Prison officer charged after assault on inmate at Oslo Prison

A prison officer at Oslo Prison has been charged with assault and gross negligence in office after a video showed him striking an inmate who was already on the ground. The officer denies the charges.

The incident occurred on 13 August 2025, and the trial is set to begin in September 2026, according to Dagbladet. Oslo Prison director Nils Leyell Finstad reported the officer himself after seeing the footage, marking the first time he has filed a complaint against a staff member.

“That video made an impression on me. It really did,” Finstad told TV 2, which first exposed the case.

The charged officer claims the situation was chaotic. In a statement through his former lawyer, Atle Sønsteli Johansen, he said: “Everything happened very quickly, and I thought the staff had lost or were losing control of the inmate. I ran over to assist. In hindsight, it’s possible I misunderstood, and the officers may have had better control than I perceived, but the situation was very chaotic.”

The victim, a 19-year-old, told TV 2: “There was no point in resisting. I just let my thoughts go somewhere else as I lay there.”

Police initially received incomplete footage of the incident, missing the moments leading up to the assault. After requesting the full video, they obtained it. Police prosecutor Bendik Tveiten Vigsnes confirmed that the file error was technical and not intentional, stating that the prison had secured the original file without faults.

Reports filed by the prison officers after the incident made no mention of the strikes, according to Finstad. The charged officer has given his account in police interviews, but Vigsnes declined to disclose details.

Finstad acknowledged the challenges faced by staff, citing understaffing, high inmate numbers, and chaotic conditions as contributing factors in such incidents.