ABSTRACT
In 1991, a group of Palestinian refugees, mostly former members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, arrived in Norway seeking political asylum. They were interviewed by the Overvakingspolitiet, Norway’s security police. The officers who interviewed them over an extended period spoke excellent Arabic and elicited a quantity of information, which the Palestinians believed would contribute to the consideration of their refugee status. Eventually, the suspicions of the refugees were aroused when they discovered that some of these ‘Norwegians’ could not speak Norwegian. In the event they proved to be officers of Mossad who were engaged in co-operation with their Nordic colleagues. A public furore ensued. The Norwegian parliament produced a critical report and called for stricter guidelines on intelligence co-operation. Although Svein Urdal, the chief of the security police, was forced to resign, together with the head of Norway’s anti-terrorist unit, the oversight committee failed in its efforts to elicit much information about the relationship with Mossad. Moreover, their efforts to develop new procedures intended to allow more insight into international intelligence co-operation did not progress very far.1
