Danish former minister to face treason charge

Denmark’s public prosecutor is set to formally charge a former defence minister with leaking highly classified state secrets, the justice ministry has said. Claus Hjort Frederiksen, who served as defence minister between 2016 and 2019, said in January he had been preliminarily charged with breaching a section of the penal code that describes leaking state secrets as treason. Parliament will discuss whether to remove Mr Frederiksen’s parliamentary immunity to legal prosecution. “I sincerely hope that the public and all members of the parliament can now gain insight into what it is that the government believes I have done that can be viewed as treason,” Mr Frederiksen told Ritzau, a Danish news wire.