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He was 50, she was only 18: the Norwegian Minister of Defense resigned following the revelation of his sexual relationship with a high school girl.
Norwegian Defense Minister Odd Roger Enoksen on October 14, 2021.
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Norway’s defense minister has resigned, the government announced on Saturday, following an affair with a woman much younger than him for several years was revealed. “It is a necessary decision,” commented Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store during a press conference on Saturday morning, where he confirmed that he had accepted Mr. Enoksen’s resignation.
“I made bad choices (…) and I will apologize unreservedly” because “my actions have made life more difficult for others”, Odd Roger Enoksen had declared a little earlier to the agency. Norwegian NTB press.
School trip
Mr. Enoksen started a relationship in 2005 with an 18-year-old high school student whom he had met during a school trip taken by the latter with her class in Oslo, according to the Norwegian daily VG. The group of pupils had visited the Norwegian Parliament and met Mr Enoksen, then a 50-year-old parliamentarian.
After the school trip, the politician and the high school student began what would become a very close and sexual relationship, says VG. They met at least 12 times in Mr. Enoksen’s office between late 2006 and 2007, when he was energy minister, the woman, now in her 30s, testified to the daily, claiming that some of these encounters resulted in “sexual acts”.
“In a position of power over me”
She also recounted her admiration for the politician, saying he “used his power and his position to get what he wanted.” If the ex-minister confirmed with VG the visits of the young woman in his office as well as discussions of an obscene nature, he however denied any physical rapprochement.
The relationship only became intimate following he left the government in 2007, he stressed, saying it was not a relationship “in which I was in a position of power over her” .
The Prime Minister told reporters that Mr Enoksen had not informed him of the affair before he was appointed defense minister last October, adding that this information would have led to a “different conclusion”. The head of government added that he wanted to find a new defense minister as soon as possible.
(AFP)
