The 60-year-old man was suspected of spying on the Russian bill for more than ten years. According to the district court, he cooperated with Russian military intelligence, but was not guilty of espionage.
Stockholm
About spying the suspected Swedish-Russian man has been acquitted, the district court in Stockholm said on Thursday morning.
It is a case that received a lot of attention, in which a Swedish-Russian couple was suspected of, among other things, illegal intelligence activities against Sweden.
The man was also suspected of gross illegal intelligence activities against the United States.
The 60-year-old man was suspected of spying on the Russian bill for more than ten years.
According to the prosecutor, the man cooperated with the Russian military intelligence GRU through his company and acted as a procurement agent for military intelligence.
The man supplied Russia, among other things, with Western technology, which Russia has not been able to acquire due to sanctions.
According to the Stockholm district court, the man has largely acted exactly as the prosecutor claimed. So he worked as a procurement agent for the GRU.
The man’s actions, i.e. technology acquisitions and delivery of goods to Russia, have probably violated export rules, but the man’s actions cannot be considered espionage, the district court considers.
“The main question of the case is whether the reported activity could have led to espionage. In order to be criminally liable, it is required that the purpose of the activity was to obtain sensitive information about Sweden and the United States for the purpose of espionage. The prosecutor has not been able to prove that the purpose of the activity was to collect such information”, the representative of the court Jakob Hedenmo says in the announcement of the district court.
Man has denied that he was guilty of crimes throughout the process. According to the man’s defense, all his contacts with Russia have been legal.
The man, now acquitted, has lived in Sweden for 25 years. The Russian man received Swedish citizenship in 2012.
The arrest of the couple a year ago in November received a lot of attention in Sweden and elsewhere.
In November 2022, the Swedish security police Säpo carried out a major operation in which Säpo caught the couple at their home. In the arrest, Säpo was supported by the police and the Swedish Defense Forces, whose two helicopters were used in the arrest operation.
Serious accusations of espionage concerned both a man and a woman, but now both have been found innocent of suspicion. The woman was cleared of suspicion earlier.
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