Swedish Spy Hunted as Questions Grow on Unguarded Home Visit

A nationwide search for an escaped spy entered its second day Thursday amid questions about why Swedish authorities allowed a prisoner with a life sentence to make an unguarded home visit.

Stig Bergling, 50, said to be Sweden’s most watched prisoner, was left by his guard late Monday at the suburban Stockholm home of his wife. The couple was to spend the night together, and then Bergling was to have been returned to Norrkoping prison, 90 miles southwest of the capital.

But when the guard came to pick up Bergling at noon on Tuesday, the two were gone.

Due to misunderstandings between police and prison authorities, it then took 10 hours before a nationwide alert was sounded.

Complicating the search is the fact that Bergling was given a new face and a new identity, Eugen Sandberg, by authorities while in prison to facilitate a transition to a life in freedom in the event of clemency.

Bergling, who sold Swedish defense secrets to the Soviets while serving as a U.N. officer in the Middle East, was arrested by Israeli security forces in March, 1979. He admitted that he had sold information to Soviet military intelligence since 1973. A Stockholm court sentenced him to life in prison in December, 1979.

Bergling’s application for clemency was turned down Aug. 27 by the government because he was considered still too knowledgeable about military secrets.

“The damage caused by Bergling to the Swedish defense will not be repaired during the 1980s,” said the defense staff’s chief press spokesman, H.G. Wessberg. “The question is whether the damage can be undone at all.” Wessberg said Bergling has never admitted exactly how much he had told the Soviets. “He has had knowledge about Swedish security service operations and about permanent coastal defense installations.”