STOCKHOLM: A Stockholm court on Thursday acquitted a Russian-Swede accused of passing Western technology to Russia’s army, ruling that while he did export the material his actions did not amount to intelligence gathering.
Prosecutors had sought a 5-year sentence against Sergei Skvortsov, a 60-year-old dual national who has resided in Sweden since the 1990s running import-export companies, according to AFP.
Skvortsov stood accused of conducting “unlawful intelligence activities” for about ten years against Sweden and the US until his arrest in November 2022.
His lawyer Ulrika Borg told the Swedish media that her client was “relieved” by the ruling.
Prosecutors claimed Skvortsov was a “procurement agent” for a vast organization of Russia acquiring technology off-limits to Moscow due to sanctions.
According to analysts quoted in the Swedish media, the equipment was mainly electronic devices that could be used in the research of nuclear weapons.
Prosecutor Henrik Olin told the Stockholm district court in his final arguments in late September that Sergei Skvortsov is a procurement agent for the Russian military complex and its intelligence unit GRU.
Russian procurement system
Olin said that Moscow has a need for electronic technology. There is a Russian procurement system which is run by the intelligence services. Skvortsov and his 2 firms are a part of this system.
He said Skvortsov’s actions posed a serious danger to US and Swedish national security.
But the court found that while Skvortsov had exported the material and that Swedish intelligence agency Sapo has identified a number of his business contacts as GRU officers, his actions were not tantamount to espionage.
The verdict said that Skvortsov’s business activities constituted a platform for technology acquisition from firms in the West and that advanced technology had been procured and delivered to Russia by circumventing export regulations and sanctions.
But judge Jakob Hedenmo said that the main question in the case is whether the defendant’s activities could lead to espionage.
He added that for criminal liability under the indictment, the activity must have had the aim of obtaining sensitive information with high security value concerning Sweden and the US in order to commit espionage.
He further said that the prosecutor has not been able to prove that the objective of the activity was to collect such information.
The court said the prosecution was unsuccessful to prove that Skvortsov had obtained sensitive information about the national security of Sweden, like information about its defence forces or exports.
