Disappearance of Arjen Kamphuis becomes increasinly mysterious
The traces left by the missing computer security expert Arjen Kamphuis make his disappearance increasingly mysterious. On Tuesday, items were found that according to the Norwegian police are those of Kamphuis. A new trail that doesn't fit with an earlier trail, almost two thousand kilometres away.
Could the local angler who reported Tuesday evening at the police station somewhere in northern Norway have realised the mystery? Just after 19 hours he brought in a load of new questions about the disappearance of Arjen Kamphuis.
The fisherman had found things in the water between Fauske and Rognan. Those turn out to be from Kamphuis, according to the Norwegian police.
The location is more than eighty kilometres east of the coastal city of Bodø, the place where Arjen was last seen on August 20. Along with the announcement of the discovery of Arjen's possessions, the Norwegian police also announced that there are indications that Kamphuis took the train to Rognan on the day of his disappearance. He was supposed to have left just after 4 p.m. and arrived around 5.30 p.m.
But how does the new information relate to an earlier found trace? Because last week the police in Norway reported that Arjen Kamphuis' mobile phone was switched on briefly after its disappearance. Ten days after Kamphuis checked out of his hotel in Bodø, on 30 August, the mobile phone of Kamphuis was in the air for twenty minutes.
The Samsung connected just outside Stavanger, in the south of Norway. More than 1700 kilometres from the northern towns of Bodø and Rognan.
The news on the phone last week gave a glimmer of hope to the desperate family and friends of Kamphuis.
"We have signals that the person who turned it on also knows the PIN code of the SIM card. So that indicates that it was Arjen himself,'', Ancilla van de Leest, a good friend of Kamphuis, said at the time.
According to the direct colleague of Kamphuis, Marco Visser, the Samsung phone of the cyber expert was secured at the highest level. According to Visser, the chance of someone else getting access to the phone is virtually impossible.
Friends and family have no idea yet how to interpret the new discoveries.
"We also don't know what items are involved. Not even if they are actually from Arjan. The Dutch police are less certain than the Norwegian police,'' according to Van de Leest, who is in contact with them. Since this week two Dutch detectives help with the search. According to Van de Leest, they are now on their way to the site.
The discovery of the items also raises the question of what Kamphuis was doing in Rognan. Two days after leaving his luxury hotel in Bodø, the computer specialist would fly back to the Netherlands via Trondheim. He had a ten-hour train journey from Bodø to Trondheim ahead of him.
What feeds the disappearance mystery even more is the background of Kamphuis. He is co-founder of the data company Pretty Good Knowledge and a well-known name in the international world of hackers and cyber security. Among other things, he helps journalists and whistleblower sites like Wikileaks to keep their information out of reach of investigation and intelligence services.
This leads directly to all kinds of conspiracy theories on the internet. That foreign secret services are involved in his disappearance, for example.
Friends and family call such a scenario unlikely. "Of course. Arjen is always involved in projects that are not always pleasing to everyone. But lately he hasn't been doing anything else than anything else,'' Van de Leest says about that. Visser:
"In recent months he has only been writing a manual for students. Not really something you make enemies with.''
BBM
What could they have found that was not the canoe? What floats? unless the items were found at the shore when the tide brought them in.
What is distinctive enough for a fisherman to want to report it to the Police?
The best floating object is a plastic water bottle that is almost empty. Sneakers may float, and rubber ducklings. But no one would take those to the police.
Lots of English sources suggest that the find was done at sea "
off Norway". Technically they may be right, but the alleged location is at the
inner end of a fjord, 80 kms from the open sea. And surrounded by many lengths of Norway on both sides.