Mobile phone worker jailed for espionage

A Swedish mobile phone company engineer who sold secrets to the Russians was jailed for eight years today.

Afshin Bavand, 46, handed secret Ericsson company documents to Russian intelligence agents which could have harmed Sweden’s national security, the Stockholm district court said.

The court – in a rare move – imposed a gag order preventing anyone involved in the trial from discussing the documents for 20 years.

Two of Bavand’s co-workers at Ericsson were convicted of complicity and given lesser prison sentences.

Swedish police arrested Bavand while he was meeting a Russian diplomat whom prosecutors claimed was an intelligence agent.

Two Russian diplomats were expelled from Sweden as a result of the investigation and two Swedish diplomats were expelled by Moscow in a tit-for-tat move.

The court said the documents contained “technical information with connection to mobile telephony and fixed telephony as well as to both existing and future systems.”

Ericsson also makes radar systems for defence programmes worldwide, including for the JAS-39 Gripen fighter planes made by Sweden’s Saab and Britain’s BAE Systems.