What kind of crime warrants being held in solitary confinement? Serial murder? Terrorism? Hacking?
If you think one of these things isn’t like the others, you’re not alone. Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, currently awaiting trial in Denmark, is allegedly being kept in solitary confinement like a “dangerous, violent and aggressive criminal.”
According to Torrentfreak, which received a letter Svartholm’s mother wrote to Amnesty International, Svartholm is being held in solitary confinement in the Denmark prison where he was extradited last month on charges of massive hacking into the police registry of IT contractor CSC. Despite not yet being formally indicted in the case, his mother, Kristina, claims he is being held like a felon and denied general privileges like books and other reading materials.
Prior to his extradition, Svartholm was indicted and sentenced for a number of similar hacking charges in his home country of Sweden, though one charge was thrown out and his sentence halved in September. The move came a year after Svartholm had been deported from Cambodia to face trial for the charges in Sweden.
Suffice it to say it’s been a rough year for the Swede. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told TorrentFreak that Svartholm was a political prisoner:
It is time someone says it like it is: Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is a political prisoner and Sweden has fallen off the map of decent nations in its treatment of him. Gottfrid has always been ideologically driven to inform the world; he worked tirelessly to help WikiLeaks expose the slaughter of civilians in Iraq by a US helicopter gunship and was responsible for an important part of our infrastructure… There are thousands of alleged cyber criminals, but instead of dealing with these cases, we see vast resources diverted yet again by the Swedish state into smashing Gottfrid… for a charge he was just acquitted of.
Meanwhile the Pirate Bay, the notorious torrent site that Svartholm founded with Fredrik Neij in 2003, has relocated yet again. This time the site has operated like an actual pirate ship, seeking domain hosts in various Pacific Islands before settling in Peru.
It will no doubt be a long time before its founder finds a similar safe harbor.
Photo via boklm/Flickr
