Former Swedish intelligence officer jailed for life for spying for Russia | Sweden
A court in Stockholm has sentenced a former Swedish intelligence officer to life in prison and his younger brother to 10 years after finding both guilty of spying for Russia’s military intelligence service for more than a decade.
Peyman Kia, 42, served in the Swedish security and counter-intelligence service, Sapo, and in the defense forces’ intelligence services, including the Foreign Intelligence Service (Must) and KSI, a top-secret unit that works with Swedish spies abroad.
He was found guilty of gross espionage and unauthorized handling of classified documents. The judge, Mans Wigen, said Kia had abused the trust placed in him to help Russia, the country that poses “the biggest threat to Sweden”.
His brother Payam, 35, was convicted of aggravated espionage for planning the crime and handling contacts with Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, passing on 45 of the 90 documents Peyman was found to have collected.
The court said that they “jointly and in agreement, without authorization and in order to assist Russia and the GRU, had obtained, forwarded and shared information the disclosure of which to a foreign power could be harmful to Sweden’s security”.
The Iranian-born brothers, who both hold Swedish citizenship, have denied the charges and are expected to appeal them. They were arrested in 2021 when Sapo suspected them of having a mole and accused them of spying for Moscow since 2011.
Much of the evidence, the court hearing and the full decision were not made public for national security reasons, and the court admitted that despite evidence including USB sticks, laptops and mobile phones, “some pieces of the puzzle are missing”.
It found that in 2016-17 Peyman Kia handled cash worth around 550,000 kroner (£43,000), most of it in US dollars, which it said likely represented payment from Russia.
The verdict followed spectacular pre-dawn arrest late last year in a wealthy Stockholm suburb to a Russian couple suspected of conducting “illegal intelligence operations” against Sweden and the United States – also for more than 10 years.
The “completely unremarkable” couple, who have not been formally named by Swedish authorities, reportedly came to Sweden in 1997, acquired Swedish citizenship and ran an import and export company for IT and communications equipment.
A court in Stockholm sentenced the man to be detained on suspicion of “gross illegal intelligence activities against Sweden and a foreign power”, but released his partner – suspected of being his accomplice – pending investigations. Both deny all allegations.
Swedish media have speculated that the couple’s alleged links to Moscow’s intelligence services mean they were almost certainly sleeper agents, and prosecutor Henrik Olin has said the husband was “linked to the GRU”.