The head of the control committee has read the report Frode Berg – NRK Urix – Foreign News and Documentaries

– A very serious matter, says the chairman of the control and constitution committee, Dag Terje Andersen, to NRK.

– I already quickly read the report,

He also chairs the special committee created by the Storting on February 26 to assess the content of the report that the Storting body for intelligence, surveillance and security services has prepared the EOS Committee on the Frode Berg case.

Frode Berg is the former Norwegian border inspector who was arrested on December 5, 2017 in the Russian capital Moscow, and later sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Berg was released in November 2019 following an exchange agreement between Lithuania and Russia.

Erna Solberg: We are happy that Frode Berg is coming home to Norway

Frode Berg believes he was abused

Frode Berg has said that he feels abused by the Norwegian intelligence service, although he has also admitted that he had an independent responsibility when he agreed to work as a courier in Russia.

It is to discuss whether there has been abuse against him, the EOS committee even before Berg returned to Norway, initiated a review of the case.

– I was probably gullible and naive

The report that the committee has prepared for the Storting was already ready in December 2020.

But after an extensive tug of war with the Defense Ministry and the E-service, they were refused to submit their own findings without qualifying the Storting.

Therefore, the Storting took the unusual step of establishing a special committee to follow up on the case. This happens very rarely, but it was done, among other things, after the Gjørv Commission reviewed the terrorist attack of July 22, 2011.

To read in a special room at the Storting

But after the Storting formally requested delivery of the report, some hard copies were delivered to the Storting on Friday afternoon, where the committee chairman Dag Terje Andersen has already read it broadly.

– The seriousness is that we received a special report from the EOS committee. This is a case that has been taken seriously, Andersen tells NRK.

He says he has already asked the Storting administration to find a special room where committee members, who come from all Storting parties, can read the report.

The committee will meet on Tuesday, March 9, to discuss what will happen next in the case.

Among other things, we will choose a spokesperson for the case, says Dag Terje Andersen, who will say nothing more if he already believes that it is such a serious case that it must be presented to a hearing at the Storting.

Who is responsible for the scandal?

So far, the Norwegian intelligence service has recruited and sent a retired officer on a mission to Russia, without consequences. At least not for the leadership of the Norwegian intelligence service, or for the then political leadership in the Ministry of Defense.

Former intelligence chief Kjell Grandhagen, who ran the electronic service when Frode Berg conducted the first missions in Russia, has died. His successor Morten Haga Lunde resigned in the fall of 2020.

The Minister of Defense and political head of the electronic service when Frode Berg was sent on mission to Russia was Ine Eriksen Søreide.

She assumed the post of Foreign Minister on October 20, 2017, six weeks before Frode Berg went on the last mission to Moscow, where he was arrested by the Russian FSB security service.

– I have recorded that EOS committee leader Svein Grønnern believes that something in the report they have written should be public, Dag Terje Andersen tells NRK. It doesn’t mean anything now about what is written there that should have political consequences.

– If it had not been a serious matter, we would not have received this special report from the EOS committee. They tell themselves that this is a serious matter, Dag Terje Andersen tells NRK.

SV committee member: a difficult case with criticism

SV member of the special committee for the Frode Berg case, Freddy Øvstegård, tells NRK that he also learned that the head of the EOS committee believes that some parts of the report should be published.

– It is very unusual that the Ministry of Defense and the intelligence service here wanted secrecy.

– I think those of us who are now going to examine the content of the report should carefully consider what can be published, says Øvstegård.

According to the plan, he will be able to read it himself next Tuesday in the special closed room that the Storting administration makes available for the review of the report on the Frode Berg case.

– It seems that this is a difficult case with criticism. So it’s interesting for people to see what’s been revealed, says SV’s Freddy Øvstegård.