By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 6 hours ago, updated 4 hours ago
The Swedish judiciary on Thursday January 19 sentenced to life imprisonment a former Swedish secret agent who was sentenced to almost ten years for “grave espionage” in favor of Russia.
His younger brother, who was also charged in the same trial in a Stockholm court, also sentenced him to nine years and 10 months in prison for “aggravated espionage,” the court said in a statement that considered the two men acted out of greed .
The biggest espionage scandal in recent Swedish history
“The brothers, in a joint and coordinated manner, without authorization and with the aim of informing Russia and the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence, Note Security of Sweden),” the court said.
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The case has been described as the biggest espionage scandal in Sweden’s recent history, a sign that Russian espionage has gotten to the heart of Swedish intelligence.
The two men, who have been the target of discreet counterintelligence since 2017, were arrested separately in September and November 2021.
Very sensitive information
The older brother, Peyman Kia, 42, was on trial for collecting sensitive information between 2011 and 2021 which his younger brother then passed on to the GRU. During this time, the accused served in particular with the Swedish security, Säpo, as a military intelligence service.
The former agent “committed an act of espionage that falls into the most serious categories (…) and concerns issues of very high importance,” stressed Judge Måns Wigén.
His 35-year-old brother, Payam Kia, has been accused of helping him transmit this classified information.
“A Great Puzzle of Evidence”
According to the Swedish judiciary, the elder had appropriated almost 90 secret documents – traces of which were found on his personal computer. According to the verdict, at least half would have been sent to Russia. The court found that despite “some missing pieces,” prosecutors had produced a “major conundrum” of evidence “clear enough for the defendants to be found guilty.”
The court found that despite “some missing pieces,” prosecutors had produced a “major conundrum” of evidence “clear enough for the defendants to be found guilty.” Shortly before his arrest, he destroyed a hard drive that was later found in a trash can.
closed negotiation
He broadly followed the demands of the prosecutor, who had asked for life imprisonment for the eldest and at least 12 years for the younger. Much of the process took place behind closed doors in the name of national security.
The two men, from a family of Iranian origin, who were arrested separately in late 2021, denied the allegations. According to their lawyers, they intend to appeal the verdict.
previous cases
Her trial coincided with another high-profile case of alleged spying for Russia, with the arrest of an ethnic Russian couple at a villa in a Stockholm suburb in late November by a police squad arriving in a Blackhawk helicopter at dawn.
The couple, identified by the Bellingcat investigation site as Sergei Skvortsov and Elena Koulkova, acted as sleeper agents for Moscow after moving to Sweden in the late 1990s and being remanded in late November for “illegal intelligence activities”. His companion, suspected of complicity, has been released but is being investigated further.
In September 2021, a Swedish technology consultant was also convicted of selling sensitive information about Swedish truckmaker Scania to Russia.
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