Norwegian police will cooperate with their French counterparts in an investigation into top diplomat Mona Juul and her husband Terje Rod-Larsen, suspected of alleged corruption over their ties with late US sex offenderJeffrey Epstein.
A joint investigation team (JIT) has been established between Okokrim, the Norwegian police’s economic crime unit, and France, Okokrim told AFP.
“The JIT is between Okokrim and the investigation relating to Mona Juul and Terje Rod-Larsen and a specific case France is investigating,” it said, providing no details about the French probe.
Several investigations have been opened in France into possible financial offences committed by people mentioned in the Epstein files, including one into diplomat Fabrice Aidan.
Aidan worked at the United Nations from 2006 to 2013.
He served as an aide to Rod-Larsen, who was a special envoy to the UN secretary-general on a part-time basis from 2005 to 2016, according to a French representative to the UN at the time.
“The JIT will (make) the international cooperation more efficient. Okokrim and France do not have to write a new letter of request every time we have a need for information from the other country,” senior state prosecutor Marianne Bender told AFP in an email.
Norwegian police in February announced they had opened an investigation into whether Juul “received benefits in connection to her position”.
Juul was a section chief at the Norwegian foreign ministry and later became ambassador to the United Kingdom in the 2010s, at a time when, according to exchanges brought to light by the media in the Epstein documents, the couple had ties with the convicted sex offender.
Epstein, who died in 2019 while in jail awaiting trial for sex trafficking, reportedly left $10 million in his will to the couple’s two children, according to Norwegian media.
Source: Insider Paper
