The preliminary investigations are surrounded by confidentiality.
I can confirm today that there are two different cases with preliminary investigations regarding employees at the Government Offices, but questions will have to be directed to the Security Police and the responsible prosecutor, says Maria Malmer Stenergard to Swedish journalists in connection with NATO's foreign ministers' meeting in Turkey.
These are serious allegations, but I cannot say more than that.
When asked how the government's security checks on employees are doing, she replies that they will certainly have to draw lessons.
We will certainly have reason to review the security clearances that are being conducted, and it is an ongoing process today.
Released on bail
One of the investigations concerns suspicions of espionage, where a diplomat at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has been detained. The individual was released on bail on Wednesday, but the suspicions remain.
The other case concerns, according to Dagens Nyheter, a high-ranking employee at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, who is suspected of gross unauthorized handling of confidential information. According to the newspaper, the employee is being investigated together with a leading figure in a foreign political movement. According to both Dagens ETC and Gefle Dagblad, it concerns a man involved in the Kurdish situation in northern Syria.
The individuals were arrested on Sunday, one at a raid in the Stockholm area and the other in central Sweden. During a house search, among other things, a computer was seized.
These two individuals were arrested and released later that day, says Säpo's press spokesperson Jonathan Svensson.
Denies connections
Interrogations have been held. Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist states that the investigation is still in its early stages.
"The current investigation concerns gross unauthorized handling of confidential information. It's about information that, if revealed, could be detrimental to Sweden's security", he says in a press release from the Prosecution Authority.
According to earlier media reports, there are "connections" between the investigation and the process surrounding Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who is imprisoned in Turkey. This is denied by Ljungqvist.
"This is a separate case that has no connections to other ongoing investigations or legal proceedings, either in Sweden or another country", he says.
The suspected crimes are said to have been committed between October 2022 and May 2025, among other things in Stockholm.
