Untrustworthy Judgement

An editorial leader of the newspaper Information’s Editorial-Leader on 3rd November 1982, the editor attacks the judgement and put a big question mark to its legitimacy and worthiness. For non-Danes, the Information newspaper is considered as the most academic correct and independent newspaper in Denmark, read by the most intellectual of the Danish society. 

“Judge Claus Larsen appears, according to the judgement that he has formulated on his and the two lay-judges (housewives) behalf, to not have attended the trial when the defence augmented and during the summing-up of the case.

There are no records for the defence arguments for summing up in the judgement. Without commenting about the prosecution we can establish that the two defence attorneys review of the whole case and the legal content was of the highest intellectual plan and convincingly questioned Bagmandspolitiet charges.

Claus Larsen routinely lashed out with his three year routine of using the automatic approval for the prosecution’s wishes and chose in the judgement just to copy the prosecutions (Bagmandspolitiet) indictment word for word with a change of a comma, just to show his independent work.”

“Fraud (as Hauschildt was judged for), presumes that the defrauded has been misled by the accused. The prosecution claimed that Hauschildt had defrauded the clients by not securing and hedging the precious metal. The defence proved that the clients had not received such promise in the standard business terms.” (Information newspaper confirms the same views and facts, as the respected law professors in Sweden, that the companies business terms did not require the companies to hedge.

“The court still insisted that clients had been misled, despite the proof in the business terms. The court should at least have included the clients, who had told the court that they had not been misled, in the judgment. But Claus Larsen, who must have a right arm as a village blacksmith from the use of his hammer, swings his rubber stamp and judge Hauschildt wholesale.”

Further, in this editorial leader in Information, it states: “It is not unknown that the courts are influenced by the media and the atmosphere that the press can blow up and manipulate information. The prosecution has, in the most profound way, argued their case in the tabloid media for the last three years.

It is not difficult to understand that a judge, who has for nearly three years and month after month took the responsibility of keeping a person incarcerated, may have the mental strength and personality to go above his many possible faulty decisions throughout the years. It is only human for the judge to justify his many previous decisions as to the incarceration.”

The editorial leader goes on to criticise many aspects of the judgement.

The objectivity of reporting by Information newspaper can be seen from there articles covering the end of the trial at the City Court (see: Information 8th September 1982, – Information 15th September 1982,  Information  16th September 1082, – Information 23rd September 1982, – Information 24th September 1982 – Editorial-Leader)

The Trial by the Press

No other major newspaper showed the objectivity of Information newspaper – sadly they wanted to sell headlines stories.

The free press has a responsibility. The free media should be a guarantor for the citizen for exposing obvious injustices and wrongdoings by government and their civil servants.

“Hauschildt you have been selected – and judged. You were selected because you are a “foreign Dane” with no political affiliation or power, you work in a business which daily deals with Swiss banks, New York and London – movement of money and in a financial market most people in Denmark do not know and can’t participate in, you controlled your business and do not employ many people, not like a factory owner.”    

Advocate Jørgen Jacobsen July 1980 – nearly 4 years before the end of my pre-trial detention and 8 months before being charged!

The Danish media failed miserably in their responsibility in my case. Instead of seeing through the authorities’ true intentions, they went along as a lap dog and swallowed all the lies and misinformation that Bagmandspolitiet created to justify their actions. Moreover, the tabloid press livens up all the “stories” from false gold bars to black-market trading and even murder; all totally untrue.

These lies appeared in the newspapers at a time when I was in solitary confinement and was without any possibility to speak out. I submitted more than one thousand one hundred newspaper articles to the European Court of Human Rights.

HAUSCHILDT SHOUT OUT  –  A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

The popular tabloid press just ridiculed everything as they acted as henchmen for the authorities. The above headline as to miscarriage of justice appeared more than four years before the end of my pre-trial detention.

Recently the highly respected journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Bernstein (Watergate), spoke out about the tabloid press and said that the tabloid press works at the sewer level and pollutes by bringing everything into the gutter. The tabloid intrusion has no accountability and is corrupt and criminal, totally without morale. I agree with his assessment wholeheartedly.

Bagmandspolitiet showed my letters and personal notes, which I made during in my solitary confinement, to the Danish tabloid. These notes and letters were made in deep despair and distress when I suffered from the torture of solitary confinement and after witnessing that everything I had worked for being ruined and stolen as well as seeing my sons, wife and mother going through hell.

The fact, that I was allowed to receive newspapers from time to time, newspapers which included articles about me, lies and outrageous made up stories, was effective torture, at times the worst. Seeing constantly lies and made up stories about you and your family, without you can do anything. I was not able to write to the newspaper or in any way answer back. My lawyer was not allowed to say anything.

It is not unknown that the courts are influenced by the media and the atmosphere where the press can blow up and manipulate information, the prosecution has in the most profound way argued their case in the tabloid media for the last three years”

– Information Newspaper’s Editorial

Nevertheless, these notes became regular fodder for the gutter press which ridiculed me and even worse, criminalised me. I could do nothing from my isolation cell.

There seems to be a bias in most news reporting, it is daily that we see reporters lie by inference and omission without any accountability. I have seen well-intentioned news publications in the United Kingdom and the US fly in to a state of high dudgeon and defend their reporter’s dubious behaviour on the premises of newsroom morale and press independence. All media publishers do have power without responsibility – not only in Denmark.

The Danish media failed in its responsibility in my case; journalists made no objective inquiry to determine the real background of the events which took place on the 31st January 1980 moreover the damages which had been caused that first day with the closing of the companies.

Later a few serious journalists became aware of what really had taken place and the truth, such as Leif Blædel and Rolf Bagger, but by then it was too late and the damage was done

Advocate: The Police subject the silver king to psychological torture

The media really missed the underlying story and truth – the Danish justice system reflected a political view where “profits” and “speculations” had become ugly words. The justice system, under the many arms of the Ministry of Justice, had failed to furnish the mechanisms for preventing incompetents from finding their way into the process, accumulating important responsibilities and surviving, in spite of the glaring injustices they perpetrate.

This was something that the media in Russia or DDR could do nothing about, whereas in Denmark it had such possibility, but moreover the obligation to do something about it.

“Of all the ills there are, Rumour is the swiftest”. She thrives on moments and gathers strength as she goes. From small and timorous beginnings she soon lifts herself up into the air, her feet still on the ground and her head hidden in the clouds.

Rumour is quick of foot and swift on the wing, a huge and horrible monster, and under every feather of her body, strange to tell, there lies an eye that never sleeps, a mouth and a tongue that are never silent and an ear always pricked. By night she flies between earth and sky, squawking through the darkness, and never lowers her eyelids in deep sleep. By day she keeps watch perched on the tops of gables or on high towers and causes fear in great cities, holding fast to her lies and distortions as often as she tells the truth.”

The ancient Roman poet Virgil wrote this in his Aeneid.

Rumour was not there but rumours were created and were something the Danish authorities took great advantage of when they invited the Danish Television to film the storming of the companies’ offices and rumours were created every hour on the Danish radio news telling the Danish public about the event and my arrest.

Denmark had at the time only one television station Danmarks Radio and Television, which with their 19.30 news (TV-Avisen) had everyone in Denmark clued in front of their television.

Since this was the biggest story that night showing the television people at our banking offices at Højbro Plads together with members of the Special Prosecution, Copenhagen fiscal authorities and other journalists – the program sealed the fate of the companies, our clients and staff and me. In reality, the Special Prosecution and the authorities had no way back. The point had been reached, as Franz Kafka said, from which there was no return.

The outcome was obvious the clients of the companies became anxious and desperate with many of them being told by Bagmandspolitiet “it is all fraud”. Just imagine a bank which has been closed with the TV cameras rolling, how do the depositors feel?

A few days, after my arrest, the Danish Television featured a special program for 40 minutes at prime time (20:00) and repeated five days later. Such a television program had devastating effects on how the public and indeed the company’s many clients perceived what had happened to the companies and me.

Rumours and insinuations, later followed by lies, innuendoes and fictitious stories in the tabloid press, all properly became the most important weapon for Bagmandspolitiet and the Danish authorities in covering up the injustices against my companies, our clients, our staff, my family and me.

Confidence and trust is everything when you deal with people’s money. The moment the seed of doubt has been planted out goes confidence and trust – then fear enters. 

The famous Danish TV host, author and priest Jørgen Thorgaard wrote in BT referring to my case (which was finished at the time):

“It is my impression that the police, the courts and the prosecution in the best scenario have been acting very incompetently and in the worst scenario, created a miscarriage of justice”.

Thorgaard only echoed what my defence lawyer Folmer Reindel had told Berlingske Tidende five years earlier, “That he feared a justitsmord – a miscarriage of justice” and that was at the start of the trial in the lower court.