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A 34-year-old former consultant for the Swedish military went on trial on Monday, accused of trying to pass classified information to Russia’s intelligence services.
The man is a Swedish citizen, born to Iranian parents, who worked as an IT consultant for the military from 2018-2022, according to court documents and the military.
Arrested in January, he was charged with attempted espionage.
He is accused of having tried, during a trip to Moscow between November and December 2025, to disclose secret information “notably to the Russian FSB and GRU services, in exchange for protection as well as the future acquisition of Russian citizenship,” prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist told the court.
He was initially suspected of espionage but was finally charged with attempted espionage.
Dressed in a green sweater and a white T-shirt, he appeared calm sitting next to his lawyer, taking notes on his computer at the outset of the trial, a journalist with the AFP news agency reported.
His father, the only member of the public in the courtroom aside from a few media representatives, was also taking notes on small scraps of paper.
Hanna Lindblom, the accused’s lawyer, stressed that he denied the charges.
The trial, scheduled to last three days, is being held largely behind closed doors, given the sensitive nature of the information involved.
It is a “unique” case in Sweden, which “imposes particular demands on both the parties and the court,” the prosecutor argued.
The evidence includes written exchanges between the suspect and Russian intelligence in which he highlights his military profile.
In a video excerpt from a report broadcast on 10 February 2026 on state-controlled broadcaster RT, shown during the trial, an FSB representative interviewed anonymously states that the accused had handed over “a large quantity of documents” to them.
The spokesperson also says that the suspect appeared “unstable” during their meeting and that the FSB had therefore been “sceptical about the information he provided.”
In 2024, the man set up a company specialising in cybersecurity which, according to public records, was supposed to focus on “offensive cyber operations.”
Additional sources • AFP