Five Icelanders Jailed in Denmark Drug Case

A Danish court yesterday announced the verdict over five Icelanders for their part in smuggling almost 70 kg (154 lbs) of amphetamines to the country in 2011 and 2012. Three of the men, and three of their accomplices already found guilty, are to spend 54 years in prison combined.

This is the strictest combined verdict that has ever been handed to Icelandic citizens. One of the eight men was sentenced to confinement in a mental health institution and another is to undergo psychiatric evaluation, Fréttablaðið reports.

Of the three sent to prison, Ágúst Georg Csillag, 21, was handed a ten-year sentence, Erlingur Bergmann Karlsson, 24, a six-year sentence and Enzo Rinaldi, 40, a six-year sentence. The two other men in court yesterday, who are to serve time in a prison psychiatric hospital and undergo psychiatric evaluation, are 38 and 35, respectively.

Earlier this summer the ringleader in the case Guðmundur Ingi Þóroddsson was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was facing a 14-year sentence but confessed and helped to convict others and so his sentence was shortened. Guðmundur has been convicted for drug smuggling in Iceland on earlier occasions.

In August, two other Icelanders, Heimir Sigurðsson, 50, and Sturla Þórhallsson, 25, were given ten years in prison each for their part in the case.

Danish citizen Peter Baungård, the other ringleader, was also in court yesterday where he was handed a ten-year sentence. This summer he was sentenced to 12 years in prison in a different drug case, while in 1994 he was convicted for murdering an 83-year-old millionaire.

Yesterday, non-Icelandic citizen Mads Malmquist Rasmussen was handed a seven-year-sentence in connection with the drug smuggling case and Juan Gorriateguy was given an eight-year sentence earlier this summer.

The Icelandic police’s narcotics division took active part in the case’s investigation. The division’s director Karl Steinar Valsson stated that the verdicts are very strict. “They underline what we said at the beginning, that this is the most extensive drug case that Icelanders have ever been involved in.”