Margrét Halla Hansdóttir Löf, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence for killing her father at their home in Garðabær, has requested to be transferred from the high-security Hólmsheiði prison to Sogn, an open prison. The request has not yet been answered, according to her lawyer Sigurður G. Guðjónsson. The story was first reported by DV.
Garðabær is a town in the Capital Region of Iceland. Margrét Halla’s wish is to serve her sentence in an open facility rather than the more restrictive environment at Hólmsheiði. According to her lawyer, she specifically wants to be placed in an open prison such as Sogn.
Sigurður G. Guðjónsson, in a Facebook post, described Hólmsheiði as an inhumane building and urged authorities to consider its shortcomings when planning the country’s proposed new high‑security prison in Árborg (Stóra-Hraun). He expressed doubt that the new facility would offer improvements, because it would, like Hólmsheiði, be designed and built as a prison.
He also said the cost of constructing the proposed Stóra-Hraun prison could reach forty billion krónur or more. No formal cost estimate for the project has yet been published to confirm that figure.
The Prison and Probation Administration (Fangelsismálastofnun) is Iceland’s national correctional agency. It currently operates five prisons, including Hólmsheiði, which is the country’s largest with capacity for 53 prisoners. The agency has yet to respond publicly to Margrét Halla’s transfer request.
Sources
- DV (first reported) in Icelandic
- Mannlíf in Icelandic
- Vísir in Icelandic
- mbl.is in Icelandic
Image: Jóhann Heiðar Árnason / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) · licence, original (resized) Illustrative image.
