Ignoble behaviour! Donald Trump’s nomination for Nobel Peace Prize was faked by an identity thief

Has Donald Trump really been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? Apparently not.

In fact, the Norwegian Nobel Institute – which selects winners for the prestigious award – has filed a police report after they say someone using a stolen identity made a fraudulent nomination for the US president.

“Every year, we get lots of invalid nominations, but these are nominations that are not valid because those who nominate are not qualified to do so,” Nobel committee secretary Olav Njolstad told NTB.

“As far as I know, this is the first example of someone nominating someone by stealing another person’s identity.”

Each year, nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize must be submitted by January 31. Among those entitled to propose names are members of parliament and government, former laureates and some university professors.

While the list of candidates is kept secret for at least 50 years, those who nominate are allowed to disclose their choice.

In January, Henrik Urdal, manager of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (Prio), said that Trump had been nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize but that the nomination “still lacks a strong academic justification.”

The leader of the independent Norwegian peace institute said it was “an American player with the right to nominate a candidate” who told him the person had tapped Trump. Urdal declined to name the person.

China rebukes ‘meddling’ US congressmen over Wong’s Nobel nomination

The Nobel Institute said it had received 329 valid nominations for the 2018 Peace Prize. The five members of the Nobel committee that selects the winner are also allowed to submit names during their first meeting of the year, which was held on Monday.

Congolese surgeon Denis Mukwege and Yazidi activist Nadia Murad, who both campaign against sexual violence, topped Prio’s early shortlist.

“Although their experiences and practices differ greatly, there can be no doubt about the potency of their global advocacy work against sexual violence in conflict,” director Henrik Urdal said on the Prio website.    

Among the nominations made public so far is the so-called Umbrella Movement which called for democratic reform in Hong Kong in 2014, nominated by a bipartisan group of US congressmen.

Peace Prize winners issue warning about North Korea crisis

Others include former French president Jacques Chirac, as well as the UNHCR, Pope Francis, the European Court of Human Rights, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and Syria’s “White Helmets” rescue volunteers.

Also on the list are Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the UN Committee Against Torture, Kurdish peshmerga fighters, and the pro-Palestinian BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement.

Last year’s Peace Prize went to nuclear disarmament group ICAN for its decade-long campaign to rid the world of the atomic bomb. 

It was a key player in the adoption of a historic nuclear weapons ban treaty, signed by 122 countries in July. However, the accord was largely symbolic as none of the nine known world nuclear powers signed up to it.

The name of the 2018 winner will be announced in early October.