Swedish court acquits Russian-born businessman of spying for Moscow

A Russian-born Swedish businessman has been acquitted of collecting information for Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU, for almost a decade. Sergey Skvortsov, 60, had been accused of “gross illegal intelligence activities against Sweden and against a foreign power," namely the United States. The Stockholm District Court said Thursday that Skvortsov had largely acted in the way prosecutors alleged and that advanced technology was acquired and delivered to Russia. But the court said in its verdict “that the business (was) only intended for the procurement of technology from the West and not aimed at obtaining information concerning Sweden or the United States that may constitute espionage.”