Pirate Bay co-founder dies
The co-founder and financial backer of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, Carl Lundstrom, died when the plane he was piloting crashed in the mountains of Slovenia, a nationalist Swedish political party with which the entrepreneur was linked announced on Wednesday.
Slovenian police later confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday that a body found at the crash site is 'likely of the pilot, a Swedish citizen,' but declined to identify the remains pending forensic research.
The Alternative for Sweden party said in a post on Facebook that the fatal accident, which claimed the life of 'a legend and veteran of Swedish nationalism' occurred on Monday.
The party cited a close friend of Lundstrom, who said that the 64-year old businessman, who had taken off in his Mooney M-20 aircraft from the Croatian capital of Zagreb, had been heading to Zurich, Switzerland.
The plane crashed into a wooden cabin in the Velika Planina area of northern Slovenia, splitting the structure in two, AFP reported, adding that bad weather conditions had prevented rescuers from recovering the body before Tuesday.
Lundstrom, the grandson of the founder of the world's largest crisp bread producer Wasabrod, was one of the early financial backers of The Pirate Bay. The site was launched in 2003 to allow web users to avoid paying copyright fees while sharing music, movies and other files. Telecommunications operator Rix Telecom, owned by the entrepreneur, provided services and equipment to the service until 2005.
Lundstrom and three other defendants were charged with 'accessory to breaching copyright law' in 2009 and sentenced to one year in jail and ordered to pay 30 million Swedish krona ($3 million) in damages to several major media companies. As a result of an appeal claim, the fine was increased and the sentence was reduced to four months, which he served.
Involved in politics, the businessman funded the Swedish Progress Party in 1991 before it later merged with the Sweden Democrats. According to Alternative for Sweden, Lundstrom joined the party in 2018, serving as a district manager and later running in the 2021 Church Assembly election, which he lost.
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