Mossad link in Danish bugging saga

Lars Erik Allin, a senior administrator at the University of Copenhagen has admitted to having invented a story about the 1986 bugging of Hans Gammeltoft-Hansen, ombudsman of the Danish Parliament.

Professor Gammeltoft-Hansen was then a professor of law at the university and Mr Allin originally claimed he had personally removed a bugging device from the professor's office.

The official conclusion of the case, which caused immediate panic and nightly crisis meetings of the Danish government, is revealed in a report produced by Erik Merlung, public prosecutor for Sjaelland.

But in a parallel development, Victor Ostrovsky, an Israel-Canadian author and former agent for Mossad, said the Israeli intelligence service did indeed bug Professor Gammeltoft-Hansen's office and home -- because Mossad considered he was a Palestinian spokesman. Danish police installed a microphone in the professor's office late in 1984, and turned over recordings to Mossad's Danish agent every other week, according to Mr Ostrovsky.

In February 1986 the agent complied with orders to bug his home as well.

As far as Mr Allin's role in the affair is concerned, the public prosecutor concluded that the alleged removal of a bug from the professor's office was a story entirely invented in the mind of a mentally ill person.

Some 170 people including university staff members and officers from the Danish intelligence services were interviewed and a psychological test carried out on Mr Allin in the course of the inquiry.

A considerable number of facts given by Mr Allin, the only witness in the case, have been proved wrong during the interviews. Mr Allin himself -- by the early 1990s the head of the rector's office -- has admitted to having no evidence for his story and to having "told some rubbish".

He has admitted that some details revealed are false and he tried to cover them up. Mr Allin has left the university and is now being treated for his illness.