Danish whistleblower appeals against prison sentence

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Sunday September 11, 2005 19:47

by Dr. Coilín Oscar ÓhAiseadha

+353-86-060 3818

Intelligence service presses for additional prosecution

On Monday 12 September, the Danish defence intelligence whistleblower Frank Grevil commences an appeal against the six-month prison sentence he was given last November as a penalty for leaking confidential threat assessments about Iraq to the Danish daily Berlingske Tidende the previous February. The leak undermined confidence in the Danish government’s decision to participate in the invasion of Iraq on the basis of the alleged threat of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, Grevil’s former employer will press for a new prosecution for further offences allegedly committed in a book about Grevil that has just been published.

In January 2004, while working for the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, Major Frank Grevil approached a journalist on the daily newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, to state that the Danish government had distorted the intelligence he had helped to produce, concerning the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

According to Grevil, it was on the basis of this distortion that Denmark had sent a submarine, a corvette and several hundred troops to participate in the American-British invasion. (I kid you not; Denmark sent a submarine to the war in Iraq.)

Grevil was provoked to make his revelation out of a sense of public duty, in the light of the heated political and public debate that arose out of the failure of the invading forces to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (The Danish submarine also failed to find any biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in Iraq.)

On being requested to provide documentation, Grevil provided the journalist with copies of confidential assessments of the alleged military threat posed by Iraq. Trained as a chemical engineer and army officer, Grevil had contributed to the threat assessments with analyses of intelligence concerning Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

These assessments contained a series of reservations that stand in stark contrast to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s subsequent emphatic statements that he knew that Iraq in March 2003 was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

“There is no certain information about operative weapons of mass destruction,” a report from the intelligence service stated, regarding the alleged Iraqi threat, on 30 January 2003.

Two months later, the Prime Minister stated: “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we believe. We know it.”

The leaked reports also contained political analyses of the United States’ motives, which might have served as a warning to the Danish government that the US was intent on invading Iraq, in breach of international law.

The discrepancies revealed by the leaked documents made front-page headlines on the Sunday edition of the newspaper and led to a renewed scandal about the basis for Denmark’s participation in the invasion.

Grevil was subsequently caught attempting to erase incriminating traces of his activity on a computer on which he had prepared copies of the leaked documents, and after a controversial trial lasting five days, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.

The scandal arising out of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, exacerbated by Grevil’s revelations, led to the resignation of the Danish Minister of Defence, Svend Aage Jensby, in April 2004.

Denmark still has approximately 500 troops in Iraq, stationed in the British area in the south of the country.

Grevil is a widower and single father of two children, aged 12 and 17. Needless to say, Grevil’s children are not happy with the prospect of their father being incarcerated for six, or even twelve months, as demanded by the prosecutor. There is, however, a chance that he will receive a suspended sentence.

Grevil compares his situation with a conscientious citizen who, having informed the police about a serious crime perpetrated by his neighbour, is charged with trespassing because he went into the neighbour’s garden to take photos to document his accusations.

“If this does not constitute a case of shooting the messenger, what does?” asks Grevil.

***

Following publication of a book in which Grevil reveals the inefficient organisation and obsolete focus on Eastern Europe that prevails within the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, his former employer is determined to press for a further prosecution for breach of confidentiality.

In the book, entitled “I nationens tjeneste - Majoren, der fik nok” (“In the service of the nation – the major who had had enough”), Grevil reveals that the most of the intelligence analysed by the service was second-hand, coming from unreliable American and British intelligence assessments. The Danish service itself had, according to Grevil, only “one single Iraq source”, and the information provided by this source was “several years old and thus of very limited value”.

“There is no doubt that the book discusses circumstances that are covered by a duty of confidentiality,” said Jørn Olesen, head of the intelligence service, in an interview with the Danish daily, Politiken, on Friday. “For example, technical capacities, organisation and specific initiatives are discussed. We will now conduct a more detailed review and then hold a discussion with the department of public prosecution.”

But Grevil himself states that the book has been reviewed by two lawyers, “both of whom judge that there is no basis for a new charge.”

“We go right up to the line, but no further,” says Frank Grevil, who collaborated with award-winning journalist Charlotte Aagaard on the book.

***

For further details, please contact Dr. Coilín ÓhAiseadha
at coilin -at- aatchoo -dot- com or +353-86-060 3818.

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Comments (5 of 5)

BTW, I will forward messages of support to Grevil

Thu Sep 15, 2005 21:08

Máigh Nuad, Co. Cill Dara

Just send your messages of support to me at the following address and I will send them on to Frank:
coilin -at- aatchoo -dot- com

He'll appreciate your encouragement.

Grevil was not DDIS’s only mole

Thu Sep 15, 2005 21:06

The latest on the Grevil case from the Danish papers:

Grevil was not DDIS’s only mole
14 September 2005 at 22:16

The dismissed DDIS agent Frank Grevil was hardly the only mole in the Danish defence intelligence service, it turned out at Wednesday’s court hearing. According to a DDIS officer, Frank Grevil has only contributed by public misinformation by leaking papers about Iraq.
By Hans Davidsen-Nielsen

The dismissed intelligence officer Frank Grevil is possibly not the only leak in the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS).

For almost 18 months, the DDIS has hunted in vain for the person who in April 2004 fed TV 2 with two secret threat assessments about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, confirms DDIS head Jørn Olesen.

Serious matter
He cannot exclude the possibility that there is another mole:

“In that case it’s a very serious matter that will involve a very serious risk for our collaboration with other services.”

The case has been passed to the police and the Defence Judge Advocate Corps, who on Wednesday could not provide a closer account of the investigation.

Well-prepared admiral
The information emerged during Wednesday’s interrogation of witnesses in the Grevil case in the High Court of Eastern Denmark - an interrogation that offered a well-prepared Rear-Admiral Jørn Olesen.

So well prepared that counsel for the defence Bjørn Elmquist eventually asked whether he might have a copy of the DDIS head’s script.

Because usually witnesses answer questions without having rehearsed their expressions of opinion, commented the barrister.

In borrowed plumes
But it was clear that Jørn Olesen felt a need to say his honest opinion about the case against his former staff member, Frank Grevil, who is charged with having leaked the service’s classified threat assessments about Iraq.

And whether the dismissed agent, who on a “very thin basis” has acted to “discredit” the intelligence service “profoundly”, as the DDIS head expressed it:

“The accused struts in borrowed plumes when he calls himself a whistleblower. A whistleblower reveals covert or illegal circumstances, but the accused here has instead misled the public and the media,” said Jørn Olesen without deigning to look at Frank Grevil.

According to the DDIS head, there has at no point been a conflict between what prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (V) said externally about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and what the intelligence service told him internally.

Hackneyed sentence
That the uncertainty has arisen at all is due to the fact that the media have “hackneyed” a sentence taken out of context in three of the DDIS’s threat assessments that were not addressed to the prime minister at all, but to staff within the armed forces.

In Frank Grevil’s leaked documents from the start of 2003, the DDIS concludes that “there is no certain information about weapons of mass destruction, as Iraq has to a great degree succeeded in keeping a possible active programme secret. However, it is judged that Iraq is in possession of biological and chemical combat agents (BC combat agents), as well as the capability to deliver these [by missile].”

According to Jørn Olesen, this was a signal to Danish soldiers that Iraq possibly did not have combat-ready weapons of mass destruction at hand, but that they should be prepared for the risk.

Defence for Fogh
Despite the fact that the allegation has since turned out to be incorrect, the Rear-Admiral repeated that the DDIS’s assessment “has all the time been” that Iraq probably has weapons of mass destruction:

“For this reason I certainly do not think that the government has misused the DDIS’s information or that the onslaught on it has been justified,” was Jørn Olesen’s assessment of his supreme political bosses.

The greatest harmful effect of Frank Grevil’s leak is the collaboration with foreign intelligence services, emphasised Jørn Olesen. He explained that small countries are totally dependent on information from the big nations’ services.

If they cannot trust the DDIS, the sources dry up. Whether damage has been done by this specific case is difficult to answer, the DDIS head said: “After all, we cannot know what we have missed,” as he said.

Dramatic turn of events
The appeal case against Frank Grevil took a remarkable turn when the High Court of Eastern Denmark on Wednesday declined an offer from the Danish Defence Intelligence Service to see the threat assessments concerning Iraq in their entirety and not just the extracts that have been published.

The pre-condition from the DDIS was that this might only take place behind closed doors and that their contents might not be revealed in the verdict. The consensus opinion of the high court was not to let itself be bound by this limitation.

According to Frank Grevil's counsel for the defence, this can lead to no other result that that his client must be acquitted. For how can the court know whether Grevil has acted in "obvious public interest" if it does not know the full basis [for his actions]?

The appeal case against Frank Grevil continues on Thursday, and a verdict is expected perhaps already on Friday.

The Grevil case
# February 2004: Intelligence officer Frank Grevil delivers a series of classified reports from the Defence Intelligence Agency (DDIS) about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction to the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

# March 2004: Copenhagen’s Police charge Frank Grevil with having disclosed confidential information. He confesses and is dismissed from the DDIS.

# April 2004: The Ministry of Defence published excerpts from the DDIS reports after the government has been accused of misleading the Danish parliament and the public about the Danish basis for war.

# November 2004: The City Court of Copenhagen sentences Frank Grevil to six months’ prison and the prosecutor appeals the sentence. [The prosecutor thought he should be sentenced to one year’s imprisonment.]

# September 2005: The appeal case commences in the High Court of Eastern Denmark.

Translated from Politiken:
http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.sasp?PageID=396994
OR:
http://tinyurl.com/9hvjq

Danish High Court declines offer of limited access to intelligence documents

Thu Sep 15, 2005 17:12

This is an excerpt from the Danish centre/left daily, Politiken, today:
"Dramatic turn of events
The appeal case against Frank Grevil took a remarkable turn when the High Court of Eastern Denmark on Wednesday declined an offer from the Danish Defence Intelligence Service to see the threat assessments concerning Iraq in their entirety and not just the extracts that have been published.

The pre-condition from the DDIS was that this might only take place behind closed doors and that their contents might not be revealed in the verdict. The consensus opinion of the high court was not to let itself be bound by this limitation.

According to Frank Grevil's counsel for the defence, Bjørn Elmquist, this can lead to no other result that that his client must be acquitted. For how can the court know whether Grevil has acted in "obvious public interest" if it does not know the full basis [for his actions]?

The appeal case against Frank Grevil continues on Thursday, and a verdict is expected perhaps already on Friday."

I think this may mean that the judge may decide to pass a not-guilty verdict as early as tomorrow, if he takes the view that, because of the restrictions imposed by the DDIS, the evidence is inadequate.

I think Elmquist knows what he's talking about. He's a very experienced barrister, former politician and prominent activist.

Best,
Coilín.

Support from Ireland

by Mary Kelly

Tue Sep 13, 2005 21:13

Good luck to Frank Grevil. He has done a great service, and should be honoured not punished for his brave whistleblowing.

All power to you Frank!

Danish whistleblower case: Tug of war over classified evidence material

Tue Sep 13, 2005 04:26

Iraq assessments may cause problems for the government
On Monday, the High Court of Eastern Denmark and the Danish Defence Intelligence Service engaged in a tug of war about the submission of the DDIS’s classified Iraq assessments as evidence in the hearing of intelligence whistleblower Frank Grevil's appeal.
BY: Charlotte Aagaard, 13 September 2005

The Danish Defence Intelligence Service’s Iraq assessments may cause Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen new problems in explaining the government’s cocksure statements about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and terror connections before the Iraq war.

This emerges from a report from the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS) that was read out during the High Court of Eastern Denmark’s hearing of the appeal case against intelligence officer Frank Grevil yesterday. In the report, DDIS says that two of the service’s Iraq assessments show that the prime minister has made statements in contradiction to the analyses he received from the intelligence service.

The DDIS’s threat assessments from 7 and 15 March 2003 contain formulations that will make it possible to “draw” the differences between the prime minister’s statements and the DDIS’s assessments “even more starkly” than hitherto, writes the DDIS in the report, which is dated 18 March 2004.

Counsel for the defence Bjørn Elmquist thinks that this may be one of the reasons that the DDIS insists on still keeping the greater part of the threat assessments secret.

Decisive evidence
Both the counsel for the defence and the prosecutor, regional prosecutor Karsten Hjort, yesterday agreed that the High Court of Eastern Denmark must have access to the threat assessments in their entirety. According to the counsel for the defence, the court cannot make a decision as to whether Frank Grevil has committed a crime without knowing the contents of the documents he leaked. And the prosecutor is apparently in agreement with this.

Already before the case started, regional prosecutor Karsten Hjort wrote to the DDIS that it would be “particularly unsatisfactory for the department of public prosecution” if the threat assessments were not submitted in their entirety. In a latter on 11 May 2005, Hjorth writes that there is a chance that Grevil could be acquitted because of the doubt about the evidence material that continued secrecy involves.

DDIS makes preconditions
In the end of May, the DDIS refused to declassify the Iraq assessments.

However, for the use of the high court case, the service has chosen to reveal the signatures on the different sections in the assessments; the political situation, the military situation, climatic conditions, geography, health conditions, etc. But the contents themselves are still classified. Apart from the short passages about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction that the DDIS declassified in the spring of 2004 in the wake of Frank Grevil’s assertion that the prime minister had made statements in conflict with the DDIS’s assessment of the Iraqi threat.

The head of the DDIS, Jørn Olesen, yesterday repeated via the chief investigator that the service cannot submit the Iraq assessments to full public access. However, the DDIS will agree to the assessments being submitted if the high court closes the doors, if the papers are submitted to the members of the court only while they are being read out, and if the contents are neither disclosed during the hearing nor in the subsequent verdict.

Presiding judge Sten Taber Rasmussen was clearly not satisfied that an external authority wished to limit the production of evidence in this way.

"The court must first consider whether it is in compliance with the law on the judicial system that such limitations be placed on the court,” he said.

The short straw
Independent lawyers are of the opinion that it will be very difficult for the high court to reject the DDIS’s conditions, because the service can invoke considerations of national security. According to paragraph 804 of the law on the judicial system, it is permitted to refuse to submit evidence in court if this can be justified by precisely these considerations.

"In principle, it is the court that decides the production of evidence, but in cases about national security this is not the case,” says law professor Eva Smith, University of Copenhagen.

Several other leading lawyers agree with this assessment, but they do not with to comment on a pending case in public.

However, Eva Smith emphasises that the high court can reject the DDIS’s demands, but this incurs the risk that the Iraq assessments cannot be used as evidence material.

Who gets the short straw will be revealed on Wednesday, when the high court assembles again.

On Monday, it was also decided that the defence is not permitted to call the head of the UN’s weapons inspection in Iraq, Hans Blix, as a witness, and nor may it call the American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. The high court considers both witnesses to be irrelevant.

caa @ information.dk

See this page in Danish on the Danish daily newspaper Information’s website:
http://www.information.dk/Indgang.php?pShow=Webavis/WAvVis.php&pWAvVis=710
OR:
http://tinyurl.com/ascqq

See also yesterday's introductory briefing:
Danish whistleblower appeals against prison sentence
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71916

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Danish whistleblower appeals against prison sentence

Comments (5 of 5)