Image: Mikko Haapanen / Yle

Peter Sunde, who describes himself on his blog as a ‘socialist, green and a pirate’, was born in Sweden but also has Finnish and Norwegian citizenship. He will stand in the Finnish Pirate Party’s primaries in June.

Harri Kivistö, leader of the Finnish Pirate Party, says that Sunde has become something of a symbol for the global pirate movement. Sunde and two other co-defendants were each sentenced by a Swedish court to a year in jail and ordered to pay huge fines for copyright violation in 2009. The prison sentence was reduced but the fines increased on appeal.

The Swedish Pirate party currently has two MEPs after taking more than seven percent of the Swedish vote in the 2009 European election.