Peter Øvig Knudsen Denmark
Danish author, born 1961. Has written documentaries such as Efter drabet - beretninger om modstandskampens likvideringer (2001) and Birkedal - en torturbøddel og hans kvinder (2004).
Blekingegadebanden
(The Blekinge Street Gang)
Volume 1 & 2
Gyldendal 2007 & 2008
Bestseller on the Danish nonfiction list since publication
The story of the Blekinge Street Gang is about much more than a post office robbery in Copenhagen and the killing of a young policeman in 1988. The story begins in the late 1960s when the Gotfred Appel ans his Partner Ulla Hauton, both communists, gather a group of young rebels and send them off to PFLP training camps.
Under the cover name The Apples Gotfred Appel's group is already active in the beginning of the seventies an an illegal cell collecting weapons and money for the Palestines through a number of huge coups that have never been solved by the Danish police.
The Danish cell is part of an international network that also includes the Baader-Meinhof group, the Italian Red Brigades and the famous Carlos.
The most important member is Appel's right hand, the charismatic fireman Holger Jensen who during a period of then years organizes the criminal and international acitivities of the group.
Peter Øvig Knudsen has been granted access to confidential files of the police and the Danish intelligence and he has talked with a number of the people invoved. This is the background for his documentary on the Blekinge Street Gang.