The experiences of an ordinary Dane

Jeg just saw that the prosecutor in the Amanda Knox case was convicted last month.

It is very serious. How can they let him continue working in such an important job well knowning that he was charged all the time?

I know that you are not guilty before you are convicted but at least they could have suspended him without pay.

He is not a politician. They are know for their corrupt nature. Just look how a person like Bettino Craxi was celebrated by present politicians despite all the crimes he had comitted.

But Mignini is not a politician. He holds an office where you must not doubt on his honesty. Now everyone will believe that he did exactly those thing he was convicted for against her. We are talking abuse of office.

I have lost whatever fate in the Italian justice system that remained. I am shocked - nothing less.

Sources:
Amanda Knox prosecutor Giuliano Mignini convicted of ‘abuse of office’, Times Online
Craxi commemorated at Senate, Ansa.it

Camilla Broe was exonerated. The prosecution failed to prove that the charges were relevant when we are talking year 2010.

It is an odd case. No one has claimed that she had carried drugs across the border. Some have claimed that the drug smugglers have used her expertise about the European culture to dress the smugglers in a way so they would not be checked on in the custom. Some also claim that she has used her skills about economy to hide the income from the crimes for the IRS and police.

In Denmark it is not a crime to give advice to criminals or help them with accounting. Just take a woman who is trafficked to Denmark and forced to work in the sex industry. It is lawyers in nice clothes and with connection to the highest circles in our society who secure the office space the women are working in. They know that they secure contracts for crimes. It has been proven with hidden camera.

They are not punished.

If you want to hide something from the Danish IRS the first people you consult are accountants and your personal contact in your bank. A lot of money disappeared from firms who went down due to bad economy. The firms were sold to people on welfare or mentally ill who were given the job as managers. While they were in office the money vanished. Research showed that the firms were sold overpriced and in fact paid for with the firm’s own money. Who ended up with the profit?

The sellers of the firms, the bank employees, accountants and of course lawyers cashed in.

Some of the sellers of firms were punished when the crimes were investigated but no bank employee, accountant or lawyer has ever served time.

So why go after Camilla Broe?

Most believe that the motive is political. A statement given by a DEA agent during the pre-trial process tell a story about a Danish minister of justice who forced the DEA to go the entire way with the case. A statement the present minister of Justice Brian Mikkelsen has denied. I don’t know who I would feel if I were the DEA agent. Here is a foreign Politian who accuses you of perjury.

But for now the ruling of the judge has been appealed and then the question is: When will she return to Denmark? In order to answer this we must look on a case where a Danish businessman has charged for murder of his wife based on evidence which consisted only on xenophobia.

Maxwell Mccord spent 4 years in jail before he was acquitted in 2005. He missed a vital part of his 3 year old daughter’s life while he was detained.

So even now were the charges against Camilla Broe have proven to be bogus, she still could lose 3 years of her life while waiting for justice. Is that fair?

Some claim that Amanda Knox is in fact victim for a growing trend of anti-americanism in Europe. Looking at the circumstances the trial has been conducted under it is hard - very hard to dispute this claim.

It looks like that the Italians hold her as hostage because the U. S. government wont extradite 23 CIA agents to serve out their sentence for their involvement in the Abu Omar abduction. The evidence alone was far from reaching a standard where it should have led to conviction.

The criticism of Italy from most countries involved in Afghanistan following the disclosure that the Italian army bribed Taliban for not being a problem in the Italian sector did not help Amanda Knox’s case either.

So Senator Carnwell has a point.

But how does this anti-americanism start and can it spread to other countries?

Could we take another case which seems to have meant increased cold between the United States and France? We are talking about the so-called Phedofilanski case. Suddenly out of a breifcase somewhere the United States drag an old case from the 1970’s out of a hidden drawer. The victim in the case has moved on. The abuser had been exiled for properly the rest of his life, which could be a suitable punishment. Then the Americans want to have him back for an unnecessary trial. It was hard for the French public to understand. Now there is tention between the countries.

Denmark has the Camilla Broe and Said Abdalla cases. Said Abdalla was legally drunk when his car was rammed by another drunk driver, who died from his injuries. Of course he should be punished, but the prosecutor withheld the fact for the court that the other driver was driving under influence and he received a severe punishment as he was the only person who committed DUI. At least he should be extradited to Denmark at once so he could receive a new trial.

According to new information Camilla Broe did inform the local police about the persons involved in the extacy smuggling. She worked as consulant for firms who wanted her help to get their employees dressed correctly before meeting European clients. She discovered that an investment firm was a cover for a smuggling operation and shared her information with the police. She traveled to Denmark in order to secure the safety of her daughter before returning to Florida where she had volunteered to work as an undercover agent. However something went wrong when the case was turned over to the DEA and she became a wanted woman when the DEA gave the information to the criminals and offered them shorter sentences in return of testifying against Camilla Broe.

This case can have consequences in Denmark politically. A minister of justice can be forced to step down because his spokeman has told that a DEA agent had committed perjury when this agent under oath gave a statement where it was claimed that it was the former Minister of Justice - Lene Espersen, who gave the order to try to have Camilla Broe extradited to Florida. This case has angered the Danish citizens so much that many are talking about an exit date for the involvement of Danish soldiers in Afghanistan and as explained above the government might step back also.

So how can Americans prevent the growing anti-americanism in Europe?

For at start they could extradite the criminals courts in Europe have convicted. Second they could turn over the cases of Europeans who have been convicted or charged in the United States to the justice system in Europe. Why try to convict a person like Camilla Broe in Florida when it is known for everybody that any kind of conviction will be annulled within 6 months when she return to Denmark to serve out her sentence? Isn’t it a waste of tax-payers money?

I am sure that Amanda Knox could be going home tomorrow regardless of the show trail she has been through if the CIA agents is extradited to Italy.

I am also sure that any question about an exit date from Afghanistan will silence if the case against Camilla Broe is dropped tomorrow.

I hope that the leaders of these nations which used to be allies come to their senses soon before it is too late and we stand with a Europe which is united against the United States.

New information in the case against Camilla Broe became public this week. I wrote a piece about this case back in August 2009.

It seems that the story is that she met an investment banker or at least it was what she believe. They befriended each other and she helped some of his employees to dress more businesslike for meetings abroad. Dress code is very important and knowledge to European culture seems to be something most Americans has little information about so her help was natural and of course welcome.

Slowly she learned that the investment firm was a front for a drug operation and then she approached the local authorities. She gave the police names to people who were convicted later. She was even in the process of becoming an undercover agent, which meant that she had to secure that her little daughter had to move to Denmark if her choice of helping the authorities should end with her deaths. The life of an undercover agent is hardly something you can connect with the word safety.

Something went wrong. Suddenly a federal agency - the DEA stepped in and took over the investigation. They had no interest in having a foreigner getting any kind of credit for taking this drug smuggling operation down, so how could they silence her?

By getting some of the people she helped turn in to testify against her!

And they did. Even the guy responsible for the entire organization got off with 6 years as part of a plea bargain.

So what are they prosecuting her for? She handed them the entire operation on a silver plate.

This case reminds of another case involving a Dane. The former member of the Danish parliament and the European Parliament Uwe Jensen was approached by a U.S military man wanting help to transfer weapon to some freedom fighters in Columbia. Every firm who is exporting goods to Columbia have contact to those freedoms fighters because the government has little or no control over the communities outside the capital. Actually the common citizen is of no interest of the government.

But politics were quickly changing and the U.S government gave up their normal stand according to the Truman doctrine and left the country of Columbia to demise into a kind of semi-communist country. Uwe Jensen was caught in this tidal wave of dirty politics and sentenced to 14 years in prison for his part in a weapon smuggling operation.

Back to Camilla Broe. She isn’t victim for changing politics. It seems that she is victim of simple marketing by the DEA.

Here is a woman who gave everything up to help the police. She even implicated her boyfriend which is a huge no in our culture. In certain groups in our society women are being killed publicly if they insult their family by going against their boyfriends. Without knowing Camilla Broe’s religious belief she took a huge risk when she went to the police.

This isn’t fair.

A lot has changed as result of her arrest and extradition. Often quoted webpages like the Exchange Student Info now warns youth to enter the United States or at least to get themselves out of the country back to Denmark where they can be protected by an extradition agreement just for as little as being a simple witness to a crime

At least something good comes out of this tragedy.

It has not been a good fall for the Danish citizen. The people, who properly suffer the most in the world, were tested once again.

The Camilla Broe-case:

First they really extradited Camilla Broe. She is starving in a prison in Florida where family members are trying to see to that she can get some food so she can be alive to the show trial in December. However the trial can be delayed because the prosecutor wants to go on honeymoon.

The extradition process was expected to attract a lot of media attention but in order to prevent her case to become an issue for the ordinary Dane, they surprised everybody by deporting 22 people to Iraq only a couple of days before. It was a decision most Danes supported, because Denmark had suffered by the burden to house refugees. We cannot even give hardworking and worn down people early retirement anymore. The removal of the early retirement made it possible to claim that they took our status status as a welfare society away from us.

The strategy the authorities picked worked. She could be sent to Florida without protests hitting the streets. The charges they have dealt with in Danish courts were altered so she faced another set of fabricated charges in Florida. She was sacrificed and it remains unclear what kind of payment Denmark received in exchange for her.

Next a group of extremist Christians wanted to change a number of things in Denmark:

Ban of the sex-workers:

First they wanted to punish customers who seek a prostitute. The association of sex-workers is protesting this ban on their right to choose a way of living. Everyone wants to stop human trafficking. It is awful that some people can exploit others in that way. The sex-workers cannot earn a descent income when others are being smuggled into Denmark, so they want it stopped. But to forbid prostitution at all would only move the business over the border to Germany.

The main reason for Denmark to have a rather large sex-industry is that Norway and Sweden are not taking responsibility to see to that the demand in their own home market is covered. However it is only one out of many areas where they send their problems to Denmark. They don’t educate people to their health care department either but ships their students to Denmark, where we pay for their education so they can get cheap labor to their hospitals. It is a kind of development aid to undeveloped countries we are not speaking loud about.

There is no reason to feel sorry for these students. They enjoy a way better student environment, where youth socialize instead being isolated and angry on the world like they do in Finland. In 1993 Denmark saw a tragedy when students became victim of a school shooting. We decided that it never should be repeated so we created Friday bars in our colleges and high schools, so the students learn each other to know better and it have worked.

But to take the path as they did in Sweden and Norway does not stop human trafficking. These people have a hidden agenda. We know that the Climate Summit we got as a part of a dirty deal with India will result in an increased demand for purchase of sex. Maybe some are envious on Denmark due to our success to attract a number of International summits where decisions are actually made where a lot of other summits abroad have been coffee breaks for the politicians. I don’t know, but to forbid people to take a job they want is not acceptable.

Attack on our alcohol culture:

Week 40 is a week where our department of health attacks what they think is killing Danes before time. The main reason is that our politicians want to increase the pension age, so we can pay taxes for a longer time. Danes pay more than 50 percent of their income in taxes, so we are talking a lot of money our politicians can use to eat and drink expensive wines for (now limited by court decision to DKK 1,000 per meal. There was no limit before), unlike most countries to pay the corrupt United Nation or send abroad as development aid.

This week they attacked our alcohol culture. Some have been abroad and seen what kind of prison the United States is for teenagers. The politicians know from foreign experiences that you have to break the morale of a population early and it is easy to state that a population which accepted Bush for 8 years and a stricter gun control when armed criminals kill a lot must be broken.

They want to increase the purchase age for stronger alcohol to 18. Some want a total ban on alcohol in firms making it very difficult to both attract employees and maintain a proper human resource policy inside the firms. A lot of the Friday bars are financed by private firms so they can get the best students when they graduate. I guess that it would be difficult to run a firm at all if all kind of human relations activities are banned.

But the attack on our alcohol culture is only a part of a larger battle!

The war against youth in Denmark

It is difficult to be teenager in Denmark. It has never been harder. Never before has there been so many ideas of how to punish youth for being innovative and open to meet people and socialize with them. I have searched the Internet and want to tell this story from a village outside Copenhagen, which illustrate how our politicians think. The youth in Stenloese complains about the fact that they cannot enter nightclubs as they used to do in the old days. They have no option but to travel all the way to Copenhagen when they want a night in town. I would have to state as a parent that I would be very scared about sending my children in the nightlife in Copenhagen, if I lived in this village. I would prefer that they remained in the local community. I know that they think that having a nightclub, teenagers can attend would result in more youth drinking alcohol, but really who cares when a ban on alcohol is a path towards drug use and violence as we have seen it in Copenhagen where not even news media can report from a local church in broad daylight with taking the same precautions as they do when they report from Iraq or Afghanistan.

The hate against the Danish youth culture which the town council of the county Egedal shows it totally irresponsible and an insult against the parents which by the case are the voters too. I hope that this issue will be a part of the upcoming elections to the town councils.

But the war against Danish youth culture is far more than a war on alcohol use among youth. A lot of Danish youth became exchange students in their own country this summer when a lot of the youth were told that the town they lived in had to room in the school so they could receive education. They had to leave their family and local network of friends, jobs and in some cases their boyfriend/girlfriend to live in remote villages like Slagelse, Odense or Esbjerg for years.

In some way it is positive that they are exchange student in their own country rather than a foreign country where so many things can go wrong. We are not talking of legal dilemmas which can haunt their future for the rest of their lives like Camilla Broe is a living proof of. We are talking of the fact that some exchange student agencies are hidden contact agencies where host families with a child who was last in the line when looks where handed out can get a chance to get their child married if they become host families.

But even moving to another part of Denmark can be tough on any person. While Denmark is a small country it is maybe the largest country in the world when you move. I am talking about the fact that speed limits were invented on Zealand to the distance can be felt longer. I am talking about the fact that you as a newcomer to a community have to prove yourself. The Danish citizens have been hurt too often by outsiders so everybody is measure on the actions of their parents. I moved across the country to settle in a small village, I would be the stranger for the rest of my lives and my children would be the children of the stranger. Maybe my grandchildren will be regarded as one their owns.

I believe that it is a shame that our government has not seen to that schools are to be found where people live rather than making the department of education into a tool for providing area development.

Then people began to speak about how many who drops out of boarding schools - the so-called continuation schools (Efterskoler). I believe that it is the parents who are too blame. They are too busy with their own careers to guide their teenagers through an important period in their life so they choose to outsource this task to a far-away boarding school. I have to ask the parents: What good is there about having children if you don’t want to go all the way. Children under 18 should not live outside the family unit. I believe that the continuation schools are over-rated. I believe when you can see that about 25 percent drop out of about 20 percent of the schools should make the families think long and hard about the reason for banishing their own child to a place with strangers for a year is the right strategy if you really want to remain a family in the long run.

I am happy that I didn’t have to face such difficulties when I was a teenager. I fear for the future of my children, but there are other fears in Denmark year 2009!

The police state Denmark

When I leave my house I am not afraid of being shot even given the fact that I sometimes don’t shave and I am a well-built weighing about 200 pounds. I might look like a biker and for some on unknown reason they are target for one-sided attacks by youth gangs.

But I am not afraid of them. They are few. If the Danish IRS teamed up with the police for real and confiscated all they did not buy by earning their money in a way which is legal, those youth gangs would be out of business in months.

I am afraid of our police due to the new weapon law. We really need a Charlton Heston and an organization like the National Riffle Association in Denmark. I have a lot of projects on my house which I would like to start, but I cannot not go down in a shop and buy a simple Stanley knife without risking being stopped by the police and given 7 days in jail. I forgot a Chain saw in my trunk the other day because I went home to bed after having helped my father in law. My wife exploded on me. You can only imagine a jail sentence I could have risked with a chain saw in my car, when you get 7 days in jail.

The police are everywhere and they can put you in jail for 6 hours without charging you. They do this every weekend with soccer fans. Some politicians have suggested that the 6 hours should be extended to months, so they could deal with youth gangs and stop arresting the same soccer fans every weekend.

In selected areas they can also search you without properly cause and they use this to harass the poor people.

So the answer right now to the fears of an arrest is to remain at home as much as possible and only rarely leave the home. I just got a mail from the company. They want to lower the expectations of the next week because the police wants to reduce the overall speed on our highways by 10 percent in week 42. It might result in more jobs lost. I hope that we can avoid it, but next week won’t be a happy one.

Will it change?

I hope that the weapon law will be abolished. It is a failure and made in panic over a terrible but few killings.

But in december we have the climate summit in Copenhagen and I guess that both the politicians and the police want too strict laws in affect until the summit is over. All people is worried about the violence expected in relationship with the summit and the Danish police unfortunately doesn’t have a legendary person like the French former police cheif in Paris Maurrice Papon to take care of riots in a classic way.

But I keep a small hope…..