The Stockholm District Court sentence against Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm was finalized today after he failed to appear at the Court of Appeal. Svartholm, also known as Anakata online, did not appear at the appeal trial last year because he was hospitalized in Cambodia and later went missing. The Court of Appeal has now decided to finalize the initial verdict of one year jail time and a fine of $1.1 million.

November last year, the Swedish Appeal Court found three people behind The Pirate Bay guilty of contributory copyright infringement offenses. The trio were handed prison sentences and ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages.

One of the defendants in the original trial, Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm, was not included in the verdict because he was absent from the court hearings due to medical circumstances. The Court of Appeal decided to schedule a separate hearing for him to take place at a later date.

However, setting a new date was proving difficult since Svartholm’s location could not be determined, not even by his lawyer Ola Salmonsson. The lawyer asked for the case to continue without his client present, but entertainment industry representatives demanded that the earlier District Court “guilty” verdict should be made final.

The Court of Appeal eventually decided to schedule a hearing last month, which continued without the defendant being present.

Today the Court announced that due to Svartholm’s failure to appear, the District Court’s ruling of 2009 against him will be made permanent. This means that the Pirate Bay co-founder is sentenced to a year in jail and his share of 30 million kronor ($4.48m) in damages.

This verdict stands and can no longer be appealed.

Peter Sunde, one of the three remaining defendants, told TorrentFreak that he is appalled by how the court handled this case.

“I think it’s kind of strange putting a guy into jail because he’s too sick to appear in court,” Sunde says. “Also, nobody is in contact with him, for all we know he might be dead since no-one can reach him.”

“This is actually a really bizarre step from the Swedish court – he’s found guilty because he can’t defend himself. Way to go, democracy. It will be interesting to see how they will actually try to find him and put him into jail. If he’s not alive – will they put his gravestone into a jail cell for a year?”

Sunde and the two other remaining defendants have decided to take their case to the Supreme Court. There they hope for a final decision in their favor, which Sunde is convinced will happen.

“In the end, we’ll win. I’m certain of that. It’s just that we don’t have the same lobby power as these groups we’re fighting. But the law is on our side, however what we’ve learned is that having the legal right is not the same as winning in court.”

“It all depends on who’s paying the judges,” Sunde concludes.