Her former Minister of Defense Denmark Klaus Jort Frederiksen announced today that he has been prosecuted for leaking top secret state secrets.

Earlier, the prosecutor’s office said it was prosecuting a person under a rarely used article of the Criminal Code, which provides for up to 12 years in prison for disclosing state secrets. He did not name the accused.

Frederiksen, who was minister from 2016 to 2019, confirmed via Facebook that he was being prosecuted but denied any wrongdoing. According to prosecutors, the defendants “repeatedly divulged or passed on state secrets” important to national security.

After a preliminary indictment last year, Frederiksen told local media that the allegations were based on statements he made about a covert surveillance agreement between Denmark and the US National Security Agency (NSA). In September, the former head of the Danish foreign intelligence service was also charged under the same article with leaking classified information. Frederiksen had parliamentary immunity until November, which was not renewed after he decided not to stand again in the last parliamentary elections.

In May 2021, a multimedia investigation revealed that the NSA used, at least until 2014, Denmark’s submarine cable network to spy on senior officials from four countries (Germany, Sweden, Norway, France), including then Chancellor Angela. Merkel.

A few months later, he told TV2 that an agreement to use submarine cables was made in the late 1990s by then US President Bill Clinton and former Danish Prime Minister Paul Nirup Rasmussen.

“I deny that I have crossed the boundaries of freedom of expression (…) and have not divulged any alleged state secrets,” he said in his post, noting that the indictment against him is confidential and therefore he will not make it public. .

“It has been widely known since 2013 that this collaboration exists. Who revealed it? The Americans themselves, because they were in the NSA documents released by (Edward) Snowden,” he said in a video posted today on the website of the BT newspaper.

A trial date has not yet been set. The prosecution requested that it be held behind closed doors, since it is confidential information that should not be disclosed.

Source: APE/MEB