The mother of jailed Pirate Bay cofounder, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, who has been imprisoned in Denmark since November on charges of hacking, has lashed out at the Danish prison system for the conditions he is kept in, calling them “torture”.

Svartholm Warg, 29, was extradited from Sweden to Denmark, where he has since been kept in solitary confinement, without being allowed so much as a book to read, let alone communicate with other inmates or use a computer. 

This has been his plight ever since losing an appeal to the Swedish Supreme Court, following allegations that he hacked servers belonging to a Danish public record IT company. 

The unbearable prison conditions in Denmark prompted his mother, Kristina Svartholm Warg, to lash out at the injustice meted out by the Danes. 

"He's in isolation and he's only allowed to interact with prisoners for two hours a week. He is being treated as if he is dangerous. You can't do this to a person - it's torture," she told Sweden’s The Local on Friday. 

She added that her son’s earlier acquittal for allegedly hacking Sweden’s Nordea bank in September had gone through, but appeared to be of little interest to the prosecutor of the case. 

"He should be treated decently until he is in court, and this is not decent. He should be free, he is not a criminal anymore," Svartholm Warg’s mother continued, adding that the prosecutor was simply “not interested” in the fact that the Pirate Bay co-founder had been acquitted of bank-hacking charges earlier. 

That sentiment was echoed by the computer wizard’s lawyer, Luise Hoj, who earlier shared her opinion that Svartholm Warg’s solitary confinement is all down to a decision made by the Danish prison service. 
 

Kristina Svartholm Warg

In an atmosphere of secrecy, the Pirate Bay co-founder was moved from a prison in central Copenhagen to one on the outskirts of the city. According to his mother, he was kept in the dark about his location and had no idea his mother was coming to visit him. 

"He didn't know that I was coming to meet him. He didn't even know that I knew where he was. And I initially thought the new place was an improvement, but the first thing he said to me when we met was 'This place is no better than the other," Kristina Svartholm Warg said. 

Svartholm’s lawyer remains puzzled as to how the treatment could change so radically from Sweden to Denmark, especially when the cases are so strikingly similar. 

But she remains optimistic about the upcoming court proceedings, believing that Svartholm Warg will not be prosecuted for the alleged hacking of the IT firm, as the case is similar in nature to the Nordea hacking charges. 

“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. 

However, one major quirk of the legal system remains, and that is Hoj’s powerlessness to do anything about Svartholm Warg’s current conditions. Neither can she tell his mother how much more of the Danes’ solitary-confinement hospitality he will have to endure: 

“Now, because it’s a decision made by the prison service [not the judge], I can make a complaint, but can’t give any deadlines,” she told RT.

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