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Norway Launches Probe Against Larsen After Criticizing
Israel
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Larsen
investigating Israeli atrocities committed in Jenin
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OSLO, April 25 (IslamOnline
& News Agencies)-
Norway
said Wednesday it has
launched an investigation into claims its U.N. Middle East envoy Terje
Roed-Larsen received a substantial cash award from an Israeli
organization, news agencies reported.
Roed-Larsen,
who is under fire in Israel over his criticism of the occupation
army's devastating assault on the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin,
is said to have been given 100,000 dollars in 1999 by the Shimon Peres
Center for Peace.
"We
are currently conducting an inquiry according to internal procedures
to determine the facts before drawing any conclusions," Norwegian
foreign ministry spokesman Karsten Klepsvik said, Agence France-Presse
(AFP) reported.
The
Israeli press has reported that the
Peres
Center
gave Roed-Larsen and
his wife Mona Juul a cheque for 50,000 dollars each for their
contribution to the 1993
Oslo
accords between
Israel
and the Palestinians.
"A
nauseating smell of corruption emanates from giving this prize to
Larsen," Zwee Hendel, an extreme right-wing Israeli, was quoted
as saying.
In
Norway, the media said that
the couple -- who both held senior foreign ministry positions at the
time -- had failed to inform the authorities about the money, the only
such award ever made by the
Peres
Center.
The
Norwegian Aftenposten
newspaper said that Roed-Larsen had been at the center of a scandal in
1996 which led to his resignation from the then Labor government after
less than one month in the post of planning minister.
He
was suspected of concealing about 600,000 kroner (about 70,000 dollars
at today's exchange rate) from the tax authorities in 1986 and
eventually paid a fine to avoid prosecution, the paper said.
The
issue was raised after Roed-Larsen caused a storm in Israel when he
described the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin,
the scene of an intense nine-day battle earlier this month, as
"totally unacceptable and horrific beyond belief".
The
outspoken U.N. envoy said it had been "morally repugnant"
for
Israel
to have refused for 11
days after the attack finished to allow aid groups or rescue teams
into the camp to search for people buried in the ruins.
"We
have expert people here who have been in war zones and earthquakes and
they say they have never seen anything like it", Larsen said,
after visiting the camp with U.N. delegates and members of the
International Red Cross.
The
Israeli occupation government considered Sunday whether to declare
Larsen "persona non grata" but a spokesman denied any plans
to boycott the U.N. representative.
"Our
lawyers are looking at what it would mean to declare him a persona non
grata but that is a legal step and no decision on that has been taken
yet," the spokesman said in response to reports in the Israeli
media that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his ministries to boycott
Larsen.
"I've
ordered all ministries to cut all contact" with Roed-Larsen,
Sharon
told his weekly cabinet meeting,
Israel
army radio reported earlier Sunday.
But
Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh, who attended Sunday morning's
cabinet meeting, also denied any knowledge of such an order.
Asked
on Israeli military radio for his reaction to the prospect of being
declared persona non grata, Roed-Larsen said: "I will comment on
this if it happens, but I cannot see any reason for it."
Hundreds
of Palestinians were massacred by the occupation army in Jenin.
The
U.N. Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution to
send a fact-finding mission "to establish the facts" of what
happened in the refugee camp.
Israeli
Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer reaffirmed Sunday that he had
held a long telephone conversation with U.N. Secretary General Kofi
Annan about the mission and that
Israel
wanted members of the U.N. team to be chosen adding that Israel
did not want people who made "inflammatory" remarks such as
Roed-Larsen.
A
senior Israeli official quoted in the Jerusalem
Post Sunday said that
Israel
would also object to the inclusion of U.N. Human Rights High
Commissioner Mary Robinson, who like Roed-Larsen is seen by Israeli
officials as biased against Israel
.
Roed-Larsen
played an important role in establishing contacts between Israel and
the Palestinians in the lead-up to the 1993 Oslo accords which granted
self-rule to the Palestinians in areas of the West Bank and Gaza, and
which have been seriously eroded by nearly 19 months of Israeli
aggression.
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