Danish whistleblower complains re prison conditions

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Monday September 08, 2008 22:52

by Coilín ÓhAiseadha

086 060 38 18

Unduly harsh on daughter of widower Grevil

A Danish military intelligence whistleblower has complained that the Danish prison service has been unfair in imprisoning him at a distance from his 15-year-old daughter.
Frank Grevil has been imprisoned at Horserød Prison since June this year, as punishment for leaking documents which showed that the Danish Defence Intelligence Service did not share the government's conviction that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction at the time of Denmark's invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Frank Grevil Danish intelligence whistleblower

The following is an excerpt from an English translation of Charlotte Aagaard's report in the Danish independent newspaper, Information:

Frank Grevil complains about imprisonment conditions
By Charlotte Aagaard
...
Former intelligence officer Frank Grevil has complained to the Ombudsman concerning the failure of the Prison Service to take into account his role as sole provider for his 15-year-old daughter. Grevil, who is currently serving a four-month sentence for passing on a number of classified Iraq threat assessments to the press, feels that he is the victim of discriminatory treatment on the part of the Prison Service.

Despite several applications for visits to family-oriented prison hostels near Copenhagen, the Prison Service has insisted that the former intelligence service analyst and WMD specialist must serve his sentence in Horserød State Prison near Helsingør, where he cannot have daily contact with his daughter.

"If it were up to the Danish Prison Service, I would be sent to the Mid-Jutland State Prison in Nørre Snede - four hours from our home. The Service requested this several times, but after protests, I ended up in Horserød. That is naturally better, but the best solution would have been a prison hostel, where I would have been able to see my daughter every day. As things are, the Prison Service has quite deliberately deprived a 15-year-old of contact with her only parent," says Grevil, a widower. He explains how his daughter now has only a neighbour to comfort her, as her grandfather had died suddenly the previous week.

"I was only told of the death myself the next day, so I couldn't be with her when she needed me," he continues, adding that it resembled "a political decree" to ensure that he received the maximum punishment.

...

Grevil's lawyer, Bjørn Elmquist, calls his client's treatment "very unusual". "I cannot document this, but it seems as though his applications for pardon, delay and permission to serve his sentence in a prison family hostel have been handled unfairly," he said, adding that although Grevil's daughter is 15, "a teenage girl still needs parental care."

...

English translation copyright 2008 by Billy O'Shea www.oshea.dk

Source report in Danish:
Frank Grevil klager over afsoning
http://www.information.dk/164543

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Comments (6 of 6)

Please support Grevil in prison

by Coilín

Mon Sep 08, 2008 22:55

Please visit the Grevil support website and leave a message of solidarity for Frank:
http://www.grevilsupport.dk/uk_version.html

Please scroll down until you see the fields where you can post your message.

Thanks in advance,
Coilín.

Is there an address to write to as well?

by Tim Hourigan

Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:12

Thanks for the info and the link Coilin.

Is it possible to write to Frank in prison?
And who should we write to about getting him moved to a prison closer to his daughter?

There aren't enough people like Frank Grevil, Katherine Gunn, and the original big whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg.

Ireland paid very little attention when our own intelligence guys gave an anonymous opinion that the WMD dossier was 'not credible' and yet the Govt. continued to quote it in the build up to war, and refer to it's bull$hit conclusions in the vote to continue to allow the US military to use Shannon.
Perhaps if one of them had stuck his/her neck out at Iveagh House, we might not be still seeing troops, weapons and the CIA using Shannon like their own private airstrip.

=======
=====
(1) As reported in the (London) Independent on Sunday, Sep 14, 2003
BLAIR'S WAR: How one man deed logic and intelligence to take us to war.

relevant excerpt. =
That was the headline-grabber, the stark image that stuck in the mind
- that fearful weapons could be unleashed suddenly, without warning,
on any of Iraq's neighbours. It was spotted almost immediately by an
expert in the Irish Republic's Department of Foreign Affairs, when a
British diplomat arrived in Iveagh House with a copy of the dossier,
hoping it would secure Ireland's vital vote on the UN Security
Council. Their specialist instantly dismissed it as utterly
unbelievable, for technical and political reasons.

Politically, it was unthinkable that Saddam would allow the Iraqi
army, which he deeply mistrusted, to hold weapons that they could use
for a sudden strike against a presidential palace, he said. And
technically, it defied belief that they could store these materials
permanently in battle-ready conditions out in the heat of the Iraqi
desert. [end of excerpt]

full article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_2003091...45089

Also worth looking that after I pointed this out to John Gormley, he asked about it in the Dáil. Ah, the days when he was in opposition, and unafraid to rustle feathers.

http://www.greenparty.ie/pressroom/Dail%20work/031001%2...q.htm

"spreading the word"

by whisper

Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:32

Article put up on IMC UK http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/408390.html translations to other languages to follow.

There's a Danish proverb "man hvisker stundom een noget i öret og hörer det over den hele By." which means more or less that you can't go whispering in one ear without the whole town hearing about it. In our case the world of anti-war activism as well as the world of freedom of the press as well as the concerns of illegal activity by governments and their intelligence services have reason not to ignore this whisper. It is all the more interesting when one considers how the defendents of the court case taken against the newspaper involved saw them acquited after succesfully arguing the revelations were in the public interest (as dealt wiht by Dr Coilin here http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77120 & that same society was so keen to protect and define "freedom of speech and press" in the terms of the hate cartoon debacle.

Frank Gervil deserves our support and that we familiarise others with Danish involvement in the WMD lie and illegal war on Iraq.

http://www.grevilsupport.dk/uk_version.html

Whistle Blowing an honourable but costly practice

by Edward Horgan - PANA

Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:56

I wish to express solidarity with Frank Grevil the Danish whistle-blower now imprisoned for exposing lies and wrongdoing by the Danish Governement and its agencies.
The Irish Government has been equally complicit in the unlawful Iraq war, but so far, there has been no courageous whistle-blower. There is an urgent need, in the interests of human rights, for confirmation that prisoners were transported through Shannon airport by the CIA and by US military aircraft, especially during the period 2002 to 2005. It has been reported to me by a number of individuals who are not yet prepated to come forward publically or confidentially, that prisoners have been seen on board US military and CIA planes at Shannon airport.
It is never too late to blow the whistle on gross human rights abuses such as torture.
Whistle blowers are needed now at Shannon airport to put an end to Irish complicity in crimes against humanity.

Edward Horgan, International Secretary, Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
Pastor Martin Niemöller

Write to Frank in prison

Tue Sep 09, 2008 15:50

This is the postal address for letters of support:
Frank Grevil
Postbox 532
3000 Helsinore
Denmark

It has been suggested that people send him files in cakes, as a humorous symbolic gesture, and certainly one woman I know sent him a nail file. So that's an idea, if you are inspired.

Mind you, he will get to read all messages posted to the support website, so that's two good options.

Unfortunately, it's too late to have him moved to another prison now, as he is due to be released within weeks, but it might be worth writing to the Danish prime minister and foreign minister via the embassy, to express your thoughts about some or all of the following:
1. That Denmark participated in the disastrous invasion of Iraq. The Danish troops have now left, but irreparable damage has been done. For example, the epidemic of cholera that has broken out in Hilla (reported by Reuters today) shows what damage the war has done to water and sewage systems.
2. That Denmark has not paid compensation for its part in this illegal and unjustifiable war.
3. That Denmark, as a member of a newly offensive NATO, risks destabilising the Caucusus and other parts of Central Asia so as to promote the strategic interests of the United States and other member states in the region.

Please try the following:
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller
c/o The Royal Danish Embassy
7th Floor, Block E,
Iveagh Court ,
Harcourt Road
Dublin 2.

Thanks, whisper, for spreading the word. Ja, stundom! :-)

Best regards,
Coilín.

Grevil released

Fri Sep 12, 2008 13:13

Frank was released from prison on Wednesday morning.

He has left a message on the support website, which I translate as follows:
"Dear everybody,
In two and a half hours I will be picked up by my children and can get started with picking up the remains of my existence. Your support has been a great joy to me in the boring daily life at the camp. ..."

Also a comment in English:
"I once thought, naively, that only totalitarian regimes would attack the children of their internal critics, but I now realize, that this also happens in so-called democracies. Or is it that Denmark has become a totalitarian regime?
All the best
Frank"

Thanks for your support.
Coilín.

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Danish whistleblower complains re prison conditions

Comments (6 of 6)