Guðmundur and Geirfinnur case
[2] On the night of 26 January 1974, Guðmundur Einarsson, an 18-year-old labourer, was walking back from the community hall[a] in Hafnarfjörður (part of the Greater Reykjavík area) to his home, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) away.
[5] Ten months later, on 19 November 1974, Geirfinnur Einarsson, a 32-year-old construction worker unrelated to Guðmundur, received a phone call while at home and drove a short distance to the harbour cafe in Keflavík.
[7][8] Six suspects, Sævar Ciesielski, Kristján Viðar Viðarsson, Tryggvi Rúnar Leifsson, Albert Klahn Skaftason, Guðjón Skarphéðinsson, and Erla Bolladóttir, eventually signed confessions to murder, even though they had no clear memory of committing the crimes.
On 24 February 2017, the Interior Ministry's Rehearing Committee concluded that the cases of Sævar, Kristján, Tryggvi, Albert and Guðjón should be reheard by the Supreme Court of Iceland.
[citation needed] In its assessment, the commission's investigation into the Geirfinnur murder case of 1974 drew upon the inquiries, research and findings of Gísli Guðjónsson, who had established the concept of 'Memory Distrust Syndrome', whereby an individual subjected to extreme mental duress such as solitary confinement and sleep deprivation, would come to rely more on external forces, including interrogators, than their own memory.
[citation needed] In February 2018, the State Prosecutor submitted a motion to the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the convictions of Sævar, Kristján, Tryggvi, Albert, Guðjón and Erla.
Hunko additionally requested that any surviving officials, as well as the families of those deceased, be asked to return the Icelandic medals granted to them as a result of the incorrect convictions.
[citation needed] In October 2019, Halla Bergthóra Björnsdóttir, the Attorney General of Iceland, opened an investigation into the disappearance of Guðmundur and Geirfinnur, focusing on witness testimonies made in 2015 and 2016.
[20] In December 2022, Erla was additionally granted approximately €210,000 in damages due to her spending eight months in solitary confinement, with the Icelandic Government issuing a formal apology to her.
"[23] As of January 2023, Iceland continues to regularly employ the practice of pre-trial solitary confinement; according to a report by Amnesty International, despite the outcry created by the Guðmundur and Geirfinnur case, "not enough has changed and people are still being subjected to harm.
"[24] Simon Crowther, a legal adviser at Amnesty, was quoted as saying: "Icelandic authorities have been aware of the harms that solitary confinement causes, and their overuse of it, for years.
[1] Professor of Psychiatry Gísli Guðjónsson, a former Icelandic detective and internationally renowned expert on suggestibility and false confessions, investigated this case and concluded:
