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DENMARK

Danish former Stasi collaborator sues historian for libel

A Cold War hangover was played out in a Copenhagen court room on Monday.

Published: 30 January 2018 11:54 CET
Danish former Stasi collaborator sues historian for libel
An unrelated file photo showing Stasi archives being inspected in Berlin in 1992. Photo: NF/Scanpix Denmark

A former unofficial collaborator with the East German Stasi intelligence service appeared at Copenhagen City court in a defamation case against historian Bent Jensen and publisher Gyldendal over two statements made in the 2014 book Ulve, får og vogtere I (Wolves, Sheep and Guards I).

The former collaborator, Jan Aage Jeppesen, who now lives in Spain, admits to having been in contact with the former official state security service of the German Democratic Republic, but disputes accusations made in Jensen's book that he “caused several East German citizens to end up in East German prisons,” and “spied against Denmark”.

Jeppesen was given code names including Hamster and Apollo and was paid for various assignments including infiltrating the Ost-West Transfer group, which helped smuggle East German citizens to the West.

He also gave the Stasi a description of Danish security service PET's offices and took photographs of Polish activists in Copenhagen, the court heard.

But he denies the two comments made in the 2014 book, saying there is no documentation to support them.

He is not seeking legal penalties against Jensen or Gyldendal.

The court heard during Monday's proceedings that Jeppesen cooperated with the Stasi while also smuggling cigarettes during the 1980s. He said he was motivated by economic, rather than ideological, considerations.

Denmark's State Prosecution Service shelved a criminal case against Jeppesen in 2002, stating that it was unlikely he would be convicted and that the case was too old.

“The statements are true and Bent Jensen has extended freedom of speech [due to his role as an academic historian, ed.],” defence lawyer Karoly Németh said in court on Monday.

Jensen is seeking acquittal in the case. A verdict is scheduled for March 5th.

READ ALSO: Berlin postcard finally arrives at destination – 53 years later

TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

Published: 16 May 2023 08:29 CEST
France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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