Free anakata!

It seems that already next week Anakata will be flown to Sweden via Thailand and escorted by a police officer.

According to Bertil Olofsson at the Swedish national police the purpose of transporting him is primarily because of Anakata's failure to show up to server his prison sentence.

Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter has spoken to Anakata's mother. From what it says in the article she has not been allowed to have any contact with her son and she fears for his health.

She also emphasizes that Anakata is currently only a suspect in the Logica investigation and that the only crime he has been convicted of is his involvement in The Pirate Bay and that she's been told that the reason he is being brought back to Sweden is to serve his sentence.

The Pirate Bay has recently posted a blog post about the arrest of Anakata. No new information about what's going on, just a short summary.

There have been some rumors floating around about the reason for Anakata's arrest. One was for his outstanding warrant for the Pirate Bay trial, the second was involvement in Wikileaks and now a third one has started to gain momentum. The rumor is that Anakata was arrested for his involvement in an attack on Logica, the company that handles a lot of the IT systems for the Swedish tax office.

Earlier DN.se reported on this rumor, citing unknown sources, and now Torrentfreak is also reporting on it.

To sum it up, it appears that Swedish authorities may suspect that Anakata was involved in a long-running breach of security at Logica, essentially granting several others, including a former member of Piratbyrån, the group that founded The Pirate Bay, access to confidential personal information of thousands of Swedish tax-payers.

Except for the obvious assumption that Anakata's arrest in Cambodia was related to The Pirate Bay there's also another possible reason which people have been talking about for the last few days.

According to brokep the arrest may have been related to Anakata's involvement with Wikileaks.

So far there's not that much supporting this theory but it does fit in nicely with Ron Kirk's visit to Cambodia and the large sum of money Sweden just promised Cambodia. Techdirt has a bit more on this theory and I suspect if this is the case we will find out more eventually.

Right now a lot of people are becoming increasingly convinced that the $59 million aid package from Sweden to Cambodia was little more than a bribe, I'll admit I'm equally suspicious.

However, we can't completely ignore that the timing was just a little too good. There might still be the possibility that whoever authorized the aid simply didn't realize that people would connect it to the arrest of Anakata just days before.

And even if it is a bribe it's not necessarily as simple as Sweden volunteering $59 million to the Cambodian government as a way to get them to help capture Anakata, with what little information we have right now it could just as well be that the Cambodians decided that it was time for some quid pro quo and the Swedish government realized Anakata is still in Cambodian custody and didn't want to see him slip away from them again.

So for now it seems all we can do is speculate and wait for more information to surface although there probably isn't much of chance of anyone admitting it was a bribe, even if it was.

It seems Gizmodo has picked up the story about Sweden's aid package to Cambodia. As has The International Business Times. They seem to be drawing the same conclusions as everyone else, that the timing of this aid package seems to be more than just a coincidence. On one hand I'm inclined to agree, on the other Cambodia is already receiving a fairly large amount of aid from Sweden and I'm not going to be the first to say outright that this isn't just a coincidence.

On a slightly lighter note, the whole affair got its own Little Gamers strip.

Today the Cambodian government announced that Sweden has decided to give them $59 million in aid for social development, human rights, climate change and education causes. Stories at Xinhua and Torrentfreak.

I have to say that the timing for this makes me suspect it's more than just a coincidence, although it's still possible that's all it is.

Update: The Swedish government denies any connection between the aid package and the arrest of Anakata. DN.se (Swedish)

Khmer440 has posted a summary of printed reports from the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post stating that the deportation of Gottfrid "is now imminent".

According to Khmer440 the deportation is expected to take approximately seven days, including "two or three days" to prepare the necessary paperwork.

Reuters is reporting that Cambodian authorities will let the Swedish government decide which country Gottfrid will be deported to.

Kirth Chantharith, spokesman for the Cambodian national police, was quoted as saying "We just know we will deport him. As to which country, that would be up to the Swedish side,".

I think it's safe to assume that the country Gottfrid winds up in is likely to be one which does have an extradition treaty with Sweden.