Haaretz
Kislev 14, 5767
A verdict was expected
Monday in the trial of three Danish journalists accused of publishing
classified intelligence reports about Iraq's former weapons
program.
Niels Lunde, chief editor of the Berlingske Tidende
newspaper, and reporters Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen, were tried on
charges of publishing confidential Danish government documents, an offense
punishable by fines or up to two years in prison.
Based on the
leaked documents, the newspaper published a series of articles, in
February and March 2004, that said there was no evidence Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction during Saddam Hussein's rule - one of the main reasons
cited for the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
A former Danish
intelligence officer has been sentenced to prison for leaking the
documents in the case, viewed in Denmark as a landmark test of media
freedom.
"If a conviction should happen, it would move the freedom
of press in the
wrong direction," Mogens Blicher Bjerregaard,
president of the Danish Union of Journalists said before the
verdict.
During the trial, which began Nov. 13, Prosecutor Michael
Joergensen told the Copenhagen City Court that the newspaper, one of
Denmark's largest, violated a law that prohibits media from publishing
classified information that could harm national
security.
Joergensen recommended the three each get four months in
prison - the same sentence as former intelligence officer Frank Grevil,
who was convicted last year of leaking the documents to the
reporters.
Defense lawyers said their clients had done nothing
wrong, and that they had acted in the public interest. The defense also
noted that the Danish Defense Intelligence Service did not attempt to stop
the newspaper from printing articles based on the leaked
reports.