Denmark’s Ambassador to China, Thomas Østrup Møller testified earlier this month in Copenhagen City Court against the former head of department at the National Police, Bettina Jensen, who is accused of bribery.
BT writes that the current Ambassador took over in 2017 as Group Management Director in the National Police – and thus as head of Bettina Jensen.
And when he joined, he did not doubt that one of his key tasks was to manage her striking purchase of expensive consulting services, which BT had begun to reveal at the time.
“I knew that the press – not least BT – had pointed out matters in the National Police, and it was quite clear that this was a case that I was expected to dig into. I also had a fairly in-depth dialogue with Bettina Jensen every day – also because there were inquiries almost daily about access to documents and other things from BT. The case also had increasing political attention,” the Ambassador explained as a witness via a video link from Beijing.
“In the end, Bettina Jensen was not really able to carry out her tasks, and there was also a reputation aspect in the case in relation to the National Police. There was a need to draw a line in the sand, and we ended up entering into a mutual agreement that she would resign and be released,” Ambassador Thomas Østrup Møller added.
Shortly after Bettina Jensen resigned, Thomas Østrup Møller reported her to the Copenhagen Police.
At that time, according to the current Ambassador, she had denied that she knew the consultants personally, from whom she had bought expensive services for the National Police’s money.
“She made no secret of the fact that she knew the consultants from before, but she said that there was no personal relationship with these consultants. She said no to that,” Thomas Østrup Møller explained.
Since then, it has emerged that there was a close connection between the two women now accused of bribery, Bettina Jensen and Mariann Færø.
For example, Bettina Jensen – allegedly for work assignments – has received around DKK 800,000 from the Faroe Islands, which was conversely bought for consultancy assignments in the National Police for DKK 10.5 million by Bettina Jensen.
“In the National Police, we had an announcement about side employment, where you as an employee had to inform your supervisor in certain cases. Had I known that Bettina Jensen worked in the way she did for one of the consultants she had used, I would have said that it was a reasonably blatant violation of the rules of probity,” Bettina Jensen’s former boss empathized.
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