A joint investigation team (JIT) has been established between Økokrim, the police branch responsible for investigating financial crime, and France, as indicated by the Norwegian financial police in a message to AFP.
The Norwegian police have reached a cooperation agreement with France to facilitate their investigation into a prominent diplomat from Norway, Mona Juul, and her husband Terje Rød-Larsen, suspected respectively of “aggravated corruption” and “complicity in aggravated corruption” in connection with their past ties to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
According to French news sources, several investigations are underway in Paris regarding possible financial offenses, including one involving diplomat Fabrice Aidan, who worked at the United Nations between 2006 and 2013. Aidan collaborated with Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen, who held part-time special envoy functions at the UN from 2005 to 2016, according to a French representative at the UN at the time.
The couple denies having committed any infractions.
The JIT is expected to enhance international cooperation efficiency. Marianne Bender, the prosecutor, mentioned that ” Økokrim and France will no longer need to draft a new request for judicial assistance each time we need information from the other country,” in the message sent to AFP. The Norwegian police had announced in February the opening of an investigation into “possible granting of benefits related to the positions held” by Ms. Juul.
Mona Juul was a section chief at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later became the ambassador to the UK in the 2010s, at a time when, according to media reports, documents linking the couple to Jeffrey Epstein surfaced which indicated a link to the American sex offender. Both Juul and Rød-Larsen had played key roles in the secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s.
Norwegian media outlets have reported that the police are investigating assistance provided for the purchase of an apartment in Oslo in 2018 below market price, a trip on Epstein’s plane in 2011, and payment for home care services for Terje Rød-Larsen. The couple denies any wrongdoing. Epstein had been convicted of soliciting a minor in 2008.
