Second judge removed from Sweden's Pirate Bay trial

Another judge has been removed from the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden.

The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden has been stalled again following the removal of a second judge amid further allegations of bias.

International lawyers acting on behalf of the website's founders claimed that Ulrika Ihrfelt had links with a pro-copyright organisation.

She was taken off the case just weeks after Tomas Norstrom - the judge in the original trial - was removed amid bias allegations.

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaching copyright laws in April.

They were sentenced to one year each in prison and ordered to pay millions of pounds in damages to a number of entertainment companies.

Later in the month, the men's lawyers demanded a retrial, arguing that the judge had a conflict of interest because he was a member of the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property.

Ms Ihrfelt was appointed to look into the claims, but she is now facing similar accusations due to her own involvement with the groups and has been removed from the case.

"The reasons for this is that the question of whether the original judge was biased needs to be tried by other judges other than those that later may have been given the case," the appeal court wrote in a statement.

"Furthermore, because of the content of the claim of bias, it has been deemed proper that the question should be answered by a division that is not specialised in copyright."

It is estimated that around 22 million people used the Pirate Bay to download copyrighted music and film content for free.