Danish journalists could be jailed for intelligence leak

by Coilín Wed May 03, 2006 01:22 Máigh Nuad, Co. Cill Dara

The following is my translation of an editorial that appeared in the popular Danish evening paper, Ekstra Bladet, in response to the Danish DPP's decision to prosecute the two journalists who published intelligence documents that cast doubt on the government's decision to invade Iraq.

It seems doubtful that this prosecution will be successful, as even the conviction of the intelligence officer who actually leaked the documents, Frank Grevil, remains controversial. Grevil is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
(Danish whistleblower: I should have been acquitted
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72149)

Even if the prosecution is successful, it will cost the government a high price in terms of harmful coverage of the dubious circumstances under which Denmark invaded Iraq. That is what this expression of solidarity between rival editors signals.

Best,
Coilín.

.

A harmful affair
29 April 2006

Two journalists from [Danish conservative daily paper] Berlingske Tidende risk fines or imprisonment for having done their job. The Director of Public Prosecutions Henning Fode has decided that the newspaper's employees Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen should be prosecuted. Their supposed crime is that they have published confidential information from the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS).

They got the information from the now former DDIS employee, Frank Grevil, who in September was sentenced to four months' imprisonment by the High Court of Eastern Denmark.

Now the logic of Regional Prosecutor Karsten Hjorth, who has drafted the indictment, is that, since it has been possible to convict Frank Grevil, it is also possible to prosecute the two journalists who published his information.

This is utter nonsense. Frank Grevil was given his - much too harsh - conviction for breaching his duty of confidentiality.

This duty does not apply to journalists. On the contrary: their place in the world is to make a fuss if they stumble across information of public interest. The grotesque thing is that the legislation according to which the two journalists are being prosecuted states explicitly that one may be exempt from punishment if the otherwise confidential information one publishes is of great significance to society.

And that it certainly was in the case at hand. The information had to do with the whole foundation for Denmark's participation in the war in Iraq. The allegation was, as we know, that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, a theory on which the DDIS documents cast doubt.

Nevertheless, it was precisely this fear that made Denmark for the first time in recent times embark on an offensive war. The confidential DDIS documents that Berlingske Tidende published can therefore be said to have great significance for the social debate.

Berlingske Tidende's editor-in-chief, Niels Lunde, hopes that prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen will issue a declaration of support on matters of principle for the freedom of expression he so frequently evoked during the Muhammad crisis, and indeed it may well be that Fogh can be coerced into making a non-binding statement that he sincerely believes in freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

But in this specific case, we would lower our expectations if we were Niels Lunde. For one thing, the prime minister cannot interfere in the acts of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and for another thing, the whole affair puts him in a bad light. For the substance of the matter shows that he dragged Denmark out into a war on an erroneous, not to say mendacious, premise. For the government knew about the DDIS's very cautious threat assessments.

What makes the Director of Public Prosecutions want to prosecute the two journalists is something of a mystery. In the first place, the confidentiality of the information is limited. Much of it was freely available on the Internet. In the second place, it is harmful for the freedom of the press and of expression in Denmark that the matter should end up in court at all.

May Berlingske and the free word win.

Read the original editorial in Danish here:
http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/lederen/article193766.ece