A Stockholm court on Friday cleared Sweden's former ambassador to Beijing of charges of overstepping her mandate by trying to negotiate the release of a dissident. Anna Lindstedt, who was envoy to Beijing between 2016 and 2019, was accused of brokering and attending an unauthorised meeting in January last year to get a Chinese-Swedish publisher freed from custody in China. The case of dissident Gui Minhai -- a five-year-saga that began when he vanished while on holiday in Thailand -- has strained relations between Sweden and China. jll/txw