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Thorbjørn Jagland, the former Prime Minister of Norway, has been admitted to the hospital just a fortnight after facing charges of aggravated corruption tied to revelations in documents associated with Jeffrey Epstein.
According to his lawyer, Anders Brosveet of Elden Law Firm, Jagland, 75, was hospitalized due to “the strain arising in the wake of this case,” as reported by Bloomberg on Monday.
As a former Secretary General of the Council of Europe and Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jagland is currently under intense scrutiny in the ongoing high-profile investigation into Epstein’s activities.
Documents related to the Epstein case suggest that during his tenure at the Council of Europe, Jagland may have visited Epstein’s residences in Paris, New York, and Palm Beach. Jagland has consistently denied any criminal actions and asserts he never set foot on Epstein’s private island.
In 2018, emails between Jeffrey Epstein and Thorbjørn Jagland, then Secretary General of the Council of Europe, surfaced, where Epstein proposed that Jagland offer Russian President Vladimir Putin insights on President Donald Trump, who had recently taken office. (AP Photo, Terje Pedersen, NTB scanpix)
The Council of Europe recently lifted Jagland’s immunity for his 10-year tenure at the organization’s request, opening up the corruption charge investigation.
Norway’s economic crime authority has already conducted searches of Jagland’s private residences. Norwegian diplomats Terje Rød-Larsen and his wife, Mona Juul, are also under investigation by police, according to Bloomberg.
Jagland is one of several prominent global figures named in the recently disclosed documents. His legal team insists he is cooperating with authorities but argues there are no grounds for prosecution.
Jagland “takes this matter very seriously, but wishes to emphasize that he believes there are no circumstances that constitute criminal liability,” Brosveet said in a Feb. 11 statement.
Jagland was the central figure behind the decision to award the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat. At the time, Jagland was the newly appointed chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and the choice was a controversial one at the time.
Jagland was the primary Nobel Prize advocate for Obama within the five-member committee. While some members were initially skeptical — given that Obama had been in office for less than nine months and the nomination deadline was just 12 days after his inauguration — Jagland reportedly used his influence to secure a unanimous vote.
He argued the prize should not just reward past deeds but should be used to “strengthen” a leader’s ongoing efforts toward global diplomacy.
President Donald Trump rebuked Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize from 2009 as he pitched his own candidacy for the prize last fall.
“He got it for doing nothing,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Oct. 9. “Obama got a prize — he didn’t even know what [for] — he got elected, and they gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country.”
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