The Scandinavian country of Norway opened a parliamentary investigation on Wednesday, (September 30), into 11 current and former ministers, including Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere. The inquiry concerns state funding for a think-tank run by a diplomat who called Jeffrey Epstein his “best friend”. It makes Oslo one of the few capitals to have turned the fallout from the Epstein files into formal scrutiny of its own establishment.
The think-tank at the centre of the inquiry, the International Peace Institute (IPI), also features in the Epstein story far beyond Norway. India’s Petroleum Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, acknowledged at a Delhi press conference on February 11 that he had met Epstein three or four times as part of an IPI delegation, after opposition leader Rahul Gandhi raised his name in parliament. Puri said he had “nothing to do with” Epstein’s crimes and that he had no interest in the financier’s activities.
The files, however, suggested more contact than that. Media reports say that they list scheduled appointments with Puri at least five times between June 2014 and January 2017, while others note that the exchanges began when he was a retired diplomat and a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party member, before he entered government. Although being named in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing; Puri's account that the meetings were professional and incidental could be true. However, unlike Norway, no probe was ordered into the allegations against Puri.
The Norwegian hearing, on the other hand, centres on reports that the Foreign Ministry gave more than 130 million kroner ($13.5m) to the IPI between 1997 and 2018. Terje Roed-Larsen, chief architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords, led the institute from 2005 to 2020. Stoere, foreign minister from 2005 to 2012, denied any wrongdoing and told the committee: “There is no reason to speak of an unhealthy culture at a large organisation just because of what one or several people may have done.”
Committee chair Jonas Andersen Sayed said the government must explain how it will restore trust in the foreign service.“There are many people who have demonstrated very poor judgement,” Sayed told Reuters, while referring to friends of Epstein.
What are the Epstein files?
The files are the records of US investigations into Epstein, the financier who died in jail in 2019 while facing sex-trafficking charges. The US Department of Justice released about 3.5 million pages of them from January 30 under a transparency law, along with videos and images. They show how Epstein cultivated politicians, royals, diplomats and business leaders, many of whom stayed in touch after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Many of those mentioned deny any wrongdoing, even as many of the references are fleeting.
What the files say about Norway’s officials
The documents have shaken Norway’s elite. Former prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland was charged with aggravated corruption. The files show Epstein’s assistants planning visits for his family in 2014. Jagland denies wrongdoing.
Mona Juul, who resigned as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, and her husband Roed-Larsen are also under investigation. Epstein’s will reportedly left their two children $10m, and he helped them negotiate an Oslo flat purchase in 2018. Roed-Larsen called Epstein a “thoroughly good human being” in 2017. Both deny the allegations.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit exchanged hundreds of emails with Epstein and has apologised. Parliament has also commissioned an independent inquiry, due to report by January 31, 2028.
Few countries have followed
In the UK, police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the former ambassador Peter Mandelson in February. Both were released on bail. Slovakia’s national security adviser Miroslav Lajcak resigned, and French prosecutors opened a financial inquiry into the former culture minister Jack Lang.
Many other governments named in the files have said little and acted less. In India, the Ministry of External Affairs dismissed an email in which Epstein claimed Narendra Modi took his advice on a 2017 visit to Israel as “trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal”. Similarly, the ruling BJP and minister Puri have also attacked the allegations as an opposition gimmick more than anything else. Opposition Congress leader K C Venugopal called the files “a huge wake-up call”. In spite of the allegations, no formal parliamentary or police inquiry has been reported in India, and Puri’s links to the IPI have not triggered one.
