Inside Denmark's Cold War Terror Case: Police Expose Intelligence Service Role

In 2009, retired Copenhagen Police Superintendent Jørn Moos published *Politiets hemmeligheder* (Secrets of the Police), a controversial insider account that forced a reassessment of one of Denmark's most significant Cold War criminal investigations: the Blekingegade case.

Moos, who led the investigation as chief detective, collaborated with journalists Anders-Peter Mathiasen and Jeppe Facius to produce what became far more than a standard crime narrative. The book exposed a rarely discussed tension in Nordic law enforcement: the competing interests and conflicting methods of uniformed police and intelligence agencies operating under the same state.

**The Case Behind the Controversy**

The Blekingegade case centres on a communist activist cell suspected of involvement in a series of bombings and murders in Denmark during the 1980s. The suspects—Peter Døllner, Niels Jørgensen, Torkil Lauesen, and Jan Weimann—were arrested in April following years of intermittent surveillance. A fifth suspect, Carsten Nielsen, remained at large. The case gripped Denmark as it represented one of the most serious homegrown security threats during the Cold War period.

What made the investigation particularly complex was the role of PET (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste), Denmark's domestic intelligence service. For nearly two decades before the arrests, PET had monitored the suspects, classified as known communist activists with documented ties to radical Third World movements. Yet the relationship between PET's surveillance operations and the criminal investigation itself proved fraught with complications.

**An Insider's Critique**