Owen Wilkes on trial in Sweden

Press, 5 December 1981, Page 3

Owen Wilkes on trial in Sweden

NZPA-Reuter Stockholm A New Zealander employed at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (5.1.P.R.1.) went on trial in Stockholm yesterday charged with improperly acquiring classified information on Swedish defence. Owen Wilkes, aged 41. a researcher at the institute, was arrested in August after the police found classified documents on military installations in his flat and office. He was accused yesterday of “gross unauthorised handling of secret information” but the 5.1.P.R.1. director, Mr Frank Blackaby, said there was no question of Mr Wilkes ' having passed the information to a foreign power. In June, an Oslo court fined Mr Wilkes and a Norwegian and gave them six-month suspended prison sentences for collecting and publishing Norwegian military secrets. Both have appealed. The hearing yesterday was

partly closed to the news ■ media and public. : The June case was seen as • a test of whether re- j searchers, working from pub- i licly available sources of; information, could be con- 1 victed of violating national security by publishing their findings. 5.1.P.R.1., funded by the ; Swedish Government and • with an international mem- I bership of scientists, does independent research on peace and conflict. The institute said it under-f stood Mr Wilkes’s alleged; activities were conducted in I his own time and had nothing ; to do with his 5.1.P.R.1. era-. ployment I