Political advisor gets suspended jail

Former political advisor to Iceland's Minister of the Interior, Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, today received eight months suspended sentence for leaking a document to the press in November last year containing confidential information about an asylum seeker. 

Gísli Freyr Valdórsson changed his testimony yesterday, issuing a statement following a meeting with Kristjánsdóttir where he admitted leaking the document having previously repeatedly claimed his innocence. He was immediately sacked.

"It is obvious that I have violated the trust of the people discussed [in the document] and the trust of Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir and my co-workers in the Ministry of the Interior. Now that must come to an end and I must face what I have done," he said in the statement.

Previously Valdórsson had been put on suspended leave from the ministry after the State Prosecutor charged him in August for violating his official duties. Consequently Kristjánsdóttir asked Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson to transfer her portfolio of judicial affairs to another minister. The portfolio was then taken over by the Prime Minister himself.

Valdórsson claimed yesterday his change of heart was due to bad conscience. He said he could not live in the "web of lies" he had created and was solely responsible for. The decision to send the document to the press had been sudden and not calculated. He had thought the public deserved to get both negative and positive information about asylum seekers.

The State Prosecutor, however, has claimed Valdórsson's decision was based on new evidence presented to his defence lawyer yesterday who in turn has said his client had already on Monday aired the possibility of pleading guilty to the charges. Valldórsson has said the minister and other co-workers did not know he leaked the document.

"The fact that my former political advisor has in such a serious way violated my trust as a minister, while I repeatedly defended him believing he had told me the truth, takes me by complete surprise and is a heavier load than I can describe in few words," Kristjánsdóttir said in a statement following Valdórsson's meeting with her.

Valdórsson has said he does not intend to appeal the sentence to the Supreme Court but the State Prosecutor has not made a decision yet. Valdórsson also faces a separate court case where the asylum seeker and two other people mentioned in the leaked document have demanded compensation.

To what extent the sentence of Kristjánsdóttir's political advisor will affect her politically is still largely unknown but political opponents have already called for her resignation.