Former municipal manager convicted of fraud

After a short wait, the Sermersooq District Court is now ready with the verdict in the case against former facility manager Gert Platou Jakobsen, which took place over three court days in February.

The District Court finds Gert Platou Jakobsen guilty of all four charges in the indictment, including fraud and abuse of authority committed while employed by Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq.

This is according to special prosecutor Henrik Uhl Pedersen from the prosecution at the Copenhagen West Police, who handled the case in the district court.

The outcome was that Gert Platou Jakobsen received a suspended sentence of six months in prison. Here, the court took into account, among other things, that the case had been ongoing for a very long time, as it concerns matters from 2019 to 2022.

Abuse of his position

The court finds it proven that Jakobsen illegally influenced a municipal tender for cleaning services, which thus benefited a company owned by family members. The prosecutor called it outright corruption in the district court.

Gert Platou Jakobsen is also found guilty of having the municipality pay for travel for himself and his family, who had nothing to do with the municipality. In addition, he used a municipal payment card for private purposes.

Jakobsen has pleaded not guilty to all of this.

It has not been possible to get a comment from the convicted person himself, and we do not yet know whether he intends to appeal the case to the Greenland High Court. He can consider this for up to 14 days.

Sermitsiaq does not normally publish the names of convicted persons. We do so in this case because it concerns a person who has been found guilty of abusing a position of power and responsibility.