Stig Bergling

Bergling's escape was a major embarrassment for Sweden's liberal prison system and prompted the resignation of the justice minister.

[5] Bergling lived for several years in the Soviet Union, Hungary and Lebanon until, for health reasons, he voluntarily returned to Sweden in 1994.

[8] He also became a reserve officer and advanced to the rank of lieutenant in the "Blocking Battalion Bråviken" where Bergling was responsible for security matters.

In his new role as a liaison officer between the Säpo and the Defence Staff, he participated in the work to map the Soviet diplomats' activities in Sweden.

When Bergling was later to return it, he became angry with one of his superiors, Bengt Wallroth (later Director-General of the National Defence Radio Establishment) who started arguing and criticizing him.

Bergling disliked the Defence Staff and Wallroth and instead of destroying the copy he kept it and put it in a safe deposit box at Erik Dahlbergsgatan in Stockholm.

Bergling was a reserve officer in the Swedish Coastal Artillery, and in 1968 he was stationed in Cyprus as a military police chief.

Bergling was in need of money and went to the Soviet Embassy and offered Nikiforov the copied binder with secret information.

"[1] Bergling stayed as an UNTSO observer another year in the Middle East and returned home in January 1975, and was then back at the Security Service and the so-called "Russian Division" (Ryssroteln) where he previously worked.

As an employee of the Security Service, he was not allowed to go to the Eastern Bloc countries so the trips to his employers in East Berlin were made in the greatest secrecy.

His liaison officer went ahead and then Berling could go straight out through a small door and suddenly he found himself in the station on the western side.

At this time, the civilian Soviet secret service KGB also had a mole high up in its own organization; Oleg Gordievsky, who for some years had regularly provided the Western Bloc with information.

At the same time, Säpo bureau chief Olof Frånstedt [sv] informed the Israelis that Bergling had intended to return to Israel.

On 7 December 1979, he was sentenced in Sweden to life imprisonment for aggravated espionage and aggravated unauthorised dealing with secret information[12] for handing out the fortification code (FO code) – the list of Sweden's defence installations, coastal artillery fortifications and mobilization stores.

Also, in his defence, Oleg Gordievsky (the Western agent in the KGB) reported to the West that Bergling handed out the fortification code, but never said anything about the Supreme Commander's war planning documents.

The then government under Minister for Justice Håkan Winberg decided on 10 January 1980 of certain restrictions for Bergling under the penal law (kriminalvårdslagen).

According to the Supreme Commander's opinion, it would take more time before the most important actions to reduce the harmful effects of Bergling espionage were completed.

There was also, according to the Supreme Commander, a real risk that Bergling still had knowledge that, if it came to the hands of some foreign power, would bring harm to the national security.

On 24 September 1987, the Director General of the National Prison and Probation Administration, Ulf Larsson [sv], submitted a memorandum on Bergling to the Ministry of Justice.

He also informed that the National Prison and Probation Administration, in view of the government's rejection of pardon and the reasons for it, opposed easing of the regulations for Bergling.

He met up, as planned, with his wife Elisabeth at the third escape vehicle, an Opel Ascona,[15] which had been parked just 50 meters from where the previously convicted spy Stig Wennerström lived.

[15] They made their way through Eckerö in Åland to the Soviet Consulate in Mariehamn, where they arrived at 13:00, at the same time as the prison overseer knocked on the door of the apartment in Rinkeby.

[11] Bergling was now transported in the trunk of a diplomatic car 200 kilometres (120 mi) to the Finnish–Soviet border crossing station Vaalimaa and his old clients.

[17] The Government Offices were informed of Bergling's escape during the afternoon of 6 October 1987, by a telephone message from Director General of the National Prison and Probation Administration to the Minister of Justice Sten Wickbom.

Concerning the subsequent handling of the issue regarding the notification of the fugitive once it was clear that Bergling has fled, the Chancellor of Justice meant that the "arrest warrant and the official alert was delayed in an unacceptable manner" and that the responsibility for this lay with the officers at Norrköping Police Department.

Wickbom had claimed that he had not been informed that Bergling had been granted regular conjugal visits and that his escape was a result of a series of mix-ups between the police and the prison service.

There, Bergling was active under the name of Ronald Abi and pretended to be a British agricultural engineer while he worked as a security consultant for Walid Jumblatt at the end of the civil war.

[23] Jumblatt later apologized to Sweden for having protected a convicted spy for four years but had done so at the request of his former friends in the Soviet Communist Party.

[2] On 8 October 2003, Bergling met for the first time before an audience Tore Forsberg [sv], the former head of the Swedish counterintelligence, in a meeting in Akademiska Föreningen's premises in Lund.

In the novel Enemy's Enemy (1989) by author Jan Guillou, Carl Hamilton gets the task from his clients to go to Moscow and kill the spy Stig Bergling (in the book called Stig Sandström) who has escaped during his conjugal visit, killed his wife and went to Moscow to work for the Russians.