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Ex-Swedish China envoy Anna Lindstedt on trial over talks to free jailed bookseller Gui Minhai
- Lindstedt faces up to two years in prison if she is convicted of brokering an unauthorised meeting last year to negotiate the release of the dissident
- In February, the Chinese-born Swedish citizen was given 10 years in jail on charges of illegally providing intelligence abroad
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Sweden’s former ambassador to China went on trial in Stockholm on Friday accused of overstepping her mandate and risking national security by trying to negotiate the release of a dissident.
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Anna Lindstedt faces up to two years in prison if she is convicted of brokering an unauthorised meeting in January last year when she was ambassador.
She was trying to secure the freedom of Chinese-born Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, who published gossipy titles about Chinese political leaders in a Hong Kong book shop. He has been in jail in China almost continuously since 2015.
Lindstedt, a former envoy in both Vietnam and Mexico who acted as Sweden’s chief negotiator at the 2015 climate summit in Paris, denies the charge.
Prosecutor Henrik Olin laid out his case during Friday’s hearing, telling the court: “Anna Lindstedt was at the time Sweden’s ambassador to China, but acted outside the bounds of the mandate she had for the consular case.”
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He said the crime had endangered Sweden’s peaceful relations with China.
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