Norway and France launch joint police probe into diplomats' alleged links with Epstein
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According to Norwegian media, police are investigating financial assistance the couple received to purchase an Oslo apartment in 2018 at a price below market value.
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 offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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A joint investigation team (JIT) has been established between Okokrim, the Norwegian police's economic crime unit, and France, Okokrim said on Monday.
"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, who 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 part time 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 the AFP news agency 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 (€8.5 million) in his will to the couple's two children, according to Norwegian media.
Juul, 67, and Rod-Larsen, 78, played key roles in the secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which led to the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s.
According to Norwegian media, police are investigating financial assistance the couple received to purchase an Oslo apartment in 2018 at a price below market value, a trip to Epstein's island in 2011, and the payment of home-care services for Rod-Larsen.
The couple denies having committed any offences.
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