an Icelandic journalist and writer, Ómar Ragnarsson, started conducting interviews for a book that he was writing about these two cases. He was put into contact with two persons, a man and a woman, that say they killed Geirfinnur Einarsson by hitting him with their car and then taking the body and dumping it in a crevasse in the lava fields near the mountain Helgafell which is not far away from where the alleged accident occurred. The man then said that the body went into a river that runs under the lava field and headed straight for the ocean. Ómar didn't release the book until a couple of days ago since he lost the manuscript and didn't find it again until three years ago. The man and the woman only talked to him under the promise that he would not name them and only if they were allowed to have a say in the book actually being published.

In 2004 the man called Ómar and said that he was okay with it being published but the manuscript had already been lost. The woman has apparently passed away since then but the man is still alive. Ómar has said that he felt like he could not break the confidentiality that these two persons bestowed upon him and that's why he never said anything.

These two persons alleged that Geirfinnur was standing by a van that was parked by the side of the road, the road being Keflavíkurvegur which has now been renamed Reykjanesbraut and goes between Keflavík and the capital (Reykjavík). They also said that there were two men with Geirfinnur and that he had gotten the feeling they would not call the police on him.

He also said that he didn't want to put his family through the dark times that would follow if he was charged and therefore decided to hide the body. He says that for years he wanted to come forward but since he had no evidence he thought that he would not be believed. As of now he is unsure if he should come forward with his identity.

The committee that is re-evaluating the case says that it will look into the book and its accusations.

Here's a link to the story. It's in Icelandic.

http://www.ruv.is/frett/segir-geirfinn-hafa-latist-i-umferdarohappi
 
Don't know what happened to Geirfinnur or if that man who confessed to killing him was telling the truth. I believe Guomundur died walking home through the lava field.
 
zwiebel said:
'Long before the main court procedures, four of the defendants had repeatedly withdrawn their confessions, which they said were the result of physical and mental torture'.

An End To The Neverending Nightmare? - The Reykjavik Grapevine

What worries me - I think there may well be one unsolved murder in this case. The missing teen I think may have died in the snow on his walk home. But the man who just vanished after going to the cafe? And his car was found abandoned....
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They look guilty to me of something anyway. Anyone who leaves their glasses on for a mug shot is suspect.
 
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