Prosecutors claim at least seven people died painful deaths after drinking liquor that Fallo smuggled to Norway from Portugal. The liquor contained methanol, which allowed for cheaper production but had fatal consequences.
Fallo is on trial along with 76-year-old Per Erik Fossum, who's also charged in the fatal smuggling case. The court has set aside 22 days for their trial, but with more than 80 witnesses called to testify, court officials fear it may take longer.
Fallo, age 58, showed up in an Oslo court Monday morning and denied charges he knowingly allowed the tainted spirits to be sold. He admits to some of the smuggling, however.
He presents himself as a victim as well, because he says he didn't know the spirits contained deadly methanol and his reputation among customers has thus been destroyed.
"After all the horrible things that have happened, there's no doubt: I can't smuggle a single jug of spirits anymore," Fallo told reporters just before his trial started. "I can't gamble with this any longer."
A total of nearly 20 Norwegians have been killed by methanol-laced liquor that they bought illegally, in an attempt to get around the country's high taxes on legal spirits. Not only is Fallo on trial for seven of those deaths, but he also faces compensation claims from the families of several victims.
Fallo started cooperating with the police in an effort at damage control, allegedly after he became aware that spirits smuggled in from Portugal contained methanol.
Fallo's police record goes back 30 years. In the 1980s he smuggled around 500,000 bottles of liquor into Norway through his own water company, and he also ordered distillery equipment to launch his own production at Brobekk in Oslo.
He was known to sell liquor from a truck outside apartment buildings in Oslo's Groruddalen, without anyone calling the police to report him.
