The Norwegian ambassador to Jordan and Iraq resigned from her post on 9 February, following revelations of financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted child sex trafficker and Mossad asset.
Ambassador Mona Juul’s relationship with Epstein revealed a “serious failure of judgment,” said Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide in a statement. “The case makes it difficult to restore the trust necessary for the role,” he explained.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said it has opened an investigation “into Juul’s knowledge of and contact with Epstein.”
“We need to determine whether the relationship impacted her work as a diplomat,” Eide added.
Juul and her husband, Terje Rod-Larsen, a fellow diplomat and former Council of Europe secretary-general, played a key role in negotiating the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1990s.
Juul has previously served as the ambassador of Norway to Israel, Britain, and the UN.
Rod-Larsen, who also had direct ties to Epstein, served as UN deputy secretary-general and UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
He was so respected that the newspaper Aftenposten, half-ironically, called him Norway’s “super-diplomat.”
Documents released by the US Department of Justice revealed that Epstein left $5 million each to the couple’s two children in the will he signed shortly before his alleged suicide in prison in 2019.
Juul had previously stated in Norwegian media that she “deeply regretted” her association with Epstein. She said she met Epstein in a diplomatic context, claiming she had minimal contact with him afterward.
However, according to German newspaper Tagesanzeiger, the diplomatic couple vacationed on Epstein’s Caribbean island, which he used to host guests but also as a private base for sex trafficking children and sexual abuse.
Court documents alleged that Epstein flew young girls to the island to perform sexual acts for himself and his associates. The island is frequently referred to as “Pedophile Island.”
In 2019, Rod-Larsen resigned as the president of the prestigious International Peace Institute amid revelations that he had taken a $130,000 personal loan from Epstein in 2013.
Several other Norwegians appear prominently in the Epstein files.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit; Thorbjorn Jagland, former Norwegian prime minister and former secretary-general of the Council of Europe; and former foreign minister and current head of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Borge Brende, also appear in the documents.
