Danish Spy Agencies On Trial Over Undercover Agent Claims

Copenhagen, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Aug, 2023 ) :Denmark's spy agencies go on trial on Thursday in a unique case brought by a Dane who claims he spied for Denmark in Syria but wound up in prison over alleged IS group ties.

In a case that has proven embarrassing for Danish intelligence services and politicians, Ahmed Samsam, 34, a Danish national of Syrian origin, claims he was working for the secret service PET and military intelligence service FE in Syria in 2013 and 2014, spying on foreign jihadist fighters.

But in 2018 Spanish courts found him guilty of fighting for the Islamic State (IS).

Several investigations by Danish media since then have backed Samsam up, concluding he never joined IS, but the two intelligence agencies -- inherently tightlipped -- have refused to say whether he was working for them.

"My client wants the court to recognise that he has been an agent for the intelligence services in Denmark," his lawyer Erbil Kaya told AFP ahead of the trial in Copenhagen's district court.

He insists Samsam only went to Syria to inform on foreign jihadists.

"This is a tough case for us, to be up against the intelligence services and the state," Kaya said.

"This is the first (such) case in Denmark. We don't know... what is enough to prove that you have been an agent in Denmark.""The trial is completely unique," Aarhus University law professor Lasse Lund Madsen told AFP.