News in General

August 16, 2012

State Police Director Øystein Mæland has become the first casualty of this week’s scathingly critical report on how Norwegian police failed to efficiently respond to last year’s terrorist attacks in Norway. Mæland announced his resignation just as leaders of Norway’s political parties were launching a debate of their own over the report on Thursday night.

Øystein Mæland resigned his position as head of Norway's state police on Thursday, saying he lacked enough clear support from the government that hired him just last year. PHOTO: Justisdepartementet

Mæland’s resignation came just hours after police officers themselves had said they fully supported both him and his response to the report, which blasted police for poor communications and leadership. Many lives could have been saved, according to the independent report, if police had done a better job of stopping the terrorist who carried out a massacre on the island of Utøya after first bombing government headquarters in Oslo.

Mæland stated in a press release that he hadn’t received enough assurances from the nation’s top political leadership, not least from Justice Minister Grete Faremo, that they had enough confidence in him to improve police operations. Faremo had stated earlier on Thursday that she was inhabil,´ incapable (because of conflicts of interest) of making decisions on how individuals had performed or not performed during and after last year’s attacks. That meant she wouldn’t fire Mæland, but wouldn’t publicly endorse him either.

“The confidence of the Justice Minister is critical as to whether I can continue in my job,” Mæland wrote in his statement Thursday night. “When the minster and other politicians haven’t been able to clarify that without ambiguity, it’s impossible for me to go forward with this job. I have therefore decided to resign from my position.”

He had only held his post for a short time when the attacks occurred on July 22 last year. Few had held him responsible or called for his resignation, since he was so new in the job. He took the fall anyway, and seemed to take politicians by surprise in doing so. Others noted, however, that Mæland had to be held responsible for how police reacted in the months following the attacks to initial criticism of their response to them. They basically closed ranks and made only a few and belated apologies for failing to arrive quickly at the massacre scene, with Mæland himself claiming consistently that they’d acted as quickly as possible. The commission investigating their response determined that simply wasn’t true.

Norway’s party leaders learned of Mæland’s resignation while they were taking part in a live debate aired nationwide by Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) from the southern coastal city of Arendal, where they’re meeting this week for several days of long-planned public debate and gatherings. The release of the July 22 Commission’s report on Monday added a dramatic dimension to their discussions of current issues.

None had spoken directly with Mæland about his resignation, most said they respected his decision and Faremo herself declined to comment on Mæland’s assertion that she hadn’t shown him enough confidence for him to continue. She continued to assert that she was unable to evaluate the jobs individuals had done, while still digesting the alarming contents of the 500-page report itself.

Mæland, appointed to his post in May 2011 by Faremo’s precedessor as justice minster, Knut Storberget, had been an unconventional choice as state police director since he had no direct experience as a police officer. He’s educated as a doctor specializing in psychiatry, but has long been politically active in the Labour Party. He’s a personal friend of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, had served earlier as a state secretary in the Justice Ministry, also under Faremo during her stint in an earlier government, and has been a paid political adviser to several Labour Party ministers including Stoltenberg’s father Thorvald when he was foreign minister. Mæland is also an avowed pacifist who refused to perform military service and was assigned to civilian service instead. He’s married to a male psychotherapist, and the gay couple’s decision to have a child with the help of a surrogate mother in the US sparked headlines because surrogacy is illegal in Norway.

Stoltenberg had also declared himself incapable of evaluating Mæland’s performance because of their close personal relationship. Some commentators said Mæland’s resignation will now make it easier for Stoltenberg’s government to move forward with police reforms, with a shake-up at the top.

It led to immediate speculation that other heads will roll as well in the aftermath of the July 22 Commission’s report on police ineptitude. Jens Stoltenberg himself repeated Thursday night, though, that he has no intention of resigning himself over the police scandal, opting instead to move forward with work to improve police leadership and operations.

Mæland, appointed to his post in May 2011 by Faremo’s precedessor as justice minster, Knut Storberget, had been an unconventional choice as state police director since he had no direct experience as a police officer. He’s educated as a doctor specializing in psychiatry, but has long been politically active in the Labour Party. He’s a personal friend of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, had served earlier as a state secretary in the Justice Ministry, also under Faremo during her stint in an earlier government, and has been a paid political adviser to several Labour Party ministers including Stoltenberg’s father Thorvald when he was foreign minister. Mæland is also an avowed pacifist who refused to perform military service and was assigned to civilian service instead. He’s married to a male psychotherapist, and the gay couple’s decision to have a child with the help of a surrogate mother in the US sparked headlines because surrogacy is illegal in Norway.

Irish heroine of Batman shooting spree drowns

US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle paid tribute to Jenny and her colleagues who are credited with saving the lives of some of those injured in the massacre. PHD student James Holmes [Colorado hit] has been charged in relation to the shootings which left 12 people dead.

However, her family has now been plunged into a sense of grief of their own. Jenny was out swimming in a lake close to her home when she is believed to have drowned. Her husband Greg Pinson and five-year-old son Jack are struggling to come to terms with the loss of a "wonderful mother".

Heartbroken

Her mother Brigid, who was unable to fly to Denver for the funeral, added: "I am heartbroken, it is just terrible, terrible. She was such a wonderful person who was just so full of life and a wonderful mother who loved Jack so much," she said.

"I will miss her so much. Her brothers and sisters went over for the funeral and we had a little mass for her here. She could light up a room when she walked into it." Jenny studied to be a nurse in Denver in the nineties and decided to settle there. She was a GAA fanatic and founded the Denver Gaels ladies football club.

The club posted an emotional tribute on its website, describing Jenny as a "loving and devoted mother" and a "proud Meath woman".

"Every team has its ups and downs, its wins and losses ... the Pinson and Gallagher families, the Gaels and our Irish community suffered a great loss. Jennifer Gallagher passed on, leaving a wake of sorrow, sadness and loving memories. "When you met Jenny she brightened up your day and wanted to know how you were doing. Others always came first in the most natural and sincere way.

"In her vocation as a nurse, she cared for those with most acute needs in the burn unit, the ER and most recently was recognized for her work with the Aurora shooting victims by President Obama. We were all very proud of her." A special memorial mass is due to take place in Duleek on August 26.

Nurse Who “Saw Everything” At Hospital After Suspicious Batman Shooting Found Dead at 46

Lawyer loses license over alleged Breivik leaks

August 16, 2012

Norwegian lawyer Sigurd Klomsæt says he’s “shocked and incredulous” that he’s lost his right to practice law in Norway, after allegedly leaking documents about the state’s case against confessed terrorist Anders Behring Breivik to the media.

Klomsæt has claimed innocence all along, and can prove he was out of town when some of the documents in question wound up in the media shortly after they were released to lawyers in the Breivik case. Klomsæt was, at the time, hired to serve as one of many attorneys representing victims and families of victims killed by Breivik in his bombing and shooting spree on July 22, 2011.

It was Norway’s national lawyers’ association itself that revoked Klomsæt’s certification to serve as a lawyer in Norway, on the grounds he’d leaked documents distributed to attorneys in confidence. Klomsæt believes he’s being punished for being critical of how the Breivik case was being handled.

He told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) that he thinks “it was important to get me off the case. I was a strong critic last fall and now the July 22 Commission (appointed to probe the state’s response to the attacks) has shown there was reason for my criticism. I was told I was too negative.”

Klomsæt, who was removed as an attorney in the terror case last spring, told NRK he now intends to mount a legal challenge to restore his lawyer’s certification.

Nurse Who “Saw Everything” At Hospital After Suspicious Batman Shooting Found Dead at 46

Klomsæt believes he’s being punished for being critical of how the Breivik case was being handled.

Currie was born in South Liverpool, England to an Orthodox Jewish family and has identified herself as Jewish, although she has stated: "I find religious mumbo jumbo hard to swallow in any faith."[1] A pupil at Blackburne House Girls' Grammar where she was Head Girl and where her father had served as caretaker then later at Liverpool Institute High School for Girls, Liverpool's Historic Canning area, she studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Anne's College, Oxford University where she was taught by Gabriele Taylor; subsequently, she gained a MA in economic history from the London School of Economics....

HES ONE OF THESE PEOPLE THATS CONVINCED HIMSELF HES FIGHTING A WAR

Mr Al-Hilli worked on map-making satellites, police have discovered that the engineer was working on a secret contract for one of Europe's biggest defence companies

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Mr al-Hilli was part of a team involved in an undisclosed project linked to European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) – a pan-European defence giant which has contracts with Russia, China and the Foreign Office.

SSTL, which was acquired by EADS in 2008, has raised security levels at its glass-fronted offices since the murders last week, with grieving staff barred from speaking about the tragedy.
EADS lists bodies including NASA, the European Space Agency, and MoD defence contractor Thales as clients. A key partner in the Eurofighter project, the company also designs and launches satellites for clients who want an 'eye in the sky' for commercial, civil or security purposes.
The Mail on Sunday has discovered that in December Mr al-Hilli visited a sub-division of SSTL called DMC International Imaging, which has recently signed a contract with the Chinese to help map the country via satellite imagery. DMC also has a lucrative satellite-mapping deal with Russia and is working with the Foreign Office in Afghanistan to monitor illicit opium poppy cultivation.
Mr al-Hilli, a civilian contractor, has worked as a mechanical design engineer at SSTL for the past two years and was popular with colleagues. Several are listed as his friends on Facebook, but mysteriously none posted any comments on a tribute page set up on the social networking site last week.
Now, as the murder inquiry broadens, French and British police are to probe his business dealings and the possibility that the sensitive nature of his work may be linked to the shootings.

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Commerce is war.

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