Danish journalists could be jailed for intelligence leak

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Monday May 01, 2006 16:01

by Coilín ÓhAiseadha

Máigh Nuad, Co. Cill Dara

Freedom of the press threatened by involvement in Iraq invasion

Freedom of the press and national security collide after two journalists used classified military reports to question the government´s arguments for joining the Iraq War, the Copenhagen Post reported last week.

Two journalists who printed classified military reports about Iraq´s weapon capabilities could follow their source to jail, if District Attorney Karsten Hjorth has his way. The DA said Berlingske Tidende’s two journalists, Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen, broke the law when they printed classified military reports leaked to them by Major Frank Grevil, Defense Intelligence Service (FE).

27 April 2006 15:30

Journalist duo could face jail time
By The Copenhagen Post

Freedom of the press and national security collide after two journalists used classified military reports to question the government´s arguments for joining the Iraq War

Two journalists who printed classified military reports about Iraq´s weapon capabilities could follow their source to jail, if District Attorney Karsten Hjorth has his way. The DA said Berlingske Tidende’s two journalists, Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen, broke the law when they printed classified military reports leaked to them by Major Frank Grevil, Defense Intelligence Service (FE).

Grevil, a secret agent who authored the FE´s report to the Danish government about Saddam´s weapon capabilities, felt the prime minister manipulated his report in the run-up to a parliamentary vote on Denmark´s participation in the Iraq War.

´When Anders Fogh Rasmussen says, in reference to the Iraq war, that he ´knows´ Iraq has WMD, there are at least ten reports sitting on his desk with information indicating quite the contrary,´ Grevil told daily newspaper Information in 2004.

Grevil contacted the Berlingske Tidende journalists and offered them classified military reports that cast doubt on the government´s proof that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Their articles printed in the February and March 2004 argued that the government presented an incomplete picture of the threat of Saddam Hussein.

The paper trail led back to Grevil. The Copenhagen Municipal Court tried and found him guilty and issued him a half-year prison sentence, which the Eastern High Court later reduced to four months.

If the DA has his way, the two journalists face a similar fate.

´Since Grevil has been punished for releasing the information from FE, then it is also punishable to publish the information,´ said Hjorth.

The two journalists could face a two year prison sentence for publishing classified military information. The newspaper´s editor-in-chief, Niels Lunde, stood by the journalists, calling their work ´valuable´ and the decision to print the critical articles as necessary.

´Berlingske Tidende supports the government´s Iraq policy and the paper thereby bears a particular obligation to maintain a critical stance on the case,´ Lunde said in Thursday´s Berlingske Tidende. ´This type of journalism is the greatest responsibility of a free press.´

He promised to offer support to the journalist with all of the resources the paper had at its disposal.

http://www.jp.dk/english_news/artikel:aid=3698690/