The Pirate Bay’s Fredrik Neij Not Allowed to Play on His Nintendo in Prison

Fredrik Neij, one of The Pirate Bay’s operators and so-called co-founders, is not only a ‘pirate’, but a gamer too. This is why he requested to have his Nintendo 8-bit console brought to him in prison. However, the request got denied because the console cannot be opened to check for concealed items. Bummer, huh?

Neij avoided a prison sentence back in 2010, but eventually got trialled and sentenced to a prison in Skänninge, Sweden, last November. All fine and dandy up until now, but like every other human being, life got boring when living behind four walls (and some metal bars in his case).

He eventually filed a request to have his Nintendo 8-bit console brought in to kill some time on it, but his request got denied by the prison administration. Why? Well, it’s not because gaming is banned in prison of course, but because there is “no way to open the box to check it for concealed items”.

“The console is sealed in such a way that it can not be opened without the machine being destroyed,” the prison wrote in a reply. In light of this, the institution can’t implement the necessary control of the game console and it is therefore impossible to ensure that it does not contain prohibited items.”

The administration may have denied his request, but that won’t stop Neij. He is now appealing the administration’s decision and told them that a simple screwdriver can open console. A simple “How to repair…” search on the Web reveals the same thing, so what is going on here? Does the administration lack the IT skills to do a simple Google or YouTube search, or do they have other reasons to deny Neij’s request?

Thank you TorrentFreak for providing us with this information.