MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti) – Norway intends to rent prison space in the Netherlands amid the country’s much needed prison expansion, which will send some 300 inmates to rented cells abroad, Aftenposten reported.
"We have begun discussions with the Dutch authorities about the possibility of renting prison places in the Netherlands,” the Norwegian Minister of Justice Anders Anundsen was quoted as saying by the news agency on Monday.
Anundsen states that currently some 1,300 people are waiting to enter Norwegian prisons, a number that is constantly growing.
"The situation with Norway is different because Norway is not an immediate neighbor, is not a member of the European Union and the language is different," Fred Teeven, the Dutch state secretary with responsibility for prisons, said in a letter to the Dutch parliament.
While the Netherlands has been accepting prisoners from neighboring Belgium for many years, this new agreement will be different. Prisons holding the Norwegian prisoners will be run by a Norwegian director and function under Norwegian law. So far it is assumed that prisoners carrying long-term sentences will be deported from Norway to prisons in the Netherlands.
The minister believes that agreements will be signed in the near future, while the first batch of prisoners will be sent to the Netherlands in the first half of 2015.
Norwegian Parliament is set to review the agreement shortly and will make the final decision.
