Spy chief charged with leak – NRK Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
Findsen has led the Defense Intelligence Service (FE) for six years and is, according to Danmarks Radio, charged with leaking «highly classified information». He has been in custody since December 9.
This emerged during a court hearing on Monday, where a previous name ban in the case was lifted.
Three other current and former employees of FE and the Danish Surveillance Police (PET) were also arrested and charged in the case. Only Findsen is in custody.
According to Denmark’s radio The case concerns the leakage of classified information to the Danish media, but it is not known which documents or media are in question.
Findsen must now be charged with a very serious provision in the Penal Code which falls under the category «treason»
The provision deals with the disclosure of state secrets, and the penalty is up to 12 years in prison. The section has not been in use for 40 years in Denmark.
According to Danmarks Radio, the Danish Surveillance Police (PET) will not comment on the case. PET still tells the channel that by «highly classified information» is meant information that is either labeled «secret» or «top secret».
– And which can thus cause Denmark or the countries in the EU or NATO serious or extremely serious damage if the information is passed on, it says in an e-mail PET to Danmarks Radio.
Therefore, according to PET, this case is a «qualified form of breach of confidentiality».
Intercepted
The case is going behind closed doors, but after what Danmarks Radio knows, PET has the phone to Lars Findsen and monitored him for a long time.
It was Findsen even though he has now requested that the name ban in the case be lifted. Thus, the media can now explain who is in custody.
According to the newspaper Politiken There are hardly any other people in Denmark who for decades have been entrusted with more secrets than Lars Findsen.
Findsen was appointed head of the Danish Surveillance Police (PET) shortly after the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001. In 2007, he became head of the Ministry of Defense, before taking over as head of the Defense Intelligence Service (FE) in 2015.
Lars Findsen is the only person who has been head of both Denmark’s intelligence services.
Findsen has therefore had a permanent seat on the Danish government’s security committee for the past 20 years. A place where the state’s biggest secrets are discussed.
He is now in prison accused of revealing some of the secrets.
“The fact that Denmark’s chief of the Armed Forces’ Intelligence Service has been imprisoned for a month, while a case of leaks from intelligence services has been investigated, is a bomb in the spy service’s work and reputation, extremely harmful to the nation and never put before”, writes Danish TV 2.
Lost his job
In August 2020, the Danish Intelligence Service (TET) issued an unusually sharp press release, stating that the Danish intelligence service “has withheld key and necessary information” and that they have “provided incorrect information regarding matters concerning the service’s collection and sharing of information”. ».
Shortly afterwards, the head of the Intelligence Service, Lars Findsen, and several others in the top management were relieved of their positions.
The background for the intelligence scandal in Denmark was a top secret investigation called “Operation Dunhammer”, secret sources told Danmarks Radio (DR). This was mentioned by NRK through an international collaboration last spring.
The United States is said to have monitored
The United States must, through cooperation with Danish intelligence, have conducted targeted espionage against senior politicians and officials in Norway, Sweden, Germany and France. It told several sources to DR.
The espionage must have taken place by tapping the internet cables that go through Denmark.
No Norwegian politicians were named, but it was Germany’s then Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The revelation provoked strong reactions in the countries which should have been subjected to espionage by their allies.
The then Minister of Defense Frank Bakke-Jensen (H) said that he took the allegations seriously. After a telephone conversation with his Danish colleague, he said:
– The Danes will not comment on anonymous sources. Neither do we, but her message to me was clear: eavesdropping on allies is totally unacceptable to the Danish authorities.
Bakke-Jensen referred to one of the cases that Danes had to complete and wanted to wait for the answers from it.
Was acquitted
The response from this commission came just before Christmas and concluded that there is no reason to criticize the Defense Intelligence Service (FE) and that the employees who were fired could return to work. The sharp allegations from TET were rejected.
The Commission did not find that the FE had engaged in the collection and sharing of illegal information about Danish citizens, but did not write anything about other countries’ citizens.
There was thus no answer as to whether the Danish intelligence service had allowed the Americans to carry out targeted espionage against politicians in other allied countries.
It is not known whether it is this intelligence scandal that is the reason why Lars Findsen and three others from the intelligence services in Denmark were remanded in custody, December 9 last year, for leaking secret information.
At the same time, journalists and editors from several media outlets who covered the revelation and other revelations about FE and PET in recent years have been contacted or questioned by the investigation.
The Ministry of Defense in Norway has no comment on the case, corresponds to NRK today.