Brynjar Nielsen Meling (born 29 May 1967) is a Norwegian

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

Personal life

Meling is married and have four children. He usually votes for the Conservative Party, but voted blank in 2003 as a result of the party joining the other parties in demanding to repatriate Mullah Krekar. He was a

Salvation Army The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestantism, Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. It is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The organisation reports a worldwide m ...

soldier until 2003 when he withdrew to not become a burden for the organisation as a result of his work as a lawyer, defending controversial figures.

Career

He became famous overnight after being appointed as the

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Belgium, Hungary and Si ...

Mullah Krekar Najmadin Faraj Ahmad (, July 7, 1956), better known as Mullah Krekar (), is a Kurdish Sunni Islamic scholar. He was a commander for the Peshmerga unit belonging to the Kurdistan Islamic Movement during the 1991 Iraqi uprisings. Later, he founded ...

, and has since also worked on a number of other high-profile cases, mainly cases directly targeted against Norwegian commercial and political interests. He is noted for especially defending

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

and

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s suspected for various criminal offences. Some of his other more famous cases include: *'' Mohammed Shah Rais'' (also known as "The bookseller of Kabul"), who is planning to sue

Åsne Seierstad Åsne Seierstad (born 10 February 1970) is a Norwegian freelance journalist and writer, best known for her accounts of everyday life in war zones – most notably Kabul after 2001, Baghdad in 2002 and the ruined Grozny in 2006. Personal and pro ...

for defamation of character in her book '' The Bookseller of Kabul'' () which she wrote after staying with his family in

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

for several months. *''Osman Omar Osman'', a

Kurd Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

with dual Norwegian and

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

i citizenship. He is accused of killing his Norwegian wife while on vacation in Iraq, and was sentenced to death by hanging on March 10, 2005 by a local Iraqi court. The sentence was however annulled due to "wrongful application of the law", and a new trial before the same court was scheduled for August 10, 2005. After several delays the trial was finally held, and on October 10, 2005 he was again sentenced to death. According to a spokesman for the Norwegian Department of Foreign Affairs, the judge in the case has assured them that the sentence will most likely be converted to life imprisonment by a higher court, and that the death sentence would not be carried out in any case. Meling has been Osman's appointed lawyer in Norway, however he has not been directly involved in the case other than consulting with Osman's Iraqi lawyer and petitioning the Norwegian and Iraqi governments to have the case transferred to a Norwegian court since the victim and accused were both Norwegian citizens. However, since Osman was also an Iraqi citizen this was denied. * Abdul Rauf Mohammad, former

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

government minister who was expelled from Norway due to a domestic violence case and his involvement in Islamist circles and possibly terror-related activities.

Controversy

Meling's choice of clients has made him an unpopular man in many circles. Meling has received a steady stream of hate mail, ranging from neatly hand-written letters filled with Bible quotes that wish him a happy journey to hell to old ladies walking up to him to tell him he ought to be ashamed. In 2004 a dying man who had been a longtime supporter of the Salvation Army contacted the local Salvation Army branch in

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

and informed them that he had changed his

will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...

to exclude the organisation after learning that Meling was a member. He had previously intended to leave 1 million

NOK Nok is a village in Jaba, Nigeria, Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. The village is an archeological site. Archaeology The discovery of terracotta figurines at this location caused its name to be used for the Nok culture, ...

to the local branch and an unspecified amount for the Salvation Army's work abroad. Meling had in fact resigned from the Salvation Army about 6 months earlier in 2003 to avoid being a liability to the organisation, but he still listed as a member in early 2004 due to slow internal bureaucracy. When questioned about the incident Meling said he was "saddened" that people would punish a volunteer organisation he had been a member of because of his work as a lawyer. After presenting a bill for 1,000 hours (for a total amount of 956,000 NOK / 116,000 Euro) to the government for his public defence of mullah Krekar, he has also been accused of being greedy. According to Norwegian law all

asylum seekers An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A pers ...

are entitled to a certain number of hours of lawyer assistance, but the government felt that his claim was excessive and refused to pay for more than 80 hours. Meling insists all the billed hours were necessary to provide a fair trial for his client, considering the vast amount of evidence presented by various intelligence agencies (some of which had been thrown out of court upon closer examination), and the fact that the case had become highly political.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meling, Brynjar 1967 births Living people 20th-century Norwegian lawyers Norwegian Salvationists 21st-century Norwegian lawyers