Former Central Bank chairman and current editor of Morgunblaðið Davíð Oddsson has left the country, and will not be here when the Parliamentary Investigative Committee releases its report on the economic collapse this Monday.
Sources close to Vísir report his departure, although no one knows where he has gone to or when exactly he will return.
As he was the Central Bank chairman in the time leading up to, during, and some time after the economic collapse of 2008, it is expected that he will be mentioned quite a bit in the report. Also, as Independence Party chairman and Prime Minister, his libertarian ideas on the economy helped shaped the environment in which the banks were allowed to grow several times larger than Iceland’s GDP.
It should be noted, however, that when he became co-editor of Morgunblaðið, he said that he would recuse himself from coverage of the report. Guðrún Hálfdánardóttir, a journalist for mbl.is, told radio station Rás 2 that she believes this is Oddsson making good on his promise not to direct how the paper covers news of the report.