Pirate Bay Founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg Found GUILTY in CSC Hacking Case

Pirate Bay Founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg AKA Anakata Found GUILTY in CSC Hacking Case by a Danish Court.

Pirate Bays woes have not ended, just weeks after it was banned from the most liberal country in the world, Iceland, today its founder Gottfrid Swartholm Warg aka Anakata was found guilty by a Danish Court.  The sentence has not been pronounced yet but prosecution wants him sentenced him to six years imprisonment and not less than five years however his defendant lawyers are pleading for two years.

The Case

Gottfrid Svartholm, the Sweden born Pirate Bay founder and his 21-year-old accomplice were found to have been involved in illegally accessing systems operated by IT company CSC. Svartholm was found guilty of gross vandalism under Danish laws because he has changed in files on CSC’s Web server.

In a 12 page long judgement, Judge Kari Sorensen said that the main evidence found was the number of files stolen from CSC servers which were found on Svartholm’s personal computer. The case which was filed in 2012 when Svartholm was arrested in a Cambodian apartment in September 2012. Following his extradition from Sweden, Svartholm has spent 11 months behind bars in Denmark. His Danish accomplice, who refused to give evidence to the police and maintained silence right up until his trial in September, has spent 17 months in jail.  The case escalated to becoming the most high profile and biggest ever conducted in Denmark.

The three judges and four of six jurors returned guilty verdicts. Two jurors voted to acquit after concluding that the remote access defense could not be ruled out. The judges however acquitted Svartholm on a much bigger charge which deals with the exportation of the attack and carries a higher prison sentence.

The Prosecution

All along, the prosecution held that Svartholm and his Danish accomplice, both experts in computer security, had launched hacker attacks against CSC back in April 2012 and maintained access to those systems until August that same year. As mentioned above most of the proof of Svartholm’s involvement came from the CSC files found on his personal computer.

Evidence was produced by the prosecution which showed discussion taking place between hackers with the names “Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat” and “My Evil Twin”. The prosecution said that this were cyber  handles for Svartholm and is co-accomplice.

The Defence

The defense maintained that Svartholm was a victim of mistaken identity and that others had carried out the hackings by remotely accessing Svartholm’s computer.  They,in fact. insisted that Svartholms computer had been hacked to mount the attack on the US based CSC servers.

This version of events was supported by respected security expert Jacob Appelbaum who gave evidence for the defense not only in this case, but also in Svartholm’s trial in Sweden in which he has been partly acquitted.

Dismissing the remote control defense, Judge Ulla Otken said the hacking of CSC had been both “systematic and comprehensive.”

The prison sentence will be announced tomorrow at 1 pm Danish time by Court of Frederiksberg.

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