Denmark holds Hamas suspect for two years without trial, extends detention again

• The suspect has been held since early 2023 without his case going to trial, making it one of Denmark's longest terrorism-related remand periods
• Danish law allows repeated extensions of pre-trial detention in national security cases, with no hard upper limit — unlike Norway and Sweden, which impose stricter time constraints
• PET, the Danish security service, says the investigation remains ongoing, citing the complexity of tracing alleged financial flows to Hamas
• Defence lawyers argue the prolonged detention amounts to punishment before conviction, raising civil liberties concerns under the European Convention on Human Rights

A 60-year-old man suspected of supporting Hamas has now been held in pre-trial detention in Denmark for more than two years. On Tuesday, a Danish court extended his remand once more, Berlingske reports, as the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) told the court its investigation is still not complete. The man has not been convicted of anything.

Danish remand law — governed by the retsplejeloven (Administration of Justice Act) — permits pre-trial detention when a suspect faces a potential sentence of at least eighteen months and when the court finds grounds such as flight risk, risk of evidence tampering, or the severity of the alleged offence. In terrorism-adjacent cases, courts have broad discretion to extend detention in four-week increments, and Danish law imposes no hard statutory ceiling on the total duration. The result is that a suspect can be held indefinitely, so long as a judge signs off each time. In this case, the judge has signed off repeatedly for over twenty-four months.

The contrast with Denmark's Nordic neighbours is instructive. Norway's straffeprosessloven (Criminal Procedure Act) contains a proportionality requirement that grows more demanding as detention lengthens, and Norwegian courts have released terrorism suspects when the state failed to demonstrate sufficient investigative progress. Sweden's system, while also permitting extended remand, came under sustained criticism from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and was reformed in 2021 to impose stricter judicial review after six months. Denmark has faced no comparable reform pressure, partly because Danish courts have historically been more deferential to prosecution requests in national security matters.

PET has disclosed little about the evidence base. The agency has cited the complexity of tracing alleged financial transfers to Hamas — a task that involves international cooperation with foreign intelligence services and financial institutions across multiple jurisdictions. Defence lawyers counter that complexity is not a blank cheque. Under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, pre-trial detention must remain proportionate, and the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly held that states bear the burden of showing "special diligence" in bringing detained suspects to trial. Two years without a trial date strains that standard.

The case sits within a broader Danish debate about the state's tools for handling suspected Islamist networks. Denmark designated Hamas's military wing as a terrorist organisation years before the EU did, and PET has expanded its domestic surveillance capacity significantly since the 2015 Copenhagen shootings. Critics of the security apparatus argue that expanded powers have come without corresponding accountability mechanisms — that the tools designed for emergencies have become routine. Defenders point to the genuine difficulty of prosecuting terrorism financing, where evidence chains span continents and rely on intelligence that cannot always be presented in open court.

What remains is a man who has spent more than seven hundred days in a cell on the state's promise that it will eventually prove its case. Every four weeks, a judge examines whether the detention is still justified. Every four weeks, PET says it needs more time. Every four weeks, the judge agrees. The next hearing is already scheduled.

Sources: Berlingske