No Proper Recording of the Proceedings

Possibly the most important decision that Judge Claus Larsen ever made was to not allow an electronic recording of the proceedings – not even verbatim dictation. He was, therefore, more or less able to fabricate his own version as to what witnesses had said and what took place in the courtroom.

The transcript used by the City Court (Lower Court) was faulty, inadequate and reflected a subjective dictation by the judge. During the trial at the City Court, my defence used most of its time to object to what was recorded in the transcripts of the court.

Judge Claus Larsen made deliberate incorrect dictations to the transcripts of the court. He did this working on his own after the court hearings and sometimes for weeks after the hearings.

The City Court ( judge Claus Larsen) ignored all complaints about the falsehood in the transcripts. It was my defence and my contention that the transcripts from the City Court were distorted and non-representational as to what really took place.

I wrote a letter to the judges in the City Court dated 1st June 1982 and complained about the disinclination of the judge to record factual statements by witnesses etc. during the trial.

Even though witnesses had told the court that they did not believe that they had been defrauded in any way – this information was left out of the transcripts.

Unfortunately, this highly subjective transcript from the City Court became the “truth” in the High Court/Court of Appeal.

As a blatant example of the recordings of the City Court (in the judgment dated 1st November 1982), a reference to a witness, Piet Boeck (who worked for my company International Resources in Holland and who with passive assistance from Bagmandspolitiet, stole more than US$600,000 from me and the estate) was made and indeed quoted despite the fact that he was never heard by the Court. Only a testimony that was made sixteen months before the trial was used as testimony which was then subjected to objections made by my defence lawyers at the time. Nevertheless, it appeared in the court transcripts that he had been a witness during the trial in the court. 

Possibly the most important decision that Judge Claus Larsen ever made was to not allow electronic recording of the proceedings, not even verbatim dictation. Therefore he was more or less able to fabricate his own version as to what witnesses said and what took place in the courtroom.

First, many weeks after witnesses were heard and testimony made in the court, Judge Claus Larsen gave the “court transcripts” to the defence and me.

My lawyers and I had always thought that Claus Larsen had to clear the transcripts with the Special Prosecution “so everything would look good on paper”.

Already at the beginning of the trial in the lower court, I said that I was subject to a miscarriage of justice. The Court of Human Right agreed, but nearly 9 years later.

Both the Prosecution and Claus Larsen knew that these fabricated transcripts would later be taken “as the truth” of what took place in the lower court.

Despite the fact that the defence immediately asked for changes and wholesale corrections to be made to these transcripts as well as regularly pointing out the many omissions and faults in the transcript, Judge Claus Larsen ignored this for the most part – he sometimes appeared dim-witted like making such changes in the transcripts was unimportant.

“The prosecution could as well hold their “court hearings” at their own offices without the judges, the defence and the accused – the result would be the same.”

                                                –  Advocate Jørgen Jacobsen’s statement to the Court

On reflection, Judge Claus Larsen already knew that the transcripts did not really matter – there was simply no way out for me and any defence was a total waste of time.   Later on, when the High Court did not grant an appeal hearing, these transcripts became legitimised as they were read out as a factual reporting on the Lower Court trial and what the witnesses had said.

As an editorial leader in Information newspaper reported later (Information Editorial-Leader 3rd November 1982)

“That it did not appear that Judge Claus Larsen was ever-present when the defence argued their case and during the summing up.”

No reference was made to the defence argumentation in the final judgement and neither to the fact that many clients had told the court that they did not believe that they had been defrauded in any way.

Bagmandspolitiet used “Zersetzung”

Zersetzung is a special German word for a scientific term borrowed from chemistry, in English it translates into “disintegration, corrosion and undermining”. Under Eric Honecker, Zersetzung was used extensively and as applied by the Stasi it was a technique to subvert and undermine an opponent. Interesting it was in the 1970ties that Honecker’s secret police began employing the perfidious methods. Stasi started using this technique at the same time that Bagmandspolitiet was established in Denmark.

My solitary confinement was psychological torture (which some people rightly recognise as mental torture), however, Bagmandspolitiet used many more refined “techniques” learned no doubt from the Stasi Hochschule in Potsdam-Eiche near Berlin, less than 200 kilometres from Denmark.

Bagmandspolitiet use so many “settled methods on me and against me and my family” which for many would sound unbelievable – this is the objective of using Zersetzung, since the offer is not believed – “all these things do not happen, it is all in his head.” – They ridicule everything and make out that the offer is crazy or telling lies and stories. I still recall the laughing prosecutor in the court telling the court after one of my many outbursts “it is all in Hauschildt’s mind and not true”.

As I previously have mentioned Bagmandspolitiet effectively used the media to drum-up a real media lynching long before I was charged and during my long solitary confinement. From the day of my arrest for alleged tax evasion, they painted a terrible picture of me and my companies with lies and innuendos, made up stories and indeed even articles (written by members of the prosecution/police) all months before I was charged, this was school book procedures by Stasi and the KGB, totalitarian regimes and the like.

How calculated and wretched Bagmandspolitiet gave me very early in my solitary confinement permission to get a typewriter into my cell. Not that I had access to any documents or papers in my case, nor had any sense to write. Nevertheless, I could write and they knew that everything I wrote they could read from the typewriter ribbon since it was an IBM “golf ball” typewriter. Bagmandspolitiet came many times unannounced off course to my solitary confinement cell and took the typewriter ribbon away.

Since my mind had been gravely influenced by the events and the solitary confinement, what I wrote on the blank sheet of paper god know, however ultimately, I wrote some instruction to my lawyers, staff and business contacts abroad. What I wrote in my state of desperation and agony was later used to charge me with 4 different “crimes”.  How ridiculous as my defence lawyers later said since these so-called crimes had been committed against me and my estates outside Denmark, which after all was solvent and mine. Nevertheless, I was sentenced to these so-called crimes in Denmark.

What is interesting when I wanted to prove something which was important that I had written and really showed my “good intentions” and that I was innocent, Bagmandspolitiet lost this specific typewriter ribbon in their laboratory? The prosecution could just say that what I had written on this ribbon “It is all in Hauschildt’s mind and not true”.

The Appeal Court – The High Court Proceedings (a rubberstamping process)

When the defence lawyers and I decided to appeal the judgment from the Lower Court, we did expect that the authorities would put pressure on me to not proceed with my appeal and restriction on the defence. They did indeed. When I, through my defence, rejected their offer to me, the Danish authorities, through their henchmen, kept me in restrictive pre-trial incarceration during the almost ten months prior to the High Court trial.

As I was innocent, this did not matter to me; I wanted a re-trial, which of course I didn’t get. Instead, I just got a rubberstamping process of the lower court’s trial. But we did not know this at the time since the law had given me the right to a new trial. (see: Folmer Reindel 24 March 1983 to the High Court)

If I had accepted the lower court’s sentence I would have been a free man prior to the commencement of the High Court hearing; however, in no way could I accept such injustice.

The Danish authorities did not want me to have any real appeal trial; they just wanted to rubberstamp the lower court’s verdict. Later Judge Ove Brink referred to the scale of economy of the trial that saving money for the Danish taxpayers’ was important. The High Court did not want to question or interview the hundreds of investors who Bagmandspolitiet knew would tell the court that “they had not been defrauded and that I had done nothing wrong”.

The High Court/the so-called Court of Appeal just rubberstamped the lower court’s verdict, only by a minor change, making me not guilty of a few ridiculous charges and reducing the sentencing to five years. The judges knew that I could ask for compensation for anything less than five years.

My defence wanted to have all the clients included in the indictment testifying, not just a few selected by the Special Prosecution; but this was not allowed and the High Court did not grant us a proper appeal trial in any meaning of the word.

It was my defences’ contention that if I was accused of defrauding someone, the accuser should be called as a witness in the court and should face my defence and me for questioning.

The Danish authorities did not wish for this to happen under any circumstances since they knew that hundreds of the investors would tell the court the opposite to what the judges wanted to hear. The High Court only went through the same miserable injustices as the lower court.

Upon looking back I see that it was a total waste of time and money to take the case to the High Court/Court of Appeal; I was reduced to a convict in a Moscow Court (at the time) asking for a fair hearing – what a laugh.

The Restrictions on the Defence and Me

Since the Special Prosecution knew that I had developed severe claustrophobia during my many years of pre-trial incarceration and the many months in solitary confinement, they again used this in the High Court as a tool of pressure on me.

Prior to the commencement of the High Court trial, I asked my lawyers to point out to the authorities that I had had improper facilities as to working with the defence since I could not have documentation at the High Court. The conditions under which I was incarcerated in the High Court in the cellar box did not permit me to work with the defence and my headache (severe migraines) and the bad lighting effectively prevented this too.

My papers and files in connection with the defence remained at the lower court in the so-called “prison cell 27”. In other words, I could not work with my defence under conditions which should be considered humane as to the principle of equality of the law. Both defence lawyers had already told me before the appeal to the High Court that they could not work outside the court with the case because they do not get paid enough for the defence. The defence could therefore not make preparation work prior to the individual court hearings.

When the High Court case commenced, the cost of each court hearing had been estimated to be in excess of D.Kr. 30.000, – with six judges and two substitutes, two court officials and the people from the prosecution etcetera. My defence lawyer, Folmer Reindel, was later refused payment by the Supreme Court in June (see court hearing no. 201) for a relatively small amount of a few thousand kroner. These fee restrictions influenced the quality of the defence adversely, although it may appear to the public that I had had a proper defence.

According to an estimated cost of the Bagmandspolitiet case against me of more than D.Kr. 40 million, my defence attorney’s received less than 2% in fees – that truly reflected that my resources of defending the case were 98 to 2. One should ask what kind of equality of justice is this.

No Re-Trial – Just a Rubberstamp

For more than six months prior to the trial, the High Court had tried to get my defence lawyers to accept an “economic trial at the High Court”. Considerable pressures were put upon my defence lawyers to accept this as I had the right to a new trial.

I appealed only because I believe that I would get a re-trial as the law prescribed. Professor of Law, Gammeltoft-Hansen, had told my defence lawyers that the High Court had an obligation to give me a new trial as I had asked for a re-trial when I appealed against the lower court judgment.

Considering I was innocent it was important for me to believe in Gammeltoft-Hansen’s statement as a highly regarded law professor and my right to a new trial, with a new court examination of witnesses.

I could not believe that Professor Gammeltoft-Hansen’s legal opinion was totally ignored by the court and that I in effect spend another 14 months looked up in restrictive pre-trial detention for nothing and indeed in total vane.

As the newspaper article state, I had to pay for making an appeal with being locked up in pre-trial detention for another year – just to appeal the lower court sentence – a trial which the European Court later found – NOT TO BE FAIR.

Looking back I could have walked free in the spring of 1983, but instead was subjected to more anguish, misery and pointlessness by the Danish authorities.

When the first witness was examined in the High Court/Court of Appeal on 25th August 1983, it became blatantly clear that the Court had absolutely no intention of giving me a re-trial. The judiciary judges at the High Court acted contemptuously against the Danish law.

I strongly protested to the procedure of using the testimony from the City Court. The protest was not recorded in the transcripts of the trial. However, my lawyer, Korsø-Jensen, confirmed to the Court on 9th November 1983 that I did not agree with this procedure and had objected strongly against it many times.

I regularly made strong protests as to the way all of the witnesses were examined. However, it was a question which the defence wanted expert legal advice on – which the court refused. Furthermore, only semi-professional witnesses were heard during the initial two months of the trial. In the first four days of trial proceedings, no witnesses were called upon and during the following five days of the trial, only lawyers and government officials testified. The next eight days of the trial were devoted to the testimony of staff from my companies and businesses as well as professional advisors. Most of these witnesses were clearly very involved in the case and had prepared themselves well for the trial.

Until 17th October 1983, only one “outside” witness testified at the trial. However, on 17th October investors were heard and it became quite clear that the judges accepted the very special method of examination of the witnesses adopted previously by the court.

On the 3rd October 1983, I forwarded a memo to the counsel for the defence, setting out various points related to the examination of witnesses. As clearly stated in my letter to the Court of Appeal dated 9th November 1983, my defence lawyers had objected to the methods used by the court in examining witnesses. It was very evident to the court that the counsel for the defence did not agree with the decision by the court to examine witnesses in this way.

The High Court Judge’s Clear Misconduct

On the 2nd August 1983, I wrote a letter to the President of the High Court making references to the letter from Judge Brink to me (dated the 26th May 1983), as to various complaints I had made including the alleged misconduct by Judge Ove Brink, the head of my trial.

The President of the High Court replied to me on the 10th August, setting out the statement by Judge Brink, who reserved his right to not answer the charges.

At the opening of the trial in the High Court on the 15th August, my defence and I stated the objections with regards to Judge Brink’s clear misconduct as well as to Judge Reisz who had already made one of the most important decisions against me in the lower court.

Judge Reisz made four days after my arrest and solitary confinement an order to seize all my assets – at that time neither myself nor the companies were made bankrupt. Moreover, there was no evidence as to my alleged tax evasion or fraud. Nevertheless, his decision caused the “excuse” for the bankruptcies and at the very least justified that the authorities could, despite the true solvent position of the companies and me, go and make the companies and I bankrupt.

The other judiciary, Judge Brydensholt, had also made ten decisions through the years of my pre-trial incarceration against me dating back to 1981. I had, however, somewhat greater respect for him – although it perhaps would have been right and correct to claim that all three judges were clearly biased as they all had all made decisions against me and kept me in pre-trial incarceration as well as solitary confinement. Nevertheless, I did not object to Judge Brydensholt serving at the time as one of the judicial judges.

After some discussion, my defence and I agreed to let Judge Reisz remain as a judge but not to let Judge Brink remain since there were many witnesses to his misconduct and prejudicial behaviour towards me. After all, thirty-five judges in the High Court had, through the years, decided against me and so there were very few judges left who had not been involved before with me and my case and had consequently somewhat committed themselves.

After nearly forty minutes of voting, the three judiciary judges, with Judge Brink residing as head, decided that he should remain in charge of the trial. Interesting – this voting did not include the lay-judges.

When judge Brink told the court of the decision made, he said that I could appeal directly to the Supreme Court without the Ministry of Justices’ permission. That was a direct lie and he knew it, but the defence and I did not.

The way that this whole question has been handled by the authorities – where Judge Brink himself is responsible for the appeal that never goes to the Supreme Court and where Judge Brink never answers to the alleged charges of misconduct – can only be viewed with scepticism.

Judge Brink, as the head of the Court, conducted the examination of witnesses and did on many occasions show considerable bias and even nearly adorned the robe of the prosecutor. Furthermore, judge Brink did make some very curious and controversial decisions which also must have been a violation of the principle of a fair trial.

At mid-day on the 7th December 1983, Judge Brink certainly stood up during the proceedings and collapsed from a heart attack and consequently died. Just prior to this, my defence had made some serious argumentation with regards to the trial and strongly criticised the proceedings in general as well as the made-up transcripts from the Court.

There is no doubt that there was a lot of pressure on Judge Brink; perhaps he had some moral doubts – who know. But he died at the age of sixty-three whilst carrying out his duty as a henchman of injustice for the Danish authorities in my case.

A little note to this, when judge Brink fell over, I did utter to my two defence lawyers – I am sure he is dead or that I hoped he died. I did get an immediate negative reaction to this statement from Korsø-Jensen, but Korsø did not carry my scars or hate.

No Proper Appeal Process for the Defence

It was, in reality, impossible for my defence lawyers to appeal against an interlocutory order taken during the proceedings as to the above questions. The Danish Administration of Justice Act, section 968 and 969, clearly set out this limitation. Furthermore, if the defence had tried to take such a decision further, an application would have had to be made to the Ministry of Justice which automatically would have refused such permission. Moreover, all decisions taken cannot – as a rule – be postponed without the court agreeing to this.

To have any decision stayed requires the impossible by the defence since the same judge who decides on a question also makes this decision. Therefore, it is normal if a decision on a procedural question has gone against the defence; the proceedings still go on and could take weeks or even months before the Court of Appeal will hear this appeal.

Despite the considerable effort from my lawyers, permission to appeal to the Supreme Court by the Ministry of Justice was – in practice – always refused.

The difficulty to obtain this permission was expressed openly by the presiding Judge Brink on 26th September 1983. He said, “That it was a waste of time to seek permission to appeal from the Ministry of Justice.” For once he spoke honestly and truthfully; it was indeed a waste of time to seek an appeal from the Ministry of Justice.

The High Court Transcripts and Proceedings

Again at the High Court, the defence lawyers and I had daily fights with regards to the court transcripts handed out by the court because the court had decided not to allow electronic recording or verbatim dictation of what really took place during the trial.

The court transcript from the High Court did in no way reflect what took place in court; to make matters worse they legitimised the lower court’s fabricated transcripts’ by Judge Claus Larsen.

Just to mention that I, together with the defence, received the final transcript from the lawyers with corrections from the High Court trial many months after the case was finished. By that time I was in Switzerland. What sort of kangaroo court is this? Everything in a US or UK courtroom is written verbatim or electronically recorded and can immediately be made available to everyone.

It is important to be aware that the defence told the court many times that several important statements and conclusions, both orally and in writing by witnesses, had not been recorded. Very important statements (which differ even from those dictated at the lower court by Judge Larsen) had been ignored by the High Court since they have not been included in the transcript.

My defence lawyers and I regularly made objections and protests as to the recordings in the transcripts of the High Court which did not, for the most part, reflect what took place. There were several versions of “what had been said at the trial” at the High Court.

In the memorandum to my defence on 3rd October 1983, I clearly confirmed the observations about the highly subjective recordings in the transcript.

My defence and I practically always received these transcripts with considerable delays. Many were received up to four weeks after the actual day of the trial. Therefore, when my defence lawyers and I made objections to the court the events recorded were “old” to the judges and there was always an argument as to what had been said.

On 11th October 1983, my lawyers wrote to the High Court/Court of Appeal and asked for several corrections to be made to the transcript of the proceedings. On 29th November 1983, my lawyers again asked the Court of Appeal to “correct” the wording of decisions because the counsel had claimed that what was alleged to have been said (by the counsel for the defence) bore no relation to what was actually said.

I told the court on 24th November 1983 (cf. page 132 of the transcript) of another mistake in a judgment made by the court. Since the presiding Judge Brink ignored many requests for changes in the transcript – to conform to what was really said by the witnesses – the counsel for the defence had to re-examine witnesses. Despite all of this, these objections were never mentioned in the transcripts.

It was only possible to change the various faults and corrections in the transcript with regards to my own testimony to the court. On 15th February 1984, the court recorded thirty-four different faults in the written transcript. These corrections were not changed in the transcripts that were handed out to the public and the media on the 2nd March 1984. In fact, I hadn’t received written confirmation of these changes before 1985.

Time after time my lawyers and I had made the court aware of these mistakes and faults but in the correction of the transcripts, it became apparent that in reality, it was a waste of time to complain. The transcripts did not record what actually took place in the Court of Appeal.

Nevertheless, they were used for the public and the media.

Advocate Folmer Reindel published the article below in Berlingske Tidende, he also wrote about the Danish Judicial System in another article, see Retsvæsen