2LT International News

COPENHAGEN, Denmark: After publicly claiming that Denmark’s secret service helped US intelligence spy on several European leaders, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, former Danish defense minister, said this week that he has been charged with revealing state secrets.

Also, the country’s prosecution authority said the justice minister has agreed that charges should be brought against Hjort Frederiksen, who was not named, for “divulging or passing on secrets of importance to the state.”

In a statement, prosecutor Jakob Berger Nielsen said, “The case includes highly classified information that cannot be presented openly.”

Danish media named 75-year-old Hjort Frederiksen, who retired from politics last year, as the suspect, and he later confirmed this on Facebook.

“I have not revealed alleged state secrets. Period. This was not how I had dreamed my retirement would be,” he wrote on Facebook.

In several interviews in 2020 and 2021, Hjort Frederiksen alleged that the Danish Defense Intelligence Service, which is responsible for overseas activities, helped US intelligence spy on German, French, Swedish and Norwegian leaders, including former German chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I must risk a prison sentence” for making the allegations, he said in an interview with public DR broadcaster in December 2021.

Hjort Frederiksen was defense minister from November 2016 to June 2019, and earlier held the finance and employment portfolios. He was also a senior member of the Liberal Party and left parliament in November to retire.

No date has been set for his trial, and if convicted he could face up to 12 years in prison.