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Spy or jihadist? Denmark probes jailed man’s case

Danish lawmakers decided on Friday to investigate the case of a man who says he spied for Denmark in Syria, but wound up jailed by Spain over alleged IS group ties.

Published: 4 February 2023 15:38 CET
Denmark prison
File photo of a prison in Denmark. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

Ahmed Samsam, 34, a Danish national, claims he was working for Denmark’s secret service PET and military intelligence service FE in Syria in 2013 and 2014, spying on foreign jihadist fighters.

But he says they left him high and dry after he was arrested while on a trip to Spain in 2017, accused of himself supporting the Islamic State (IS) group.

Convicted and serving his sentence in Denmark since 2020, he has filed a lawsuit against the two intelligence services to force them to acknowledge his role with them. The case is due to be heard in August.

The new left-right government in power since December has rejected calls for an inquiry. But all of the other parties in parliament agreed on Friday to back a probe by the assembly’s Investigative Committee.

“A large minority — in other words all parties not in the government — want to press ahead with an inquiry into the Samsam affair”, the chairman of the committee, Ole Birk Olesen, told Danish news agency Ritzau.

A total of 60 MPs must be in favour of an inquiry for one to be opened, and the nine opposition parties hold a total of 85.

Samsam, who has a long criminal record, travelled to Syria in 2012 of his own accord to fight against the regime.

Danish authorities investigated him after his return but did not press any charges.

He was then sent to the war zone on several occasions with money and equipment provided by PET and later FE, according to investigations conducted by Danish media outlets DR and Berlingske.

They based their reports on anonymous witnesses and money transfers wired to Samsam.

In December, the two intelligence services said they never divulge the identity of informants “both for the sake of the sources themselves and for the services’ operations”.

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POLITICS

Support for Denmark’s Liberal party hits record low in new poll

Support for Denmark's Liberal Party has hit the lowest level ever recorded since the polling company Voxmeter started measuring party support back in 2001, indicating it may have lost its position as the main party of the right.

Published: 21 May 2024 10:06 CEST
Support for Denmark's Liberal party hits record low in new poll

Just 7.7 percent of respondents said they intended to vote for the party in a poll carried out for the Ritzau newswire, showing the party’s support almost halved since the 2022 election, which it received 13.3 percent of the vote.

As recently as the run-up to the 2015 general election, the party received the support of 22 percent of voters in one Voxmeter poll, challenging the Social Democrats for the title of Denmark’s biggest party. 

The Liberals have been struggling in recent years, with the party’s former leader, Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, leaving and launching the rival Moderate party, and the party’s former immigration minister, Inger Støjberg, launching the Denmark Democrats after being expelled from the party.

Støjberg’s party received the support of 9.9 percent of voters in the poll, showing its charismatic leader now ahead of the party that expelled her. 

Torsten Schack, the Liberal party’s political spokesperson, told Ritzau it was too early to write off the party’s chances in the 2026 election. 

“There is no doubt that this is not the best poll for the Liberals, but history shows that this can move quickly in Danish politics, and there are no elections until 2026, so until then we will continue to generate solid results for centre-right supporters in the government,” he told the newswire in a text message. 

But it is the libertarian Liberal Alliance party, as the only centre-right party in opposition, which is challenging the Liberal’s position as the main, government-bearing party of the right, winning the support of 16 percent of voters in only the second time it has polled so high since it was founded in 2007 by MPs from the Social Liberal and Conservative Parties. 

The Social Democrats were still the largest party in the poll, with the support of 20.9 percent of voters — down from a recent high of 35.8 percent in May 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

They were followed by the Socialist Left party with 13.7 percent of the vote. 

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