The National Court sentenced Ahmed Samsam, a Dane of Syrian origin, to eight years in prison in 2018 for terrorism. It was determined that he had come to Spain to acquire weapons and was considered, at the time of his arrest, a heavyweight of jihadism. He began serving his sentence in León and was later transferred to Denmark. Three years ago, the Berlingske newspaper stated that Samsam was, in fact, a collaborator of the secret services of the Nordic country who worked against Daesh. Now, the Danish public television DR reveals that the Spanish police could have made a serious mistake in the investigation, by confusing the name of a terrorist organization.
During the trial in Spain, Samsam acknowledged that he had fought in Syria between 2012 and 2014, but not with the Islamic State, but with the Kataib Al Imam rebels, in collaboration with the Danish intelligence services.
Even so, the sentence, based on police reports, disregarded said statement, understanding that this group had been created since 2014. DR television, citing experts, explains that the judicial verdict really referred to Kataib al-Imam Ali , of Shiite orientation, emerged in Iraq and did fight in Syria, but on the side of government troops. In other words, the ruling confused the names of the two organizations.
Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explained in statements to DR that “the difference between these two groups is so great that it amounts to arguing whether something is black or white.” “It’s a big mistake,” he said.
The National Court sentenced Samsam, 30 years old and arrested in 2017 in Estepona (Málaga), for his integration into the terrorist organization Dáesh, with which he collaborated in violent actions in Syria after receiving training there in the use of weapons.
The sentence considered it proven that he traveled to Syria on several occasions between 2012 and 2014 to fight with the Islamic State and that he later maintained contact with other fighters, proselytized on social networks and collaborated in financing terrorist activities.
However, information from Berlingske in 2020 revealed that Ahmed Samsam had been in the pay of Danish intelligence until 2015. Supposedly by mistake, the secret services sent an alert to the European police system that the young man, then on vacation on the coast del Sol, posed a potential terrorist threat.
This information caused a political scandal in Denmark, with opposition requests for the fact to be investigated, but the Government has repeatedly refused to do so, citing the need to protect the work of the secret services.
Samsam’s lawyer, Iván Jiménez Aybar, criticized at the time that Denmark had ignored the case and that it could have helped to free him if he had explained that he was a collaborator with Nordic intelligence. He assured that the convicted person had worked for the Danish State to identify members of Daesh. In addition, he said that his client had not given details of the payments to the court because he hoped that his country would make a move to avoid jail time.
Faced with this situation, the family of the convicted person has contacted several Danish authorities asking for confirmation of the collaboration, but so far they have not received a response. Samsam has also denounced the Spanish and Danish states before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) on the grounds that he did not receive a fair trial.
