The coalition Socialist People’s Party says a military news release on Iraqi prisoner numbers is pretty much mumbo jumbo, while the Red Green Party is calling for the military top brass to be suspended in the light of the disclosures.

The parties are reacting to a news release on the Air Force Tactical Command website, in which Major General Henrik Røboe Dam is quoted as saying that Defence Command Denmark was unaware that figures from Army Operative Command were greater than figures later provided to Parliament.

That statement came late on Wednesday night in reaction to a report in Thursday’s Politiken and hard on the heels of disclosures in Politiken on Wednesday, that a hitherto unpublished memorandum showed that a senior officer at Army Operative Command ordered a brief to Parliament to contain the figure 198, rather than the 500 prisoners who in fact had been taken by Danish troops.

“We didn’t know what the real figure was. That’s why it took so long,” Maj. Gen. Røboe Dam says in the news release of the month or month and a half that the Defence Command worked on producing figures for a parliamentary answer.

“It wasn’t a question of whether there were 200 or 500. It was a question of whether the figure was correct,” the Major General continued.

“Pretty much mumbo jumbo,” retorts Socialist people’s Party Defence Spokesman Holger Nielsen, adding he found the news release ‘strange’.

The memorandum in question, which has been confirmed by several sources independent of each other but has not been seen by Politiken, describes how in 2007 the head of Army Operative Command Major General Poul Kiærskou ordered that the number of Iraqi prisoners taken by Danish troops in Iraq to remain at 198, despite knowledge that the correct figure was 500.

That decision meant that Parliament was misinformed about the true number of prisoners taken by Danish troops. The issue was central to discussions about whether Denmark had handed over prisoners to Iraqi authorities who were suspected of using torture. Denmark is not permitted to hand people over to states or authorities where they risk torture.

In today’s Politiken, Maj. Gen. Røboe Dam is quoted as saying that: ”in 2007 we knew that there was a large variation in the figures”, while the Airforce Tactical Command news release quotes him as saying “In connection with our work the numbers varied a little”.

“He says there were variations, and unless he means that there could be fewer prisoners, and that has not been made public, it must mean that they knew that there were more prisoners,” Holger Nielsen says.

Red Green Party Defence Spokesman Nikolaj Villumsen says the news release does not clarify the issue.

“Parliament must be able to check what is happening, and you cannot do that if you don’t get the right information – for example that there are problems figuring out how many prisoners have been taken. If there are variations in the figures, that must be reported to Parliament,” Villumsen says.

“Either you have taken a prisoner, or you haven’t taken a prisoner. It can at most be because they have tried to avoid the responsibility that Denmark has when we take prisoners,” he adds with reference to international conventions.

For the Red Greens, the issue is so serious that the party says it has lost confidence in defence superiors and is calling for “the top echelon to be suspended”.

“We cannot have people in senior positions in the defence forces who have shown such contempt for democracy. If we are to be able to reckon on the defence telling the truth to Parliament in the future, the Defence Minister will have to make a clear example in this case,” Villumsen says.

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