Danish News in Brief: Politiken editor faces four months in prison for publishing PET book

In other news, two young men fail to return home after dying in the early hours of Saturday morning

The prosecutor in a case beginning today at Copenhagen City Court will argue that Christian Jensen, the editor-in-chief of Politiken newspaper, should be given a custodial sentence of four months for his role in publishing ‘Syv år for PET’, a book written by the intelligence agency’s former boss, Jakob Scharf.

Jensen took the decision to release the book in full as a supplement in October 2016 after an injunction prevented JP/Politikens from publishing it in book format.

READ MORE: Danish newspaper releases book banned by national security agency

Jensen’s legal team will argue that the injunction was only placed against JP/Politikens.

In March, Scharf was charged with releasing confidential information in the book.

The prosecutors also want Politiken to be fined 15 million kroner.


Young man dies in police custody in Copenhagen
A young man died in police custody in Copenhagen in the early hours of Saturday morning. So far the police have not provided a detailed explanation of what happened, but it is believed that officers needed to pacify the 18-year-old in order to arrest him, and that he then lost consciousness in his cell. Efforts to revive him at Rigshospitalet were in vain. An investigation will now be called – as is standard procedure.

Norwegian man dies after falling overboard from Danish-bound ferry
A Norwegian man died in the early hours of Saturday morning after falling from the Stena Saga ferry on its way from Oslo to Frederikshavn in north Jutland. Several witnesses saw the man, who was onboard as part of a group, fall from the eighth deck – a plunge of 20 metres into waters that were estimated to be 10 degrees Celsius. A delay in sounding the alarm did not help matters, and a search involving seven boats and a helicopter failed to find him in the dark despite looking for over five hours. The Swedish coast guard later found a body, and the man’s relatives have been informed it is probably him.

Italian woman who hired hitman to serve her time in Denmark
Emanuela Consortini, an Italian woman convicted of hiring a hitman to kill her partner in Sicily, will serve her six-year sentence in Denmark. Last December, the city court in Lyngby ruled that the Hellerup resident, who has lived in Denmark for 28 years and raised a family here, must return to Italy, but this was overturned by the Østre Landsret high court last week. Consortini hired the hitman via the dark net and arranged to pay in bitcoin. Her plans were initially detected by British police who passed on the case to Italy. It then returned to Denmark once it was established that photos of the intended victim, a policeman in Sicily, had been taken in this country.




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