U.N. Mideast envoy received cash from Isreal for brokering the Oslo Agreement in 1993. Nine years later, due to his criticism of the Jenin massacre, the israelis leaked the story:

Norway Questions Envoy's Prize Money

April 29 2002
By DOUG MELLGREN,
Associated Press Writer

OSLO, Norway (AP) - U.N. Mideast envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, who criticized Israel's recent assault on the Jenin refugee camp, failed to inform the Norwegian Foreign Ministry of a $100,000 Israeli peace prize received in 1999, officials said Monday.

Roed-Larsen, and his wife, Mona Juul, received the prize three years ago from the Israeli-based Shimon Peres Center as recognition of their key role in peace talks that led to a now-stalled 1993 peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis.

"It is the foreign ministry's opinion that ... (the couple) violated public service regulations," the ministry said in a news release. "The main reason for that is that they failed to inform their employer about the cash prize."

The ministry began an investigation last week after reports about the prize surfaced in the Israeli media. Israel has taken angry exception to Roed-Larsen's description of the destruction of the Jenin camp during eight days in April as "horrifying beyond belief."

The couple were criticized for failing to formally inform the foreign ministry, which employed both of them at the time, of the 1999 prize even though Norwegian diplomats had been present at their awards ceremony in Israel.

The Norwegian news media reported that no action can be taken against Roed-Larsen because he is no longer a public servant but works for the United Nations, but that Juul, as Norwegian ambassador to Israel, is likely to face a mild reprimand.

Foreign ministry spokesman Karsten Klepsvik declined to say how the ministry might respond.

Roed-Larsen and Juul both said they thought news reports and the presence of the Norwegian diplomats at the ceremony was enough.

"I apologize if I broke the foreign ministry's information rules," Roed-Larsen said in an interview with Norwegian state broadcast network NRK on Monday. "We have never tried to keep the prizes a secret."

Peres shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (news - web sites) and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) for the peace accord partly brokered by Roed-Larsen and Juul.