Copenhagen: A Dane who claims he was jailed due to work spying on Daesh group militants wraps up his court case Friday aimed at forcing Danish authorities to confirm his story — or not.
A ruling in favor of Ahmed Samsam could help the 34-year-old fight a conviction in Spain over his alleged Daesh ties, but a win in Denmark is far from assured.
Samsam has sued Denmark’s intelligence secret service PET and military intelligence service FE to force them to admit that he was spying on foreign militant fighters for them in Syria in 2013 and 2014.
But even if his claims are true, the security services are under no obligation to confirm them.
The verdict is due in about a month.
Five years ago, the Danish national of Syrian origin was unable to prove his claim in a Spanish court, which convicted him over his Daesh ties and sent him to prison for eight years.
Samsam reiterated his claim during a trial that opened in Denmark in August, calling witnesses and citing investigative newspaper reports that backed up his claims after digging into the affair.
The intelligence services have insisted they cannot confirm the identities of their informants.
“To do so would harm their ability to speak to sources, to protect them and prevent terrorism,” their defense lawyer Peter Biering told the court when proceedings began last month.
“It’s a question of national security.”
Samsam, who has a long criminal record, traveled to Syria in 2012 of his own accord to fight the regime of Bashar Assad.
Danish authorities investigated him after his return but did not press charges.
He claims he was then sent to the war zone on several occasions, with money and equipment provided by PET and later FE, according to Danish media outlets DR and Berlingske citing anonymous witnesses and money transfers to Samsam.
In 2017, threatened by Copenhagen thugs in a settling of scores unrelated to his trips to Syria, Samsam headed to Spain.
There, he was arrested by Spanish police, who were surprised to find pictures of him on Facebook posing with a Daesh flag.
Samsam was sentenced the following year to eight years in prison for having joined Daesh, after the Danish authorities refused to come to his defense.
Since 2020 he has been serving his sentence — reduced to six years — in Denmark.
He is due to be released this autumn, according to his lawyer Irbil Kaya.
In the Danish trial, the court heard testimony from several media representatives, including the former news editor at daily newspaper Berlingske, Simon Andersen.
He testified that he had been contacted about the Samsam case on his personal email by the former head of FE, Lars Findsen — who has been indicted in an unrelated case for leaking information to the press.
Andersen told the court that Findsen suggested FE wanted to make amends by negotiating a settlement with Samsam’s lawyer at the time, Thomas Braedder.
“I perceived it as an official request coming from a person in a position of authority,” Andersen told the court.
Braedder also testified about his contacts with the intelligence services but was unable to provide the court with details for reasons of national security, he said.
Like a good spy novel, the case has enthralled the Danish public for more than six years, but embarrassed the intelligence community and politicians.
The government has been opposed to an inquiry, and in parliament, a preliminary investigative committee probe that was opened in February to shed light on Samsam’s claims was quietly dropped in June.
A Daesh militant or an undercover agent? Danish court to decide
https://arab.news/gycd9
A Daesh militant or an undercover agent? Danish court to decide
- Ruling in favor of Ahmed Samsam could help the 34-year-old fight a conviction in Spain over his alleged Daesh ties
- The intelligence services have insisted they cannot confirm the identities of their informants
Last Christians gather in ruins of Turkiye’s quake-hit Antakya
- Saint Peter’s, one of the world’s oldest rock churches, is a sacred rallying point for the isolated Christians still left in quake-hit Antakya in southeastern Turkiye
ANTAKYA: Saint Peter’s, one of the world’s oldest rock churches, is a sacred rallying point for the isolated Christians still left in quake-hit Antakya in southeastern Turkiye, the city known in ancient times as Antioch.
“Since the earthquake, our community has scattered,” said worshipper Mari Ibri.
“Those who remain are trying to regroup. We each had our own church but, like mine, they have been destroyed.”
The landscape around the cave remains scarred by the disaster nearly three years ago, when two earthquakes devastated Hatay province on February 6, 2023 and its jewel, Antakya, the gateway to Syria.
Sad fields of rubble and the silhouettes of cracked, abandoned buildings still scar the city — all enveloped in the ever-present grey dust.
Since the earthquakes, Antakya city has emptied and the Christian community has shrunk from 350 families to fewer than 90, Father Dimitri Dogum told AFP.
“Before, Christmas at our house was grandiose,” Ibri recalled.
“Our churches were full. People came from everywhere.”
Ibri’s own church in the city center was rendered inaccessible by the earthquakes.
Now she and other worshippers gather at the cave on December 24 — Christmas Eve in some Christian calendars.
It is here, they believe, that Peter, the disciple Jesus assigned to found the Christian church, held his first religious service in the 1st century.
The rock church was later enlarged and 11th-century crusaders added a pale stone facade.
It is now a museum, opened to the faithful only on rare occasions.
Christmas Eve is one.
The morning sun was still glowing red in the sky when Fadi Hurigil, leader of Antakya’s Orthodox Christian community, and his assistants prepared the service.
They draped the stone altar and unpacked candles, holy oil, chalices and plastic chairs.
Out in front they placed figurines of Christ and three saints near a bottle of rough red wine, bread baskets and presents for the children.
The sound system played a recording of the bells of Saint Peter and Paul church, which now stands empty in Antakya city center.
“That was my church,” said Ibri, crossing herself. “They recorded the peals.”
Around one hundred worshippers soon squeezed into the incense-filled cave and at least as many congregated outside.
A large police contingent looked on. Sniffer dogs had already inspected the cave and esplanade.
“It’s normal,” said Iliye, a 72-year-old from Iskenderun, 60 kilometers (40 miles) further north. “We’re a minority. It’s to protect us.”
The slow chanting of Orthodox hymns heralded the start of the two-hour service, conducted entirely in chants sung in Arabic and Turkish by Dogum and another cleric.
“It’s very moving for us to be here in the world’s first cave church, where the first disciples gathered,” the priest said.
“There used to be crowds here,” he added.
“In 2022, there were at least 750 people outside, Christians and non-Christians alike.”
Since the earthquakes, the gathering has been much smaller, although it is now starting to grow again.
At the end of the service, when Christmas carols fill the air, Dogum and Hurigil cut a huge rectangular cake.
The Nativity scene at its center — Mary, baby Jesus, the ox and the ass — was edged with whipped cream.
“There’s the religious dimension but it’s also important that people can gather here again,” a worshipper said.
“After February 6, our fellow citizens scattered. But they’re starting to come back. We’re happy about that.”
