Wilkes ‘witch-hunt’ a ‘legal disgrace’

Press, 30 January 1982, Page 4

Wilkes ‘witch-hunt’ a ‘legal disgrace’

Front i

KEN COATES.

in London

The harsh penalty given the New Zealand antinuclear; researcher. Owen has prompted action from SWMen’s peace fraternity and bitter accusations against Stockholm's Town Court.;,-”

The court last Friday sentenced Wilkes to six months jail, to .be followed by deportation ’ to ? ; Norway, his last place of residence. “A witch-hunt and a legal disgrace?? said the Swedish Peace V and Arbitration Society, Sweden’s umbrella peace organisation, which also called for a Parliamentary investigation. “We aTe approaching the Soviet view of military secrets,” said Professor Wilhelm Agrell, of Lund University, a former member of the Swedish Intelligence Service and an ■ intelligence researcher. The director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Mr Frank Blackaby,' said there Was a suggestion in the sentence that if two pieces of public information were put together, they became secret.

Under a headline, “WitchHunt,” .the National Social Democratic daily, “Aftonbladet” overtly supports Wilkes, quoting Professor Agrell. “The 'Whole affair lacks proportion,” says the newspaper. “It is an over-exag-geration to assume a person on a routine cycle holiday in one of Sweden’s most-visited areas, using for / the most part only his eyes, can create

an equal amount of damage as a renowned spy who sells military secrets. “This suggests Sweden’s defence is run by fools. It is inconceivable Wilkes has seen things that foreign Powers know nothing about.” The liberal daily, “Dagens Nyhetef,” however, asserts editorially Wilkes did not aid free debate dnd that by employing some of this methods, peace research risks disrepute. ' ■ Wilkes was found guilty of gross unauthorised access to secret information, relating to observations of 15 defence installations — aerial Warning devices on the Baltic Sea islands of Oland and Gotland. Last June, on a biCycle trip with a companion, he made rough notes and sketches, and took photographs of antennae, presuming this done from a public area would not violate any law.

Wilkes wanted to prove to Professor Agrell in a debate about the aerial warning devices and the’N.A.T.O. defence radar system, that the aerial devices were preferable. He said he did not intend to publish his findings. The State prosecutor, Mr K. G. Svensson, and military witnesses, called two towers observed by Wilkes, “military installations,’* yet the head of the legal division of the Swedish Televerket (post and telegraph department) stated they were simply civilian relay stations. The Town Court did not make a field study of island sites or check claims that lack of fences implied lack

of secrecy or that photography was not forbidden, except for one site where Wilkes took no pictures. Peace movement workers have accused Judge Harald Nordih of being too frail and aged to follow proceedings. Another criticism is that the lower court does hot find itself sufficiently competent to dispute the word of military authority. ■ Wilkes’s counsel (Mr Hans Goran Franck) noted for human rights campaigns and recently returned from El Salvador as an observer for the. Social Democratic Party, lodged an appeal. It now appears this will probably not be heard for three months, about the time Wilkes completes his peace research project, “Foreign Military Presence.” He says that before then, he will demand that the Court visit the island sites in question. On Tuesday, the appeal of Wilkes and a Norwegian, Nils Petter Gleditsch, will be heard in Oslo by the judicial select appeals committee of the Supreme Court. Last year they Were given six months probation and each fined 10,000 kroner ($2220) and a similar amount in court costs for publishing material that should have been kept secret.

Some of Wilkes’s Swedish supporters say that if an acquittal is not obtained after all legal possibilities are exhausted in Sweden, his case might be taken to the human rights commission in Strasbourg.