By awarding its peace prize to Trump’s favorite Venezuelan opposition figure, pro-war coup plotter Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Committee contravened the principles enshrined in its founding documents, as well as Swedish law, Julian Assange alleged in an explosive brief reviewed by The Grayzone.
The Swedish government breached its own legal framework by granting the Nobel Peace Prize to the Venezuelan dissident Maria Corina Machado, claims a revealing legal document submitted by Julian Assange, the Wikileaks co-founder and former political detainee who was relentlessly pursued worldwide, held under severe conditions, and subjected to extensive physical and psychological abuse over ten years by the United States and its allies.
The Nobel Committee’s choice to honor Machado with the Peace Prize — along with the accompanying 11 million Swedish Kroner ($1.18 million USD) award — suggests, according to Assange, “there is a real risk that funds derived from Nobel’s endowment have been or will be… diverted from their charitable purpose to facilitate aggression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.”
Assange highlighted numerous public declarations demonstrating how the U.S. government and María Corina Machado have leveraged the prestige of the prize to create a casus moralis for warfare, emphasizing that Machado and her affluent Latin American sponsors explicitly seek “installing her by force in order to plunder $1.7 trillion in Venezuelan oil and other resources.”
The Nobel Foundation faces accusations of multiple breaches of Swedish criminal statutes, including breach of trust, misappropriation, conspiracy, violations of international law, financing aggression, facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity, and disregarding Sweden’s commitments under the Rome Statute, to which the country claims to be “deeply committed.”
According to Swedish legislation, Assange emphasized, “Alfred Nobel’s endowment for peace cannot be spent on the promotion of war,” nor can it serve as a mechanism for foreign military interventions. Venezuela, regardless of its political situation, remains no exception.”
By channeling Nobel funds to Machado, Assange asserts that the Committee is effectively supporting “a conspiracy to murder civilians, to violate national sovereignty using military force…” He argues that by continuing payments, “they flagrantly violate Nobel’s will and clearly cross the threshold into criminality.” The Wikileaks founder demands “the immediate freezing of all remaining funds and a full criminal investigation” into the Committee members who authorized the prize.
Instituted in 1901 based on the last testament of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prizes were integrated into Swedish and Norwegian legal codes. The Peace Prize aims to honor individuals who have made the greatest contributions to “fraternity between nations,” reduction or abolition of standing armies, and the holding and promotion of peace congresses, establishing itself as a pillar of Scandinavian diplomatic influence.
Nevertheless, the prize has been tainted by controversy from the start, due to the violent pasts of some laureates and the political goals of its Norwegian sponsors. For example, early recipient US President Theodore Roosevelt’s blatant warmongering in Latin America was ignored by the Norwegian Nobel Committee at the time, seemingly to gain favor with the emerging US empire. The New York Times wryly noted that “a broad smile illuminated the face of the globe when the prize was awarded … to the most warlike citizen of these United States.”
Assange sees this same pattern recurring in the Caribbean, as the Nobel Committee awarded the prize to a Venezuelan politician notorious for her extreme calls for foreign military invasion and dedication of her Nobel triumph to US President Donald Trump.
As Assange detailed, Trump’s substantial US military buildup near Venezuela “has already committed undeniable war crimes, including the lethal targeting of civilian boats and survivors at sea, which has killed at least 95 people.”
“The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights characterized these U.S. coastal attacks on civilian vessels as “extrajudicial executions,” wrote the Wikileaks founder. Furthermore, the “principal architect of this aggression” was Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who “nominated María Corina Machado for the peace prize.”
Norwegian Nobel judges tied to influential Venezuelan regime change lobbyist
The selection of Machado, a figure so obviously unfit for the Nobel Peace Prize, and in apparent breach of Swedish law, raised suspicion that the Committee was swayed by powerful external forces. Machado’s nomination by the US Secretary of State clearly influenced the decision, as the Nobel prize ceremony acts as a major tool of Norwegian soft power. Yet within Oslo, a political operator eager to regain influence in his family’s homeland may have also played a role in securing votes for Machado.
He is Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of a CIA asset and affluent Venezuelan aristocrat who held posts in neoliberal Venezuelan administrations prior to Hugo Chavez’s election. Halvorssen is also a first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, a key figure behind several military coups against Chavez and Maduro, and founder of the US-backed Popular Will party, long leading the radical opposition.
As founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum, an avowed human rights organization advocating regime change in states targeted by the West, Halvorssen spearheads a network of Western-supported activists pushing government overthrow. During the 2024 Oslo Freedom Forum, Halvorssen hosted Machado, who demanded Maduro’s ouster via video from Venezuela, where she claimed to be “in hiding.” The event also featured Machado’s principal advisor, Spain-based Pedro Uchuruttu, along with her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa. Following the Nobel Committee’s October prize to Machado, the Oslo Freedom Forum released a statement hailing the decision as “chang[ing] the dynamics” in Venezuela.
The Norway-based Fritt Ord Foundation links Halvorssen’s Oslo Freedom Forum with top leaders of the Nobel Committee. According to its website, Fritt Ord “was among the first to endorse” the Forum. While funding Halvorssen’s regime change organization, Fritt Ord also awarded Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the Norwegian Nobel Committee Chair, their 2021 Freedom of Expression Tribute. In his Nobel Prize speech honoring Machado, Frydnes compared the right-wing coup instigator to Nelson Mandela. Sitting just feet away from elderly Norwegian royalty, he called for Maduro to step aside and enable Machado to lead a “democratic” transition.
Frydnes is also the former director of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a think tank supporting the Ukraine proxy war and a formal partner and backer of Halvorssen’s Oslo Freedom Forum.
Among the five judges who granted Machado the prize was Kristin Clemet, a Norwegian politician who received the Fritt Ord Freedom of Expression Tribute in 2017. Clemet heads CIVITA, a liberal Norwegian think tank that officially collaborates with and supports Halvorssen’s Oslo Freedom Forum.
Who’s behind Nobel insider gambling scheme?
Even prior to officially receiving the prize, Machado’s team faced allegations of corruption and illicit profit after insiders apparently leveraged privileged information about her impending win to net nearly $100,000 on the Polymarket betting platform.
The likelihood of Machado’s victory jumped from 3.75% to 72.8% mere hours before the Nobel Committee formally notified her of success. One particularly shrewd bettor won $65,000 backing the Venezuelan opposition leader. “It seems we have been prey to a criminal actor who wants to earn money on our information,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the Nobel Institute.
Months on, the Nobel Committee has yet to close its probe into this corruption scandal. By press time, the committee had not replied to The Grayzone’s request for comment.
Claiming to represent the world’s premier peace institution, it may now be too late to rectify the harm done by honoring a declared advocate of violent regime change with the Nobel Prize.
“Using her elevated position as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Machado may well have” already “tipped the balance in favor of war,” Assange concluded.
Original article: thegrayzone.com
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