Henrik Landerholm himself is satisfied with the acquittal.
"It is with relief that I have taken part of the district court's acquittal. The verdict gives me and my former employer the Government Offices right in the assessment that the Gällöfsta incident did not constitute a crime", he writes in an email to DN.
Former national security adviser Henrik Landerholm left secret documents in an unlocked safe on a conference center outside Stockholm in March 2023.
The prosecutors believed that he had been grossly negligent and disclosed information that could have damaged Sweden's security.
The Attunda district court agrees that the information has been disclosed and that this could have damaged Sweden's security.
Not grossly negligent
But Landerholm is not considered to have been "grossly" negligent, only negligent, and therefore he is acquitted of the charge of negligence with secret information.
We think that the prosecutors have proven everything right up to the last assessment of whether it was grossly negligent or not, says chief magistrate Lennart Christianson.
It was indeed sloppy, but not a deliberate risk-taking, just forgetfulness.
Landerholm has also had no reason to believe that the information belonged to one of the highest security classes, according to the chief magistrate.
The level has significance for the degree of caution one must adhere to, says Lennart Christianson.
What security protection class the information had, he cannot comment on due to secrecy. A large part of the trial was also held behind closed doors for this reason.
Demanded a fine
The prosecutors had demanded that Landerholm be sentenced to a fine. Mats Ljungqvist thinks that the district court's assessment that Landerholm was not grossly negligent is "strange".
Had he just looked into the safe, he would have noticed the documents and taken them with him. This normal control that anyone should do was not done, he says.
Much suggests that we will appeal.
During the trial, Landerholm claimed that he did not realize that the documents were protected. He also explained his actions by saying that the workload was extreme. The latter, however, is not something that the court takes into account.
A person in such a situation should ensure that they have sufficient resources to handle their work, says Lennart Christianson.
The court was unanimous.
Landerholm writes further:
"In the verdict, I am particularly pleased that the district court assesses that no one has taken part of the information and that my actions therefore did not cause any harm to the country's security."
Henrik Landerholm was prosecuted in March, suspected of negligence with secret information.
According to the indictment, he had "through gross negligence, unauthorizedly disclosed" confidential information in documents that he left behind on a conference center outside Stockholm in March 2023.
According to DN, the documents came from a conversation between Landerholm and the US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, right in the middle of Sweden's sensitive NATO process.
The documents were found by a cleaner, who according to Säpo can be linked to a Russian violent extremist. Thereafter, they were stored in the conference center's CEO's desk drawer for a few days before the Government Offices picked them up in the reception.
Henrik Landerholm left the post as national security adviser when the criminal investigation against him began in January this year.
