Shoplifting has caused a stir in Norway. Bjornar Moxnes has been nabbed for stealing designer sunglasses from an Oslo airport shop. Faced with the explosion caused by this information, the leader of the far left and deputy resigned from his post at the head of his party on Monday.
“I made a big mistake and made it even worse by the way I handled it afterwards,” Bjornar Moxnes wrote on his Facebook page. “I’m really sorry about that and I want to apologize.” On June 30, he said he was fined 3,000 crowns (250 euros) for having taken without paying Hugo Boss sunglasses, worth 1,199 crowns (about 100 euros), in a duty-free shop at Oslo airport two weeks earlier.
Version changes
The 41-year-old politician had invoked thoughtlessness, but had changed his version several times over the revelations around this episode captured by CCTV cameras, which seem to weaken the hypothesis of an oversight. Currently on sick leave, Bjornar Moxnes is giving up his post at the head of the opposition party Rodt (“Red” in French) which he had led for eleven years and which he helped to develop to the point of winning seven seats in Parliament in the legislative elections of 2021.
According to the rules in force in Norway, it is impossible to renounce elective functions, such as those of deputy, during the term of office. Until then number two of the party, Marie Sneve Martinussen, 37, temporarily takes the reins of the formation.