OSLO: Norwegian police said Monday they have launched an \u201caggravated corruption\u201d investigation against a high-profile diplomat, Mona Juul, and her husband Terje Rod-Larsen, over the couple\u2019s links to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n
The police economic crime unit Okokrim said in statement that the probe began last week and that an Oslo residence was searched on Monday, as well as a residence belonging to a witness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have launched an investigation to determine whether any criminal offenses have been committed. We are facing a comprehensive and, by all accounts lengthy investigation,\u201d Okokrim chief Pal Lonseth, said.<\/p>\n
Juul, 66, and Rod-Larsen, 78, played key roles in the secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which led to the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
Epstein left $10 million in his will to the couple\u2019s two children, according to Norwegian media.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong other things, Okokrim will investigate whether she received benefits in connection to her position,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the foreign ministry announced that Juul had resigned from her position as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq.<\/p>\n
\u201cJuul\u2019s contact with the convicted abuser Epstein has shown a serious lapse in judgment,\u201d Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in connection to the announcement.<\/p>\n
She had already been temporarily suspended last week pending an internal investigation by the ministry into her alleged links to Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.<\/p>\n
Norway\u2019s political and royal circles have been thrust into the eye of the Epstein storm, including the CEO of the World Economic Forum Borge Brende.<\/p>\n
Former prime minister Thorbjorn Jagland, is also being investigated for \u201caggravated corruption\u201d over links to Epstein while he was chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee \u2014 which awards the Nobel Peace Prize \u2014 and as secretary general of the Council of Europe.<\/p>\n
Norway\u2019s Crown Princess Mette-Marit has also come under scrutiny for her relationship with Epstein, which on Friday she said she \u201cdeeply regretted.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store voiced support for the establishing of an independent commission set up by Parliament, to fully examine the nature of the ties between these figures and Epstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OSLO: Norwegian police said Monday they have launched an \u201caggravated corruption\u201d investigation against a high-profile diplomat, Mona Juul, and her husband Terje Rod-Larsen, over the couple\u2019s links to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The police economic crime unit Okokrim said in statement that the probe began last week and that an Oslo residence was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93492,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93474\/revisions\/93492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}