Danish editor now also charged for intelligence leak

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Sunday May 14, 2006 19:23 by Coilín ÓhAiseadha aat2004 at mail dot dk Máigh Nuad, Co. Cill Dara

Lunde expects to be acquitted - if prosecuted!

The editor-in-chief of the conservative daily newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, is satisfied that he has now been charged with leaking classified intelligence documents in his newspaper in February 2004. The two journalists who wrote the articles about the leaked documents had already been charged at the end of April. Their editor expects all three to be acquitted if the case against them proceeds.

In a series of articles in the newspaper from 22 February 2004, Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen published excerpts of reports which they had obtained from Major Frank Grevil of the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, FE).

Grevil, a secret agent who helped to write FE’s intelligence assessments of Iraq’s weapons capabilities for the Danish government, felt that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had exaggerated existing information about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to persuade the Danish parliament to participate in the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Grevil himself has been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, but is appealing his sentence in the European Court of Human Rights, on the basis that evidence that might play a decisive part in his defence has been withheld.

More detail about the most recent development, plus link to background article, below.

Uploaded to www.berlingske.dk on Wednesday 10 May 2006 at 16:25

Berlingske’s editor-in-chief also charged
By Henrik Dannemand

...

“The police wanted to know whether I knew about the articles that we published in 2004. I did, of course. For reasons of principle, I am satisfied that I have now been charged.

"As editor-in-chief, I must stand in the same situation as the journalists. I have been surprised that I was not charged for the matter earlier,” says Niels Lunde, who has been charged under an article of the legislation that deals with aggravating circumstances.

This means that he risks being prosecuted according to an article that may lead to imprisonment for up to two years, while the two journalists are charged under an article that may lead to imprisonment for up to six months.

It is now the Danish Director of Public Prosecutions who must decide whether Niels Lunde is to be prosecuted. He expects that both the two journalists and himself - if he is prosecuted - will be acquitted.

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/09/1358238