FBI met WikiLeaks informant in Copenhagen

Unknown whether the FBI illegally interviewed an Icelandic informant in Denmark, or whether the government let the FBI pursue investigation against WikiLeaks

The Justice Ministry is remaining tight-lipped about whether it knew that FBI agents had travelled to Denmark to meet with an Icelandic informant working for the whistle-blowing organisation WikiLeaks.

According to Wired magazine, WikiLeaks volunteer Sigurdur Thordarson, 20, said he met with the FBI twice in Copenhagen in 2011 and once in Aarhus in 2012, where he handed over hard drives containing information about WikiLeaks.

The FBI paid for Thordarson’s flights and hotel for his two trips to Copenhagen in late August and early October 2011, and in March 2012 the FBI travelled to meet Thordarson in Aarhus where he was working at the time.

The Justice Ministry declined The Copenhagen’s Post request to comment on whether the government allowed the FBI to use Danish territory to question Thordarson about WikiLeaks. It would be illegal for the FBI to interview Thordarson in Denmark without their consent. 

This June, Wired magazine broke the story that described how the young Icelander decided to turn on WikiLeaks in 2011 after joining the organisation as a volunteer the year before at the age of just 17.

WikiLeaks was the focus of an FBI investigation due to its publishing of secret and classified US government documents that had been supplied to it by whistleblowers, such as the convicted US Army soldier Bradley Manning, who handed over hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and restricted army reports.

In interviews with both Slate and Wired magazines, Thordarson explained how in August 2011 FBI agents travelled to Iceland to interview him after he had contacted the US Embassy in Reykjavik. The FBI told the Icelandic government that they were in the country to investigate an attempt by US hackers to break into Icelandic government computers, but the Icelandic government soon started to suspect that the FBI was actually using its time in Iceland to build its case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“I think it was a question of trying to frame Julian Assange,” the then Icelandic interior minister, Ögmundur Jónasson, told Slate. “And they wanted Icelandic authorities to help them with that.”

The FBI agents were told to leave the country, which is when they made their first trip to Copenhagen with Thordarson. Thordarson said in his interview with Slate journalist Ryan Gallagher that he was put up at the Hilton hotel by the airport, a detail that Gallagher did not include in his article but which he confirmed to The Copenhagen Post.

Thordarson's second trip to Copenhagen to meet with FBI agents took place on 3 October 2011, when Thordarson told Gallagher that he was put up at the Marriott.

The third time Thordarson met with the FBI was in Aarhus on 18 March 2012, when he handed the agents eight hard drives containing a total of over a terabyte of data including chat logs, photographs and other information about WikiLeaks. Thordarson presented Gallagher a US Justice Department receipt given to him by the FBI agents for the hard drives.

Journalisten – the magazine published by Danish journalism union Dansk Journalistforbundet – reported that these hard drives could have contained information about Danish journalists who had been collaborating with WikiLeaks.

One of them is Charlotte Aagaard from the newspaper Information.

“If [the meeting in Aarhus] took place without the knowledge of the Danish authorities then it would be illegal,” Aagaard told Journalisten. “But even if the meeting took place with the approval of the Danish government, that’s still not a comforting thought.”

TOP STORIES

  • Chinese wind turbine companies sign pact to end race-to-the-bottom price war

    Chinese wind turbine companies sign pact to end race-to-the-bottom price war

    China’s 12 leading wind turbine makers have signed a pact to end a domestic price war that has seen turbines sold at below cost price in a race to corner the market and which has compromised quality and earnings in the sector.

  • Watch Novo Nordisk’s billion-kroner musical TV ad for Wegovy

    Watch Novo Nordisk’s billion-kroner musical TV ad for Wegovy

    Novo Nordisk’s TV commercial for the slimming drug Wegovy has been shown roughly 32,000 times and reached 8.8 billion US viewers since June.

  • Retention is the new attraction

    Retention is the new attraction

    Many people every year choose to move to Denmark and Denmark in turn spends a lot of money to attract and retain this international talent. Are they staying though? If they leave, do they go home or elsewhere? Looking at raw figures, we can see that Denmark is gradually becoming more international but not everyone is staying. 

  • Defence Minister: Great international interest in Danish military technology

    Defence Minister: Great international interest in Danish military technology

    Denmark’s Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen attended the Association of the Unites States Army’s annual expo in Washington DC from 14 to 16 October, together with some 20 Danish leading defence companies, where he says Danish drone technology attracted significant attention.

  • Doctors request opioids in smaller packs as over-prescription wakes abuse concerns

    Doctors request opioids in smaller packs as over-prescription wakes abuse concerns

    Doctors, pharmacies and politicians have voiced concern that the pharmaceutical industry’s inability to supply opioid prescriptions in smaller packets, and the resulting over-prescription of addictive morphine pills, could spur levels of opioid abuse in Denmark.

  • Housing in Copenhagen – it runs in the family

    Housing in Copenhagen – it runs in the family

    Residents of cooperative housing associations in Copenhagen and in Frederiksberg distribute vacant housing to their own family members to a large extent. More than one in six residents have either parents, siblings, adult children or other close family living in the same cooperative housing association.

Connect club

Connect Club is your gateway to a vibrant programme of events and an international community in Denmark.

Sign up here

Career

  • Come and join us at Citizens Days!

    Come and join us at Citizens Days!

    On Friday 27 and Saturday 28 of September, The Copenhagen Post will be at International Citizen Days in Øksnehallen on Vesterbro, Copenhagen. Admission is free and thousands of internationals are expected to attend

  • Diversifying the Nordics: How a Nigerian economist became a beacon for inclusivity in Scandinavia

    Diversifying the Nordics: How a Nigerian economist became a beacon for inclusivity in Scandinavia

    Chisom Udeze, the founder of Diversify – a global organization that works at the intersection of inclusion, democracy, freedom, climate sustainability, justice, and belonging – shares how struggling to find a community in Norway motivated her to build a Nordic-wide professional network. We also hear from Dr. Poornima Luthra, Associate Professor at CBS, about how to address bias in the workplace.

  • Lolland Municipality launches support package for accompanying spouses

    Lolland Municipality launches support package for accompanying spouses

    Lolland Municipality, home to Denmark’s largest infrastructure project – the Fehmarnbelt tunnel connection to Germany – has launched a new jobseeker support package for the accompanying partners of international employees in the area. The job-to-partner package offers free tailored sessions on finding a job and starting a personal business.

Want to advertise your job with CPH Post?

Contact us

Jobs