Sweden’s ex-ambassador to China is tried over secret meetings on detainee

A former Swedish ambassador to China went on trial Friday in Stockholm, charged with overstepping the boundaries of her role by arranging what prosecutors said were secret backroom meetings over the fate of a detained Hong Kong bookseller who is a Swedish citizen.

The charges against the diplomat, Anna Lindstedt, relate to meetings she arranged without government approval at a Stockholm hotel in January 2019 between the daughter of the bookseller, Gui Minhai, and two businessmen who prosecutors say were representing Chinese state interests. The daughter has described the experience as “threatening,” and Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs later said it had no knowledge of the meetings.

Lindstedt is charged with “arbitrariness during negotiations with a foreign power,” an indictment that Hans Ihrman, the deputy chief public prosecutor at the national security unit, called “unprecedented in modern times.”

Lindstedt had denied the charge and did not want to make any statements outside court proceedings, according to Swedish public radio. Her trial is expected to run for eight days.

Gui was one of five Hong Kong booksellers arrested by Chinese authorities as they attempted to crack down on dissent in the Chinese territory and abroad. He was spirited way to China from Thailand in 2015 while at his vacation home and accused by Chinese state news media outlets of publishing books that slurred Communist Party leaders.

After two years in detention, he was released but was forced to remain in China. In 2018, he disappeared again in dramatic fashion — snatched from a train bound for Beijing while accompanied by two Swedish diplomats. Earlier this year, Chinese authorities said he had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of providing intelligence overseas.

An internal investigation into Lindstedt’s actions began at the ministry, and she was removed from her post.

Her defense has said that the businessmen had acted on their own behalf, had represented only their own interests and had aimed to do business with Sweden. But the prosecutor, Henrik Olin, told Swedish public radio that this did not rule out that the men had also been representing the interests of the Chinese state.

The charges against Lindstedt could bring a maximum prison sentence of two years under the Swedish Penal Code if she is convicted.

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