Stefán H. Ófeigsson

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Stefán Hjaltested Ófeigsson (born June 20, 1977) is an Icelandic space engineer (M.Sc), who has worked in the field of researching the possibilities of Icelandic participation in the European Space Programme. In November 2005 he was convicted to serve 2½ years in prison for the rape of an 18 year old girl in Reykjavík in November 2004.

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[edit] Career

Stefán holds a masters degree in space engineering and has worked as project manager and space engineer at Iðntæknistofnun Íslands and as project manager at Impra nýsköpunarmiðstöð. At Iðntæknistofnun he worked, amongst other things, on a survey of the options Iceland had for participation in the European space programme in cooperation with the ESA. He was project manager of a grant from Tæknisjóður under the title "Skoðun á möguleikum Íslands í Evrópsku geimferðaáætluninni" (Survey of the possibilities Iceland has for participation in the European space project).

Stefán also wrote answers to questions on Vísindavefurinn where he replied to a total of 16[1] questions related to space engineering, i.e. "What is the difference between a jet engine and a rocket engine?", "What caused the loss of the Columbia space shuttle" and "What do space engineers do?". After his conviction Vísindavefurinn removed the answers he wrote from its website. When visiting the URL to the questions[2] the same error message is displayed as when the question has never existed: "This question was not found".

[edit] Rape case

Stefán was convicted of having raped an 18 year old girl in Reykjavík on November 27, 2004 for which he was sentenced by the district court of Reykjavík on November 17, 2005 to 2½ years of prison and to pay the victim 900,000 ISK (approx. 14,000 USD), as well as a fine of 590,000 kronas (approx. 9,200 USD). Stefán pleaded innocent before the court but his testimony was not considered convincing. In the sentence it was mentioned that Stefán had not previously been found guilty of punishable offence, which may affect his punishment. The sentence says:

"When deciding punishments it shall be noted that the crime was especially brute and vile and was marked by focused intent. Despite the fact that the victim explicitly said that he was hurting her and that his sexual movements were against her will the convicted did not think twice about resorting to violence. The convicted has no chance of redemption."

The judges in the case were Ingveldur Einarsdóttir, Páll Þorsteinsson and Símon Sigvaldason.

[edit] News coverage

The case was widely covered in the Icelandic media upon his sentencing. It was covered on the front page of DV the third most widely distributed newspaper in Iceland with ~17% market share and on the opening fold (page 2) of Fréttablaðið (The Newspaper), the most widely distributed newspaper in Iceland (~65% market share).

When the case was at its peak, 7 of the 20 highest ranking queries in Embla, an internet search engine run by Morgunblaðið (The Morning Paper), the second most widely distributed newspaper in Iceland with ~45% market share whose website mbl.is ranks as the second most visited website in Iceland [3], were directly related to the case. On the web, the case has been covered by that website, and on December 3, 2005 by visir.is, the most popular website in Iceland. The article on visir.is cited the Icelandic Wikipedia article.

On December 4, 2005 Fréttablaðið reported on its front page that a group of people had gathered outside of a house (a three-up) on Njálsgata (Njáls St.) in 101 Reykjavík on the early morning of December 3, 2005 thinking that it was the current residence of Stefán. The group acted unpeacefully and threw eggs at the house. A resident of the house called the police and upon their arrival the group dispersed. A resident of the house reported that this was the second weekend in a row where the "house had been attacked in this manner" despite Stefán no longer being a resident.

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[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Stefán Hjaltested Ófeigsson
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Icelandic space engineer; convicted rapist
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
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