The 'hackers' in Sweden's most recent 'Watergate', which saw several Liberal Party activists, and a journalist, unlawfully log onto the intranet of the country's governing party in the run-up to last year's election, went on trial this week:

At the end of the trial, the public prosecutor called for two of its central figures - Liberal Party press officer Niki Westerberg and Per Jodenius, former press secretary for the party's youth wing (LUF) - to be given suspended sentences. Comparing their actions to industrial espionage, the prosecutor said that it was particularly grave in the lead up to a general election and represented a threat to the entire democratic system... The actions of each of the three other defendants - Niklas Svensson, LUF's regional chairman Nicklas Lagerlöf, and young Social Democrat Niklas Sörman - were not considered as serious. The prosecutor has called for each of them to be fined... "My source told me that I had been given the details to dig up scandals, or news, about the Social Democrats," said Niklas Svensson (via The Local).

He added that he never used any information from the Social Democrat's intranet for a story, and, in general, never took instructions from his sources. Since the scandal Svensson has reinvented himself as a blogger-commentator-journalist, and he and fellow blogger Daniel Alsén blogged about the trial on Politikerbloggen (in Swedish).

The court is expected to announce its verdict on 27 April.