Stig Bergling

Stig Svante Eugén Bergling, later Stig Svante Eugén Sandberg and Stig Svante Eugén Sydholt, (1 March 1937 – 24 January 2015) was a Swedish Security Service officer who spied for the Soviet Union. The Stig Bergling-affair, one of Sweden's greatest spy scandals, began when he was arrested in Israel in 1979 by Israeli counterintelligence and in the same year in Sweden was sentenced to life imprisonment for aggravated espionage. He escaped in 1987, with the assistance of his then–wife Elisabeth Sjögren during a conjugal visit, and fled to Moscow. Bergling's escape was a major embarrassment for Sweden's liberal prison system and prompted the resignation of the justice minister. Bergling lived for several years in the Soviet Union, Hungary and Lebanon until, for health reasons, he voluntarily returned to Sweden in 1994. He continued to serve his sentence until 1997, when he was paroled. During the last years of his life, Bergling lived in a Stockholm nursing home and had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He died there on 24 January 2015, at 77 years old.