Chch man pleads not guilty in Oslo

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 5

Chch man pleads not guilty in Oslo

NZPA London A New Zealander, Owen Wilkes, pleaded not guilty in the Oslo City Court yesterday to charges of publishing information which could harm Norway's national security. Wilkes, aged 41, formerly of Christchurch, and a Norwegian, Nils Petter Gleditsch, aged 38, on trial with him, face a maximum three years jail if they are found guilty. Both men are peace researchers — Wilkes at the International Peace Research Institute in Stockholm, and Gleditsch at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo. The charges against them follow publication of a controversial report on electronic listening posts in Norway, The trial has been described as a test case on whether journalists and academics working from public sources to discover intelligence activities can be convicted of violating national security laws for publishing their findings. Wilkes told the New Zealand Press Association from Stockholm last week that the Norwegian Government “more or less” accepted that the report which led to the charges was based on sources available to the public.

“But they are saying we put all this non-secret information together and created a new piece of information which should have been secret,” he said. The text of the indictment was not made public when the trial opened yesterday. By publishing it, the Court would reveal exactly the same information Wilkes and Gleditsch are charged with publishing, legal experts in Oslo said. The two researchers are charged under articles 90 and 91 of Norway’s penal code, which deal with national security. Articles 90 and 91 cover the possession and publication of secrets including the location of military installations and their equipment. Defence counsel (Mr Ole Jacob Bae), a specialist in constitutional law, told the Court that it was absurd to keep the indictment secret because all the information had already been published. The accused had used only “open sources” in their private research work, such as telephone books, other publications, Government white papers and proposals, he said. But the prosecution said the crux of the matter was that the two research workers had systematized the information which they gathered and published it in a book,

The defence has called several prominent witnesses including Norway’s Foreign Minister (Mr Knut Frydelund), the Defence Minister (Mr Thorvald Stoltenberg), and the Education Minister (Mr Einar Forde). Prosecution witnesses include Lieut-general Sverre Hamre, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Lieutgeneral Toenne Huitfeldt, commander-in-chief (northern Norway). The Prime Minister (Mr Gro Harlem Brundtland) has refused a defence request to excuse ministers called as witnesses from their secrecy obligations. Wilkes and Gleditsch were charged with publishing information which could harm the national security even if it had not been revealed to a foreign power, the prosecutor said. -

Gleditsch said in a recent interview that the report he and Wilkes made showed that Norwegian intelligence installations were a “part of a worldwide surveillance network which is . . . integrated into hostile systems.” Wilkes told the N.Z.P.A. before he went to Oslo for the trial that he was not compelled to attend the hearing but was doing so because he had nothing to hide. Backgrounder, page 20.