Stig Bergling

Stig Bergling, later Eugén Sandberg and Stig Svante Eugén Sydholt (1 March 1937 – 24 January 2015) was a Swedish Security Service officer who spied for the Soviet Union.

Espionage and conviction

Bergling was employed at SÄPO, the Swedish Security Service, and worked in the surveillance department. Bergling was also an officer in the military reserves and for a short period he was working at the Defence Staff where he stole secret documents about Swedish military installations. He sold the material to the GRU, the military intelligence of the Soviet Union, during a UN mission in Lebanon in 1973. After returning from Lebanon, he continued his espionage by delivering information about SÄPO's operations in Sweden. SÄPO soon discovered there was a leak and after some time the suspicions pointed towards Bergling, even if there was no proof. He once again applied for service in the UN but was arrested in Israel on 20 March 1979 for spying for the Soviet Union.

On 7 December 1979 he was convicted in Sweden and sentenced to life in prison for treason.

Escape from prison

During the time in prison, he changed his name to Stig Svante Eugen Sandberg. On 6 October 1987, while on leave from the correctional institution in Norrköping, Sweden, he and his wife, Elisabeth, managed to escape. From Rinkeby where Elisabeth lived, via Åland they got to Helsinki, Finland where Bergling contacted the Soviet Embassy and managed to get help to flee to the Soviet Union. Under the alias of Ivar and Elisabeth Straus, they lived for a while in Moscow, and later in Hungary.^[1] However, in autumn of 1990 as Soviet Union was collapsing, they were moved to Lebanon and sheltered by Walid Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, a Druze-based party and ally of the Soviet Union.^[2]

In August 1994 the couple returned to Sweden voluntarily. Bergling spent three years in prison until his release in July 1997.

Bergling died from Parkinson's disease in January 2015.^[3][4]

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