Norway’s parliamentary oversight committee on Tuesday unanimously agreed to appoint a rare external inquiry into the Foreign Ministry’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, part of a deepening scandal surrounding his friendship with the late US sex offender.
File photo of Thorbjorn Jagland, who has come under the scanner for his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, following the release of new portions of Epstein’s files. (AFP)The release of a cache of new files in the US has revealed a host of new Epstein connections to politicians, royalty and the ultra-rich across Europe.
Norway’s white-collar crime police have opened an investigation into allegations of corruption against Thorbjørn Jagland, former prime minister and foreign minister and former chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
On Monday, police announced that Mona Zul, who resigned as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq on Sunday, was also being investigated for corruption. Her husband, former cabinet minister Terje Rode-Larsen, is suspected of involvement.
All three will cooperate with their respective investigations and see no merit to the charges, their lawyers said.
The Epstein scandal continues throughout NorwayBut the police actions have not stopped public demands for an inquiry in a country where officials are expected to be squeaky-clean.
“If half of what we’ve learned in the last few weeks is true, it’s terrible,” Labour’s surveyor Marley told reporters after a meeting of parliament’s standing committee on scrutiny and constitutional affairs.
The files show, among other things, that Jagland and Epstein’s aides made detailed plans in 2014 for Jagland, his wife, two children and his son’s girlfriend to meet with Epstein in Palm Beach and the Caribbean islands he owned.
Jagland, then-Secretary General of the European Human Rights Watch, denied visiting Epstein’s private island.
In an email in 2014, he asked Epstein for help financing an apartment in Oslo.
Emails from 2018 show that Epstein asked Jugland to arrange a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and said he had insights to offer to President Vladimir Putin. Jugland promised to bring it up with Lavrov’s assistant.
In 2019, Rod-Larsson’s relationship with Epstein became public. He has apologized several times for the relationship and resigned as CEO of the New York-based International Peace Institute, a think tank, in 2020.
The files indicate Juul and Rode-Larsen planned to visit Epstein’s private island with their two children in 2011, though it is unclear if the visit took place.
In a message in 2017, Rode-Larsen called Epstein a “totally good man” and in 2018 the couple enlisted his help in negotiating the purchase of an apartment in Oslo that is now the subject of a police investigation.
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In a will signed two days before his death by suicide in prison in 2019, Epstein said he was leaving $5 million to each of the couple’s two children.
Norway’s crown princess Mette-Marit, wife of the heir to the throne, apologized to the king and queen last week for her friendship with Epstein between 2011 and 2014, long after he was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from a minor.
