2 Swedes receive long sentences in Russia espionage case
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Two Iranian-born Swedish brothers were sentenced Thursday to long prison terms for spying for Russia and its GRU military intelligence agency for a decade.
The elder of the two naturalized Swedes – Peyman Kia – was sentenced to life imprisonment, while his younger brother, Payam Kia, was sentenced to nine years and ten months. They had been brought before the Stockholm district court where they stood accused of having worked together to forward information to Russia between September 28, 2011 and September 20, 2021.
A life sentence in Sweden generally means at least 20 to 25 years in prison.
“It is beyond reasonable doubt that the brothers together and in consultation, without authorization and for the benefit of Russia and the GRU, obtained, forwarded and disclosed information” to a foreign power with the aim of harming Sweden’s security, the court said. in his judgment.
The Stockholm district court said that Payam Kia “was the driving force in their joint crime” while the involvement of Peyman Kia “was of less relative importance”.
Almost the entire trial was held behind closed doors and much of the information from the preliminary investigation is secret.
Between 2014 and 2015, Peyman Kia, 42, worked for Sweden’s domestic intelligence service, but also for the country’s armed forces. Swedish prosecutors claim that the information they gave the Russians came from several agencies within the Swedish security and intelligence service, known by the acronym SAPO.
Peyman Kia is said to have worked for the defense force’s foreign intelligence service, known in Sweden by the abbreviation MUST, and worked with a top-secret unit within the authority that dealt with Swedish spies abroad, according to Swedish media.
Peyman Kia was arrested in September 2021 and his brother in November 2021. Both denied wrongdoing, their defense lawyers told the court.
Payam Kia, 35, was helping his brother and “dismantled and smashed a hard drive that was later found in a trash can” when his brother was arrested, according to the charge sheet obtained by The Associated Press.
The case is believed to be one of the most damaging cases of espionage in Sweden’s history, as the men had compiled a list of all SAPO employees.
One of Sweden’s biggest spy scandals took place during the Cold War when Stig Bergling, a Swedish security officer who worked for both SAPO and the armed forces, sold secrets to the Soviet Union. He was sentenced in 1979 to life imprisonment on similar charges and later escaped while serving his time, voluntarily returning to Sweden in 1994. He died in his home country in January 2015.