COPENHAGEN, Dec. 16 -- Norway's public television reports the chief of Norway's security police, Hans Olov Oestergaard, has resigned following revelations that he spied on Socialist politician Berge Furre in 1995 while he headed an official investigation of the country's intelligence services. The report says Energy Minister Grete Faremo, who was minister of justice at the time, also tendered her resignation to Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland in the wake of the scandal.
Faremo was under fire for not halting the secret investigation of Furre. The resignations came just before Jagland made a statement on the affair in the Stortinget, Norway's parliament in the capital of Oslo. Furre, a founding member of the Left Socialist Party, headed a parliamentary commission set up three years ago to investigate allegations by leftist politicians in particular of illegal domestic political spying on them by the the nation's security services. Last week the commission released its preliminary report in which both the security police and the justice ministry were criticized for launching an investigation into Furre's background and past political activities. ---
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