Sunde does not work during the daytime, as many other inmates do. “Some guy wrote and thanked me for all the porn he’d downloaded,” says Sunde. Others are content with a short note to say good luck. Some people send him 50 pages of conspiracy theories. He receives letters from all over the world. I’ve been distilled to this computer nerd,” he says. Some of the guards have asked me what kind of computer they should buy. ‘I’ve signed a few autographs’ĭo the others in prison know who he is? Sure, he says. He hasn’t been online since he was arrested, he says. After that, Sunde has only his television set and the books in his cell to entertain him. Behind the barbed wire is a patch of green grass and a volleyball net, he says.Īt7pm, cell doors are closed and locked. Sunde points out of the barred window behind us towards a fenced-in gravel field a few yards away. The hour he is allowed to spend outdoors each day is a highlight. Inmates at Västervik prison Photograph: Kriminalvården “He’s the guy I hang out with most,” Sunde says. And the cocaine smuggler who made our chocolate muffins. Another man murdered his partner with 60 stab wounds to the stomach. In the prison with him is a man (“a voodoo doctor”) who assaulted a 14-year-old girl to “drive the devil out of her”. “Then you sleep.” He tells us about the other inmates. He quickly rattles off his schedule: breakfast at 7am. We ask Sunde about a typical day in prison. Sunde is serving time for aiding and abetting copyright crimes. Many of its inmates have commited violent or drug-related offences. Västervik is a class two prison, the second highest rating in Sweden. The police first brought him to prison in Malmö, where he remained for a week, then transferred him to his current whereabouts. When the story reached the papers the next morning, Sunde was already behind bars. Gottfrid “anakata” Svartholm Warg had beeen arrested in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh in August 2012, on unrelated hacking charges. Now only one of the three founders of The Pirate Bay - Fredrik “TiAMO” Neij - remained at large. Peter “brokep” Sunde’s arrest made headlines all over the world. I guess he’d been looking forward to arresting this mastermind hacker and then he misses a thing like that.” “Everything was encrypted,” Sunde tells us, clearly pleased with himself. The phone sent out a signal over the internet, to all his computers at home and at work: “Shut down, immediately.” Then he quickly switched off his cellphone. A quick tap on an app icon, then another one. Sunde pulled out his phone and dialled a number.īut as the signals went through, he kept fingering on the phone screen. Someone had to take care of the house if he was to leave, he reasoned. Now, a small group of policemen had arrived to take him to prison, where he was to serve the sentence handed down to him by a Swedish court in 2010. Two years had passed since the Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for him. Sunde suspected that the visit wasn’t friendly and did his best not to confirm his identity, with either words or expressions. He was greeted by a man in civilian clothing. Sunde was alone in the house so he opened up. Around lunchtime someone knocked on the door. On Saturday, Sunde was relaxing at his girlfriend’s house just outside Malmö in southern Sweden. In front of us, there is instant coffee, a few paper cups and a crumpled plastic bag with homemade chocolate muffins. Sunde, who is expected to be released in November, asks us to sit at the small, round table next to the barred window. After being internationally wanted for two years, Sunde was arrested and transported to jail. In 2009, the founders of The Pirate Bay, the world’s most notorious file-sharing site, were found guilty of copyright offences in Sweden. Just like they do with The Pirate Bay,” he says. “I’m thinking people can fill in whatever they want. He will allow his picture to be taken, provided he can cover his face with a blank piece of paper. “I don’t know how I’ll feel in three years, looking back at all this,” he says. A photo taken of him here - behind bars, underweight and dressed in grey prison garb - will likely haunt him for the rest of his life. But there is more to his refusal than that. “There are no mirrors in here,” he says, half-jokingly. There isn’t much left,” he says, running his fingers over his ribcage. His Adam’s apple bobs visibly up and down when he tells us about his weight loss. But his face lights up when we shake hands.Ībove all else, he is shockingly thin. He looks a world away from the outspoken, impish provocateur that has spent the past decade building his reputation as the entertainment industry’s enemy number one. His cheeks are stubbled and there are dark circles under his eyes. He is dressed in standard-issue prison clothes - a faded grey cotton tracksuit. As the door swings open, Peter Sunde rises hurriedly from his chair.
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