The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg has appeared in court over charges of hacking into Danish government databases. Since Sweden extradited him to Denmark he has been kept in solitary confinement his mother describes as “torture.”

Wednesday's hearing was closed-door, meaning that entry to the proceedings was restricted. While using phones and cameras was prohibited, journalists were allowed to make notes during the pre-hearing. Henrik Moltke of Information.dk made and published some notes before he and the other journalist "left in orderly manner".

@moltke You did a great job today. Grateful to you, indeed! Custody for #Anakata extended to Jan 8 2014. #freeanakata — Kristina Svartholm (@KSvartholm) December 18, 2013

Svartholm Warg is facing 6 years in prison on charges of infiltrating the Danish social security database, driver’s license database, and the shared IT system used in the Schengen zone.

He had already been serving a one year jail term in Sweden for hacking. After more serious charges against him there were dropped and he lost an appeal to the Swedish Supreme Court, he was extradited to neighboring Denmark.

In an open letter to the Swedish government he argued that the person who orchestrated the attack could have controlled his computer remotely.

Although legal trouble isn’t anything new for Svartholm Warg or the other founders of the Pirate Bay, his mother, Kristina Svartholm Warg, and his lawyer have been increasingly worried about the conditions he has been held in in Denmark since arriving in prison there last month.

“They haven’t allowed him to keep anything in his cell from his books that he brought from Sweden, no magazines and that type of thing. And being in isolation like that, just with Danish TV to look at, nothing else to do, I mean it’s not good for any person to be like that,” Kristina told RT.

She also said that she believed the Danish court will acquit her son as he was also acquitted for allegedly hacking into Nordea Bank and the case against him in Denmark is similar to the case he faced in Sweden.

Warg’s lawyer, Louisa Hoj, also said that her client’s solitary confinement is down to an internal decision by the Danish prison service. Not only was he moved from a prison in central Copenhagen to one on the outskirts of the city but Hoj is puzzled at why his treatment could vary so much from Sweden to Denmark when the cases are so similar to each other.

But like his mother, the attorney was confident that the computer genius will be acquitted.

“He was not convicted of hacking Nordea.. and I think the material is somewhat the same in the Danish case. So I expect him not to be convicted of anything in Denmark,” she told RT.

Following the Wednesday hearing, Kristina Svartholm Warg tweeted that the custody for her son was extended to January 8, 2014.

Wikileaks’ Julian Assange has called Warg a political prisoner who is ideologically driven to inform the world.

“There are thousands of alleged cyber-criminals, but instead of dealing with these cases, we see vast resources diverted yet again by the Swedish state into smashing Gottfrid. These attempts include the first trial of Gottfrid after US pressure (extensively documented in US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks), his subsequent rendering from Cambodia by the Swedish intelligence service SAPO, his months of incommunicado detention in Sweden, and now his irregular extradition to Denmark – for a charge he was just acquitted of," Assange was quoted as saying by TorrentFreak.

URGENT Pls demand #anakata is permitted human rights IMMEDIATELY. Email Justice Ministry jm@jm.dk pic.twitter.com/Bd3v5meoMN — Mako Escalzo (@Makoescalzo) December 18, 2013

Assange’s views were echoed by Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the first Pirate Party, who told RT that he believes Warg is being held to scare others not follow in his footsteps.

“So he was acquitted of this exact charge in a Swedish court under European Union laws. That means that he’s also acquitted in any European court for this exact crime. And yet he’s being held in solitary confinement in Denmark! That does not smell right at all. Again you cannot escape the feeling that somebody is out there to make an example out of him because he embarrassed Hollywood,” he said.

Hacktivist group Anonymous launched an online campaign to protest against the prison’s treatment of Svartholm Warg, calling it “wholly unacceptable” and “inhumane.” The group called on supporters to join them on Monday in a ‘tweetstorm,’ using the hashtag #Freeanakata. Meanwhile a group of Svartholm’s supporters staged rally in front of the courthouse in Copenhagen where he appeared on Wednesday.