STOCKHOLM — A Stockholm court concluded hearings in the trial of two former oil executives accused of complicity in war crimes related to their business operations during Sudan's second civil war. A ruling in the case is expected toward the end of December, according to a court official.

The trial, which opened in September 2023, is the longest in Swedish legal history. It follows more than a decade of investigations that produced an 80,000-page report. Ian Lundin and Alex Schneiter stand accused of requesting that Sudan’s government assign its military to provide security at a Lundin Oil exploration site in the Block 5A area of what is now South Sudan.

According to the prosecution, this request led to military operations in which Sudanese forces and an allied militia carried out aerial bombardments from transport planes, shot civilians from helicopter gunships, abducted non-combatants, plundered villages, and burned crops. The prosecution argued that after Lundin Oil struck oil in 1999 at the Block 5A field, the Sudanese military with an allied militia led military operations to take control of the area and create "the necessary preconditions for Lundin Oil's oil exploration."

The prosecution further contends that the assignment of Sudanese military security at the Lundin Oil field directly resulted in the killing of civilians and the destruction of entire villages. In March, the public prosecutor called for a 10-year prison sentence for Lundin, who served as chief executive of his family’s firm—now called Orron Energy—from 1998 to 2002. The prosecutor sought a six-year sentence for Schneiter, who was vice president of Lundin Oil at the time of the alleged offenses.

Both Lundin and Schneiter have denied the charges. They stated there was no relationship between the company and Sudan’s government as described by the prosecution.