Brendemo Hagen is home again in Norway
Cocaine-sentenced Stina Brendemo Hagen (21) is at home in Norway again, after she escaped from prison in Bolivia in August.
“Yes, she is back in Norway,” confirmed attorney Frode Sulland to VG Nett.
The 20-year-old will come back to Norway today by ferry. Prosecutor Peter Mandt was informed about the homecoming by the law firm of Sulland.
“We are aware that she is in Norway. This I have taken note of,” said Mandt.
The prosecutor has previously stressed that Brendemo Hagen will not be prosecuted if she returns to Norway.
“Stina Brendemo Hagen cannot be sentenced for the same crime twice,” Mandt said.
Norway does not have an extradition treaty with Bolivia, and she will not be sent back to prison, even though the prosecuting authority in Bolivia has issued arrest warrants for the 21-year-old Norwegian.
Together with two other Norwegian women, Brendemo Hagen was arrested in Cochabamba, Bolivia with 22.5 kilograms of cocaine in her luggage in May 2008. The amount was lowered to 11 kilos in a recently completed trial in Oslo District Court.
Brendemo Hagen was sentenced to ten years and four months in prison for the smuggling attempt. At the end of July, she was freed from prison on a bail of 350,000 Norwegian kroner, the terms of which, among other things, dictated that she stay in the city.
In August, however, she escaped from Bolivia to Brazil, and after nearly three months on the run, Brendemo Hagen is at home in Eastern Norway again.
The 21-year-old and the son that she bore while in jail last September, according to the magazine Alpha, have been helped by former elite soldiers to get to the administrative capital of the country, La Paz.
From there she was apparently taken to Brazil by plane, moped and boat, where she applied for a passport at the Norwegian Embassy.
The son was brought home with his grandmother in August. Brendemo Hagen was searched for in the whole of South America by the prosecuting authority in Bolivia, but has been missing until today when appeared in Norway.
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