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SPYING

Security police arrest ‘refugee spy’

Security police (Säkerhetspolisen - Säpo) in Stockholm have arrested a Swedish citizen suspected of spying on refugees coming to Sweden from an undisclosed country.

The suspect has been under surveillance for some time and was arrested by the security police in the capital on Thursday, Säpo said in a statement.

Säpo added that it was bound by confidentiality agreements and was not at liberty to divulge any further details about the case.

A public prosecutor has until lunchtime on Sunday to decide whether the suspect should be remanded in custody.

“These cases are difficult to detect and difficult to investigate. First of all, there’s never anybody who reports a crime,” prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand told news agency TT.

“The crime is predicated on the involvement of a foreign power and mostly, though not always, the people in charge are very good at what they do. They take every possible precaution and I think I’d go as far as to say that they are considerably more careful than many people involved in more traditional serious crime.”

The crime of ‘refugee espionage’ (flyktingspionage) is widespread in Sweden, according to Säpo, with a number of countries committing major resources to gathering information about dissidents who have fled their domestic borders for Sweden.

The crime is considered serious and is viewed as a threat to Sweden’s national security.

In 2008, Säpo revealed that an intelligence officer stationed at an undisclosed embassy had been declared persona non grata and deported from Sweden after he was found to have spied on refugees and threatened them with torture and imprisonment if they refused to assist him with his covert operations.

Säpo said its investigations in the case had also led to the deportation of several intelligence agents who had cooperated with the undercover officer.

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RUSSIA

Germany arrests Russian scientist for spying for Moscow

German police arrested a Russian scientist working at an unidentified university, accusing him of spying for Moscow, prosecutors said on Monday, in a case that risks further inflaming bilateral tensions.

Germany arrests Russian scientist for spying for Moscow
Vladimir Putin. Photo: dpa/AP | Patrick Semansky

Federal prosecutors said in a statement that the suspect, identified only as Ilnur N., had been taken into custody on Friday on suspicion of “working for a Russian secret service since early October 2020 at the latest”.

Ilnur N. was employed until the time of his arrest as a research assistant for a natural sciences and technology department at the unnamed German university.

German investigators believe he met at least three times with a member of Russian intelligence between October 2020 and this month. On two occasions he allegedly “passed on information from the university’s domain”.

He is suspected of accepting cash in exchange for his services.

German authorities searched his home and workplace in the course of the arrest.

The suspect appeared before a judge on Saturday who remanded him in custody.

‘Completely unacceptable’

Neither the German nor the Russian government made any immediate comment on the case.

However Moscow is at loggerheads with a number of Western capitals after a Russian troop build-up on Ukraine’s borders and a series of espionage scandals that have resulted in diplomatic expulsions.

Italy this month said it had created a national cybersecurity agency following warnings by Prime Minister Mario Draghi that Europe needed to
protect itself from Russian “interference”. 

The move came after an Italian navy captain was caught red-handed by police while selling confidential military documents leaked from his computer to a Russian embassy official.

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The leaders of nine eastern European nations last month condemned what they termed Russian “aggressive acts” citing operations in Ukraine and “sabotage” allegedly targeted at the Czech Republic.

Several central and eastern European countries have expelled Russian diplomats in solidarity with Prague but Russia has branded accusations of its involvement as “absurd” and responded with tit-for-tat expulsions.

The latest espionage case also comes at a time of highly strained relations between Russia and Germany on a number of fronts including the ongoing detention of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who received treatment in Berlin after a near-fatal poisoning.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has moreover worked to maintain a sanctions regime over Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula, the scene of ongoing fighting between pro-Russia separatists and local forces.

And Germany has repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks on its soil.

The most high-profile incident blamed on Russian hackers to date was a cyberattack in 2015 that completely paralysed the computer network of the Bundestag lower house of parliament, forcing the entire institution offline for days while it was fixed.

German prosecutors in February filed espionage charges against a German man suspected of having passed the floor plans of parliament to Russian secret services in 2017.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas last week said Germany was expecting to be the target of Russian disinformation in the run-up to its general election in September, calling it “completely unacceptable”.

Russia denies being behind such activities.

Despite international criticism, Berlin has forged ahead with plans to finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, set to double natural gas supplies from Russia to Germany.

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