The state prosecutor has criticised Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir for what he sees as her being overly involved in police matters. She has dismissed the criticism as inaccurate, and asked him to retract his comments.
Vísir reports that Valtýr Sigurðsson, who is leaving the office of state prosecutor in April, spoke candidly at a conference held at the National Museum of Iceland last week. He began by criticising the prime minister for encouraging people to hate “outvasion vikings”, the term adopted some years ago to describe Iceland’s venture capitalists. To keep this criticism in context, it is worth noting that Valtýr’s son was the director of Exista, one of the largest shareholders of Kaupthing before the crash.
Valtýr also believes the prime minister was too involved in the case of the Reykjavík Nine, taking specific issue with how, in his view, she “believes it a mistake of the prosecuting office to charge the so-called nine, and by that she means a political mistake and not professional.” To his mind, this is an example of the prime minister being too involved in prosecutory matters.
The Prime Minister has dismissed the criticism as being off-base and out of line, and has called upon Valtýr to either justify his remarks or retract them. He has told Vísir that he intends to arrive at a decision on the matter soon.
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