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
Guardian Council in Iran approves law to end cooperation with nuclear watchdog
- Mystery surrounds whereabouts of Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium
TEHRAN: Iran’s powerful Guardian Council on Thursday approved legislation that would suspend Tehran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The proposed suspension, which will now be submitted to President Masoud Pezeshkian for final ratification, would “ensure full respect for the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran ... especially with regard to uranium enrichment,” spokesman Hadi Tahan Nazif said.
The watchdog passed a resolution two weeks ago accusing Iran of non-compliance with its nuclear obligations. A suspension of cooperation with the agency would deny UN inspectors access to Iran’s uranium enrichment operations at Fordow, Isfan and Natanz, which were attacked in US bombing raids last Sunday.
Meanwhile confusion continued to surround the location of Iran’s stockpile of about 400 kg of highy enriched uranium. Satellite images from before Sunday’s attacks showed a long line of vehicles outside the Fordow plant. Some experts believe Iran used the convoy to move the uranium and other nuclear components, and is hiding them elsewhere.
However, US President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth both insisted on Thursday that the stockpile at Fordow had been destroyed. “The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out,” Trump said. Hegseth said: “I’m not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be.”
Syrian architect uses drone footage to help rebuild hometown
TAL MARDIKH, Syria: Syrian architect Abdel Aziz Al-Mohammed could barely recognize his war-ravaged village when he returned after years away. Now, his meticulous documentation of the damage, taken using a drone, helps to facilitate its rebuilding.
“When I first came back, I was shocked by the extent of the destruction,” said Mohammed, 34.
Walking through his devastated village of Tal Mardikh, in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, he said he could not recognize “anything, I couldn’t even find my parents’ home.”
Nearly half of Tal Mardikh’s 1,500 homes have been destroyed and the rest damaged, mainly due to bombardment by the former Syrian army.
Mohammed, who in 2019 fled the bombardment to near the Turkish border, first returned days after a militant offensive toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December.
The architect, now based in Idlib city, had documented the details of Tal Mardikh’s houses and streets before fleeing and later used his drone to document the destruction.
When he returned, he spent two weeks surveying the area, visiting homes, and creating an interactive map that detailed the conditions of each house. “We entered homes in fear, not knowing what was inside, as the regime controlled the area for five years,” he said.
Under the blazing sun, Mohammed watched as workers restored a house in Tal Mardikh, which adjoins the archeological site of Ebla, the seat of one of the Syrian Arab Republic’s earliest kingdoms.
His documentation of the village helped gain support from Shafak, a nongovernmental organization which agreed to fund the reconstruction and rehabilitation of 434 out of 800 damaged homes in Tal Mardikh.
The work is expected to be completed in August and includes the restoration of two wells and sanitation networks, at a cost exceeding $1 million.
Instagram influencer Motaz Azaiza brings the Gaza story to US
PHILADELPHIA: At a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hundreds of people gathered recently for a weeknight charity fundraiser hosted by a celebrity guest.
The venue was not announced in advance due to security concerns, and attendance cost at least $60 a pop — with some spending $1,000 to get a photo with the host.
Yet, the event was not a gala hosted by a movie star or famed politician, but by a photojournalist: Gaza native Motaz Azaiza, whose images of the Israeli assault following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack launched him to international recognition.
Wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, and gold-framed glasses, the 26-year-old boasts nearly 17 million followers on Instagram for his images from the war in Gaza.
“I wish you had known me without the genocide,” Azaiza told the crowd, his voice faltering.
Before the war, Azaiza was a relatively unknown figure, posting photos from his daily life in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, to his roughly 25,000 Instagram followers at the time.
But as soon as the first strikes from Israel hit Gaza, he became a war photographer by virtue of circumstance, and his wartime posts soon went viral.
“As a photojournalist, I can’t watch this like anyone else, I’m from there, this is my home,” Azaiza said.
After surviving 108 days of Israeli bombardment, Azaiza managed to escape Gaza via Egypt, and he has since become an ambassador of sorts for the Palestinian territory, sharing the story of his people as the conflict rages on.
“Every time you feel like you regret leaving, but then you lose a friend, you lose a family, you say, OK, I saved my life,” Azaiza said.
Before the war, Azaiza had been hired to manage the online content for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, the humanitarian agency accused by Israel of providing cover for militants.
This month, he is touring the US to raise money for UNRWA USA, a nonprofit that collects funding for the agency.
“I can’t handle this much of fame ... it’s a real big responsibility,” Azaiza said from the fundraiser in Philadelphia.
“This is not me ... I’m waiting for the genocide to stop. I want to go back to Gaza, continue my work capturing pictures,” he added.
At one point, he blended into the crowd, posing for a selfie before shaking hands with the donors.
At the fundraiser, a UNRWA USA official solicited donations.
“Is there someone who wants to give $20,000? I would like to have $20,000. Nobody? Is there someone who wants to give $10,000? I would like to have $10,000,” the official calls out.
Once the call lowered to $5,000, five hands raised, and even more went up when asked for donations of $2,000 and $1,000.
One of the donors, Nabeel Sarwar, said Azaiza’s photographs “humanize” the people in Gaza.
“When you see a picture, when you see a child, you relate to that child, you relate to the body language, you relate to the dust on their face, the hunger, the sadness on their face,” Sarwar said.
“I think it’s those pictures that really brought home the real tragedy of what’s going on in Gaza.”
Veronica Murgulescu, a 25-year-old medical student from Philadelphia, concurred.
“I think that people like Motaz and other Gaza journalists have really struck a chord with us, because you can sense the authenticity,” she said.
“The mainstream media that we have here in the US, at least, and in the West, lacks authenticity,” she added.
Sahar Khamis, a communications professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in Arab and Muslim media in the Middle East, said Gazan journalists like Azaiza who have become social media influencers “reshape public opinion, especially among youth, not just in the Arab world, not just in the Middle East, but globally and internationally, including in the US.”
“The visuals are very, very important and very powerful and very compelling ... as we know in journalism, that one picture equals a thousand words.
“And in the case of war and conflict, it can equal a million words, because you can tell through these short videos and short images and photos a lot of things that you cannot say in a whole essay.”
Musk calls Lebanese president as Starlink seeks license
- Musk called Aoun and “expressed his interest in Lebanon and its telecommunications and Internet sectors“
- Aoun invited Musk to visit Lebanon
BEIRUT: Billionaire businessman Elon Musk and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun spoke by phone to discuss making elements of Musk’s sprawling business empire available in Lebanon, a statement from Aoun’s office said on Thursday.
The statement said Musk called Aoun and “expressed his interest in Lebanon and its telecommunications and Internet sectors.”
Aoun invited Musk to visit Lebanon and said he was open to having Musk’s companies present in the country, which ranks among the countries with the lowest Internet speeds.
The call came just weeks after Aoun and other top Lebanese officials met with Starlink’s Global Director of Licensing and Development, Sam Turner, in Beirut for talks on providing satellite Internet services in Lebanon. US ambassador Lisa Johnson was pictured attending those meetings.
The negotiations have prompted some pushback in Lebanon. Internet access in the country has so far been operated exclusively by state-owned companies and their affiliates, who are lobbying the government not to license Starlink.
Starlink recently received licenses to operate in India and Lesotho.
Greece seeks cooperation with Libya to stop migration, PM says
- Greece said it would deploy two frigates and one more vessel off Libya’s territorial waters to deter migrants from reaching its southern islands
- Mitsotakis said authorities in Libya should cooperate with Greece to stop migrants
BRUSSELS: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that Libya should cooperate with Greece and Europe to help halt a surge in migration flows from the north African state.
Seaborne arrivals of migrants in Europe from the north of Africa, including war-torn Sudan, and the Middle East have spiked in recent months.
Greece said on Monday it would deploy two frigates and one more vessel off Libya’s territorial waters to deter migrants from reaching its southern islands of Crete and Gavdos.
“I will inform my colleagues about the significant increase in the number of people from eastern Libya and ask for the support of the European Commission so that the issue can be addressed immediately,” Mitsotakis said ahead of an European Union summit in Brussels that began on Thursday.
Mitsotakis said authorities in Libya should cooperate with Greece to stop migrants sailing from there or turn them back before they exit Libyan territorial waters.
He added that the EU’s migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Greece and Malta would travel to Libya early in July to discuss the issue.
Law and order has been weak in Libya since a 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Qaddafi, with the country divided by factional conflict into eastern and western sections for over a decade.
