Workers' Youth League affair

On 2 March 1995, the newspaper Verdens Gang revealed that AUF's Oslo branch had artificially inflated their membership numbers from 1992 to 1994, and as a result received NOK 600,000 more than they were entitled to in government grants.

[2] On 3 February 1996, Minister of Transport and Communications, Kjell Opseth of the Norwegian Labour Party, submitted a formal complaint to the police, in which he accused 24 other youth organisations of fraud.

Andenæs, stated that they had reacted strongly upon what they saw as the Labour Party's interference in an attempt to exempt AUF from the criminal investigation.

The rules for the grants were sent out once per year; in addition, there was an annual seminar where these youth organisations were informed about the procedures, and she could confirm that AUF always participated on such events.

She specifically mentioned that if a person chooses to not pay a membership for a given year, it would judicially be a statement that they no longer wanted to be considered members.

[6] Hornslien was eventually charged and convicted of inflating membership numbers and the unlawful appropriation of NOK 200,000 in grants.

They used several rules of thumb to consider who wanted to be members, without actually asking them, including those who applied for membership during the year, those who had formerly had positions, those who had been to information meetings, and those whom they knew personally.

[9] The prosecution showed video evidence from a post office in the city center, where Elgaas was seen paying for the massive amount of giros.

Elgsaas explained that he experienced pressure from the leader of AUF, Trond Giske, and the general secretary, Rita Ottervik, to continue with the 'advancements'.

[10] Bjørn Jarle Rødberg Larsen, treasurer of Oslo AUF from 1992 to 1994, had at first denied to testify in the case, after advice from his defense attorney, but chose to change his mind.

He also admitted that the leadership of AUF in the years between 1992 and 1994 conspired to inflate membership numbers in order to receive higher government subsidies.

He also admitted that the four of them met at Hornslien's parliament office to discuss the situation after Verdens Gang broke the story.

[3] Unlike the other three indicted, Rødberg Larsen was also charged with embezzlement of money from several of the small, inactive chapters in Oslo.

He also stated that the motivation to keep the membership numbers high, was to avoid that former leaders, who had become central in the Oslo Labour Party, would be discredited.

[12] On 14 March 1995, twelve days after Verdens Gang published the story, Jens Stoltenberg and former leader of AUF, Turid Birkeland, admitted that 'advancing' money to pay for membership fees was a common and accepted practice at the time they were involved with the organisation.

[13] He told the Oslo District Court, under oath, that he was unfamiliar with the artificial inflating of membership figures which took place in the AUF.

[13] He also told the court that he was unaware of any form of fraud taking place in the organisation under his leadership, and stated that he had never heard of 'advancing' money to pay for memberships until Verdens Gang broke the story on 2 March 1995.

[13] When Thorbjørn Jagland gave evidence in the case, he agreed with Stoltenberg that it was not necessarily wrong to 'advance' money for memberships, provided that the members in question reimbursed this fee later on.

[14] He did, however, tell the court that it was unacceptable to transfer money from AUF's main bank account to pay for membership fees.

[14] In his defense he stated that if AUF were to follow the law too rigidly, they would only have ended up with a quarter of the membership numbers that the Young Conservatives operated with.

[14] He also told the court that AUF should have received even more subsidie, referring to some of the other political youth parties that used similar methods for calculating membership numbers.

[15] She told the court that the reason why AUF decided to keep up the practice of during her leadership, was to protect former members of the organisation who had contributed to this inflation.

[15] Øystein Mæland eventually cancelled his membership with the Labour Party because he felt that the four members sentenced for their involvement in the fraud were used as scapegoats.