The former special adviser to the previous government’s tax minister is to be charged with leaking confidential information about Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s and her husband Stephen Kinnock’s private tax affairs, the Copenhagen Police has announced in a news release.

If found guilty, Peter Arnfeldt could face up to six months in prison, according to the national news agency Ritzau.

“We are surprised,” Peter Arnfeldt’s lawyer Henrik Stagetorn tells TV2.

Peter Arnfeldt, who was Liberal Tax Minister Troels Lund Poulsen’s special adviser, has repeatedly denied that he was the source of any leak, latest during a Tax Case Commission hearing last week.

He has admitted having a copy of a Tax Authority decision on the Kinnock issue in order to brief his minister, but says that he shredded it a day afterwards when it became clear Thorning-Schmidt did not want to publish the document.

The Copenhagen Tax Authority investigation came following media controversy about whether or not Stephen Kinnock should have paid Danish tax at a time when he was employed and living abroad.

During the Tax Case Commission hearing last week, a journalist from the Ekstra Bladet tabloid alleged that Arnfeldt had offered to show him part of the Tax Authority decision, which found that Stephen Kinnock had not breached Danish tax rules.

Ekstra Bladet’s Journalist Jan Kjærgaard explained further that he no longer had a tape of the conversation with Arnfeldt as he had destroyed it.

But after Ekstra Bladets competing tabloid BT published articles some time later about the Thorning-Kinnock family affairs, Ekstra Bladet printed a front page splash in which Arnfeldt was fingered as having attempted to leak material.

Arenfeldt’s counsel said earlier today that he had sent a letter to Copenhagen Police calling on the police not to charge his client. Stagetorn said last week’s commission inquiry produced no information that could incriminate his client to the extent that he could be charged.

He said that in March this year, the police had written that it did not have reason to charge Arnfeldt.

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