Court of Appeal proceedings on negligence with secret information begin against former security advisors

The Court of Appeal hearings are scheduled to last for three days: Thursday, Friday and Monday.

The former national security adviser Henrik Landerholm is charged with negligence with secret information after leaving classified documents at Gällöfsta kursgård outside Stockholm in March 2023.

When the case was tried in the Attunda District Court just over a year ago, he was acquitted.

For a conviction, three criteria must be met: that the information has been disclosed, that it is of a "secret nature" and that the person in question has acted with gross negligence. The district court found the prosecutor right in the first two claims. The decisive question instead became the degree of negligence. The district court considered that Henrik Landerholm had been "negligent" - but not "grossly negligent".

The court pointed out, among other things, that it was not a matter of conscious risk-taking and that the circumstances were not otherwise so aggravating that his actions would be judged to be grossly negligent.

The prosecutors at the National Security Unit appealed the verdict. They considered that Landerholm's actions must be assessed as a whole: both how the documents were kept at the course yard and how he acted after discovering they were gone.

- We believe that the storage of the documents at Gällöfsta, but also subsequent handling, is what is grossly negligent overall, said Mats Ljungqvist in September 2025 in connection with the appeal.

At least one of the documents, according to DN's information, concerned Sweden's strategy towards Turkey in the NATO process - and a secret meeting between Henrik Landerholm and the security adviser of then US President Biden.

According to the indictment, the documents were left in an unlocked safe in the hotel room when Landerholm left the course grounds. They were left after his departure and were found by cleaning staff who were not authorized to access the contents.

Henrik Landerholm has always denied any crime.

- I have no excuse for the Gällöfsta incident. It was unfortunate and inappropriate. Now it remains for the court to decide whether it is criminal. My stance on that issue is already known, he said in a hearing last year.

During Thursday morning, the prosecutors and the defense will give an account of what they want the Court of Appeal to decide and how they see the course of events. Parts of the hearing will be open to the media and the public, while other parts will be held behind closed doors citing, among other things, defense secrecy.

During Thursday afternoon and Friday, the Court of Appeal will play recorded hearings from the district court. A total of nine witnesses were heard, including the Government Office's security director Fredrik Agemark and a secret witness from the Armed Forces with the code name "FM101".

The criminal classification – negligence with a secret mission – is very rare and has only been tried in court a few times.