Paula Tolonen, who's been the leader of the asylum division at the Directorate of Immigration (Utlendingsdirektoratet, UDI), stepped down from her post on Monday, at least temporarily.
Tolonen isn't resigning from UDI entirely. A statement from the embattled agency Monday noted that she and acting UDI boss Ida Børresen had agreed that she would temporarily resign as head of asylum affairs because of harsh criticism directed against her in an investigation of UDI practices.
She would be moved into another position at UDI, however, and report directly to Børresen. The statement merely said that Tolonen would "handle relevant assignments within her area of competence."
Tolonen is the latest to step aside at UDI after a commission investigating UDI released a scathing report last week. The main focus of the report was the granting of residence permits to nearly 200 asylum seekers from northern Iraq.
Tolonen was heavily involved in the granting of the permits, which defied instructions from the government ministry at the time.
Her former boss, Trygve Nordby, has also come under harsh criticism for approving the permits. He left UDI before the investigation began, to head the Norwegian Red Cross, but remains implicated in what most politicians are calling an immigration scandal.
Nordby is among those called to testify at a parliamentary hearing set for later this week. He has defended the permit-granting and denied that he and his fellow UDI officials had their own liberal political agenda.
In interviews over the weekend, Nordby also defended Tolonen. He told newspaper Aftenposten, for example, that Tolonen has worked for the state for 25 years, and the criticism hurled at her was "very unfair."
Nordby dismissed what he called "conspiracy theories" and said he and his colleagues merely acted "on our best judgment." He blasted a looming police investigation of their work, even if that judgment proved to be wrong.
"How can there be any room for Norwegian administrators, then?" he questioned, saying that being reported to the police was "absurd."
Nordby would only concede that he probably should have made sure that the ministry knew how he and his colleagues planned to interpret the rules, and that they planned to grant the permits. "Then I would have received a 'yes' or a 'no' (to the permit-granting) and we would have followed that, and there never would have been any case about this," he said. "That criticism I accept."
Nordby also claimed that the trouble he faces over his role at UDI shouldn't affect his job at the Red Cross.
"The Red Cross is a large and strong organization," he said. "This is a discussion about what I did as a leader in a situation at my former job.
"I have the board's confidence, and I will do a good job."
