Swede suspected of giving NATO data to spy lover

STOCKHOLM, May 15 (Reuters) A Swedish military officer is suspected of having sent classified data about NATO's peace force in Kosovo to a Serb agent with whom she was romantically involved, the Swedish military said today.

The officer was serving with Swedish peacekeepers in the region when she started passing on information about the 16,500-strong NATO force in Kosovo, the military said on its Web site.

The Swedish officer, who was not identified, began dating a Serb interpreter, called ''Z'' by the Swedish military, at the UN administration in Kosovo more than a year ago and soon began emailing him classified NATO and U.N. information.

The Swedish military said its investigation showed ''Z'' had worked as an agent for several years. He disappeared after questioning, but thousands of classified documents were recovered from his computer.

Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999 when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces who had killed 10,000 Albanians in a two-year war with guerrillas. The status of the Serbian province has still not been agreed.

The woman, who was sent home soon after Swedish military intelligence began its investigation more than a year ago, has claimed she had not understood ''Z'' was a spy.

The Swedish military dismissed this, citing emails between the couple in which they called their activities ''spy business'' while ''Z'' wrote ''I am not a spy. I am a doer of good''.

REUTERS SLD KP1733