How tight was the grip Icelandic banks had on their society in the last decade?
Journalist Anna Kristine Magnusdottir tells of the death threats she received while she was working on a piece for DV in 2007. The story was about the mistreatment of children at a juvenile home at Kumbaravogur. Out of nowhere she got [...]
How tight was the grip Icelandic banks had on their society in the last decade?
Journalist Anna Kristine Magnusdottir tells of the death threats she received while she was working on a piece for DV in 2007. The story was about the mistreatment of children at a juvenile home at Kumbaravogur. Out of nowhere she got a phone call where an audibly upset man threatened her that he knew where she lived, what her car’s number was, what kind of make it was and that this story should not be published. Other people who had tried to spread these terrible lies about this nice old man (who ran the juvenile home) Kristjan Fridbergsson had been killed before.
Shortly thereafter Anna Kristine was grocery shopping when the cashier told her that her card had been declined as it had been reported stolen. The store intended to call the police but a nationally recognised woman stepped forward and paid Anna Kristine’s groceries and vouched that she was really the card’s owner (all debit and credit cards in Iceland also have a photo of the person on the back).
Anna says she had been scared enough to not run the story, she felt humiliated and didn’t think this sort of stuff could happen in Iceland. The story of Kumbaravogur was part of an extensive investigation DV made into the maltreatment of children in juvinile centers around Iceland decades ago and the paper was rewarded by the Icelandic Journalist Association for investigative reporting because of the series in 2007.
Kristjan Fridbergsson was Landsbanki CEO Halldor J. Kristjansson’s father. When she brought up that her card had been stolen with Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, his assistant asked beforehand whether she was asking because of that connection.
Bjorgolfur himself has earned notoriety for threats and action. Last year, DV editor Reynir Traustason admitted to his tape-recording employee that he would not run a story because Bjorgolfur would ruin their paper. The Bjorgolfur’s were said to be thinking of buying the paper to shut it down because of critical reporting.
The fear might have been justified. When Gudmundur Magnusson wrote a book about the Thors family, which includes Thora Hallgrimsdottir, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson’s wife and Bjorgolfur Thor’s mother, the publisher had the whole first edition destroyed. The book’s publisher was Edda Publishing, owned by…you guessed it, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson. The book included a chapter on Thora’s previous marriage with American George Rockwell which was little known about in Iceland.
Rockwell is described by Wikipedia as “a Navy Reserve Commander (Naval Aviator) and founder of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell was a major figure in the Neo-Nazi movement in post-war United States, and his beliefs and writings have continued to be influential among white nationalists and neo-Nazis.”
Halldor Kristjansson has now moved to Canada to take up a position with an investment firm in the energy sector. Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson’s house of card has come down tumbling, but he has managed to leave large chunks of his debts with Icelandic taxpayers through IceSave. And probably has enough left through his son in the Caribbean or Cyprus to live in luxury.