Since his arrival in Denmark to face hacking charges Gottfrid Svartholm has sat in solitary confinement, denied free access to mail and denied access to his books. The situation has outraged Wikileaks' Julian Assange who says Gottfrid is now a political prisoner. Meanwhile Gottfrid's mother Kristina has written to Amnesty hoping that they will take notice of her son's plight.

Following a failed last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court in Sweden, Gottfrid Svartholm was extradited to Denmark last month.

The Pirate Bay founder stands accused of hacking into the mainframe computers of IT company CSC. In an earlier case in Sweden he was acquitted of similar charges.

Previously in Sweden and within the natural parameters of his detainment, Gottfrid had been granted various freedoms, including socializing with other inmates and the ability to receive mail. He also enjoyed access to books for his studies, an absolute must for someone with such an active mind but no computer or Internet. However, since arriving in Denmark things have been very different.

In a recent letter sent to Amnesty and shared with TorrentFreak, Gottfrid’s mother Kristina explains her son’s plight. She says that Gottfrid is being kept in solitary and treated as if he were a “dangerous, violent and aggressive criminal” even though his only crime – if any – is hacking.

Gottfrid’s lawyer Luise Høi says the terms of his confinement are unacceptable and are being executed without the correct legal process.

“It is the case that Danish authorities are holding my client in solitary confinement without a warrant,” Høi explains, noting that if the authorities wish to exclude Gottfrid from access to anyone except his lawyer and prison staff, they need to apply for a special order.

The theory is that the special terms of Gottfrid’s confinement are in place so that he is unable to interfere with the investigation, but Kristina doesn’t buy that excuse.

“[In Sweden] I visited him every week, unsupervised, sometimes with an additional person. He rang me daily throughout the fall and his letters etc were not checked. For a long time he has had every opportunity in the world to complicate investigations for the Danish police if he had wanted,” Kristina says.

The extradition by Sweden and current situation in Denmark has outraged Wikileaks‘ Julian Assange, a staunch supporter of Gottfrid who he describes as a ‘Wikileaks Consultant’.

“It is time someone says it like it is: Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is a political prisoner and Sweden has fallen off the map of decent nations in its treatment of him. Gottfrid has always been ideologically driven to inform the world; he worked tirelessly to help WikiLeaks expose the slaughter of civilians in Iraq by a US helicopter gunship and was responsible for an important part of our infrastructure,” Assange says.

“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.”

Today, Kristina will travel to see Gottfrid in Denmark, hopefully with more encouraging news to report on her departure.

Meanwhile in Russia, authorities there have ordered local ISPs to initiate a block on RuTor.org, a site whose domain is registered to the Swede. The site stands accused of distributing copyrighted material including the 2013 film ‘Stalingrad’.

Anyone who would like to write to Gottfrid is certainly welcome to try. For any chance of this mail eventually getting through people should ensure that letters contain only text, are not written in any kind of code or suggestion of that, and do not contain any discussion of the case.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 171084

Att: Jens Jørgensen

Politigården

1567 København V

Denmark