{"id":300417,"date":"2025-10-13T17:05:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300417\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T17:05:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:05:19","slug":"possible-nobel-peace-prize-leak-was-highly-likely-espionage-committee-secretary-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300417\/","title":{"rendered":"Possible Nobel Peace Prize leak was “highly likely” espionage, committee secretary says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A potential leak that preceded the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado<\/a> was “highly likely” the result of espionage, the Nobel Institute told Norwegian media on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The odds of Machado winning the prize jumped from 3.75% to nearly 73% overnight, Thursday to Friday on the predictive betting platform Polymarket.<\/p>\n

However, no expert or media outlet had mentioned her as being among the favorites for the prize, which was announced just a few hours later in Oslo.<\/p>\n

“Highly likely it’s espionage,” the director of the Nobel Institute and secretary of the Nobel committee, Kristian Berg Harpviken, told Norway’s TV2 television.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the head of the Nobel committee said he didn’t believe Machado’s name had been leaked.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think there have ever been any leaks in the entire history of the prize. I can’t imagine that’s the case,” committee chairman Jorgen Watne Frydnes told the NTB news agency.<\/p>\n

Harpviken said the institute would nevertheless investigate and “where necessary, we will further tighten security”.<\/p>\n

Espionage “could make it appear as if someone on the inside deliberately leaked information. That is not likely,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s too certain to say for sure, but it’s no secret that the Nobel Institute is subject to espionage,” he added.<\/p>\n

“It is obvious that the institution is of interest to actors who want to acquire information, both states and other organizations,” he said, adding: “The motives can be both political and economic.”<\/p>\n

“This has been going on for many decades.”<\/p>\n

Harpviken did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.<\/p>\n

An extremely limited number of people know in advance the name of the laureate chosen by the five members of the Nobel Committee.<\/p>\n

In the past, unexpected names of Nobel nominees have emerged in the Norwegian media, fuelling speculation about possible leaks. But this has not been the case in recent years.<\/p>\n

Machado, an opposition leader barred from running in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, was awarded “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”, the committee said.<\/p>\n

A video shared on social media<\/a>\u00a0showed Harpviken calling Machado on Friday morning to inform her that she had been chosen for the coveted prize. He is visibly emotional while sharing the news during a phone call with Machado before it was announced to the world.<\/p>\n

“Oh my God. I have no words. Thank you so much,” Machado can be heard saying during the call. “I hope you understand this is a movement, this is an achievement for a whole society. I am just one person; I certainly do not deserve this. Oh my God.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A potential leak that preceded the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":300418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[50,5199,77217,67,132,68,32322],"class_list":{"0":"post-300417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-nobel-peace-prize","11":"tag-spying","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-venezuela"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115367950800082070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}