COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Denmark’s public prosecutor is set to formally charge former defence minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen for leaking highly classified state secrets, the justice ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Parliament will now have to discuss whether to remove Frederiksen’s parliamentary immunity, a protection against legal prosecution granted to Danish lawmakers.
Frederiksen, who served as defence minister between 2016 and 2019, said in January he had been preliminarily charged with violating a section of the penal code, which includes treason for leaking state secrets.
The public prosecutor intends to charge Frederiksen, still an active politician, with the rarely used section 109 of the code, which carries a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison.
(Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Clarence Fernandez)
