By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, September 30: With the ruling of the High Court of Eastern Denmark last week in favor of a plaintiff who claimed he was unlawfully detained by Copenhagen Police for expressing his support for Tibet during a state visit by tthen Chinese President Hu Jintao in June 2012 the Police are now under renewed scrutiny for suppressing demonstrations and will face a formal enquiry.
Copenhagen Police on Monday conceded that the court proceedings ‘raised doubts’ about police’s handling of the demonstrations announcing that it would ask the Independent Police Complaints Authority to look into the three-year-old case.
“As there have been questions publicly raised about false explanations and incomplete information regarding the identification of police officers, I have today decided to refer the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Authority,” Commissioner Thorkild Fogde said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the audio files and witness testimony presented during the hearing at the Eastern High Court contradicted the official version of the event submitted by the police. Therefore, the court ruled that the activist was unlawfully detained for an hour and the officers forced him to put down the Tibetan flag.
The actions of the police at the time stirred considerable controversy with the legal battle stretching for years. Justice Minister Søren Pind has asked Copenhagen Police to account for their actions during the President’s state visit.
Coming forward with confession a police officer said that he was shocked to hear the inability of Copenhagen Police in identifying the culprits, as he was one of the involved officers.
“I was rather shocked to hear about how they were looking for us. We have been identified, we have said that it was us and I went to an interview about the case in March,” the officer told police trade magazine Dansk Politi.
