The previous head of Denmark’s international intelligence company, Lars Findsen, has been charged alongside the ex-defense minister
Former Danish international intelligence chief Lars Findsen and ex-Protection Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen have spoken for the primary time concerning the felony case opened towards them by Danish prosecutors. Each of the previous officers have been arrested final 12 months on fees of state treason.
In an interview with The Guardian revealed on Monday, the 2 former officers insisted they have been harmless. Findsen described the fees towards him as “utterly insane,” whereas Frederiksen claimed the case was a “hoax” and instructed it was politically motivated.
Prosecutors have accused the previous senior officers of leaking categorized authorities secrets and techniques. Findsen is about to face trial this autumn for allegedly disclosing state secrets and techniques to a number of individuals, together with journalists, his girlfriend, and shut kinfolk resembling his 84-year-old mom.
The prosecution has primarily based its allegations on a sequence of conversations Findsen had that have been recorded on listening gadgets hidden in his residence. The previous spy chief instructed The Guardian that he had been shocked to study that spies from Denmark’s home intelligence company had tapped his cellphone and wired his home as if he have been a suspected terrorist or enemy international agent.
“That was the stunning factor,” he instructed the outlet. “To sit down and have a look at your life remodeled into police experiences written from surveillance tapes.” Findsen famous that the recordings included his conversations together with his youngsters after they got here again from faculty, and different facets of his day by day household life.
Former protection chief Frederiksen was arrested for allegedly disclosing categorized data in a sequence of media appearances. The ex-minister denied revealing any secrets and techniques and careworn that the knowledge he had shared was already within the public area. He additionally accused the present Danish authorities of believing that an open secret can nonetheless be thought-about a state secret.
The data allegedly leaked by the 2 former officers pertains to a scandal that unfolded in Denmark a number of years in the past, when a whistleblower revealed that the nation’s Protection Intelligence Service (FE), which was headed by Findsen, had illegally spied on Danish residents and international officers resembling ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel on orders from the US Nationwide Safety Company (NSA).
The NSA’s ties to Danish intelligence had beforehand been instructed by whistleblower Edward Snoweden, who leaked a trove of categorized paperwork in 2013 after working as a non-public contractor for the American spy company. Copenhagen’s function within the spy scheme, nevertheless, was solely confirmed after an inside Danish intelligence report was shared with the media.
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