Shafaq News / In a case that has proven embarrassing for Danish intelligence services and politicians, Ahmed Samsam, 34, a Danish national of Syrian origin, claims he was working for the secret service PET and military intelligence service FE in Syria in 2013 and 2014, spying on foreign jihadist fighters.

But in 2018 Spanish courts found him guilty of fighting for Isis

Several investigations by Danish media since then have backed Samsam up, concluding he never joined Isis, but the two intelligence agencies -- inherently tightlipped -- have refused to say whether he was working for them.

"My client wants the court to recognise that he has been an agent for the intelligence services in Denmark," his lawyer Erbil Kaya told AFP ahead of the trial in Copenhagen's district court.

He insists Samsam only went to Syria to inform on foreign jihadists.

"This is a tough case for us, to be up against the intelligence services and the state," Kaya said.

"This is the first (such) case in Denmark. We don't know... what is enough to prove that you have been an agent in Denmark."

"The trial is completely unique," Aarhus University law professor Lasse Lund Madsen told AFP.

Samsam, who has a long criminal record, travelled to Syria in 2012 of his own accord to fight the regime.

Danish authorities investigated him after his return but did not press any charges.

He claims he was then sent to the war zone on several occasions with money and equipment provided by PET and later FE, according to Danish media outlets DR and Berlingske citing anonymous witnesses and money transfers to Samsam.

Despite its sensitive nature, the case will be heard in open court and not behind closed doors.

"Samsam is pleading his case in newspapers, on television, everywhere," said the spy agencies' defence lawyer Peter Biering.

"It would be of no use to us to have closed doors," Biering told AFP.

So far, Samsam appears to have won over public opinion.

(AFP)