Mr Solemo lived in Phuket for several years, working as a website and magazine designer.
He and Bo Stefan Sederholm, both from Sweden, were arrested almost two years ago after the police raided a commercial building in Mindanao. In rooms in the building, the police found 17 naked Filipinas, each with a computer and web camera.
Customers logging onto the livejasmin.com website could pay for the women to perform sex acts for their viewing pleasure.
Nine of the women were convinced by police and Gabriela, an NGO advocating women’s rights, to file trafficking charges against the Swedes.
In their defence, then Swedes argued that all the women were willing participants. Judge Jeoffre Acebido, however, took a dim view of the enterprise.
“This court will not shrink from its duty to impose the most severe of penalties against anybody, be he a foreign national or a citizen of this country, who tramples upon the dignity of a woman by taking advantage of her vulnerability,” he said, sentencing the two Swedes to life in prison and two-million-peso (B1.4 million) fines.
Three Filipinos also arrested in the original raid each received 20 years in jail and a fine of a million pesos (B700,000).
The case was one of the first successfully brought under the Philippines’ tough Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
The severity of the sentence imposed on the Swedes shocked friends. One, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he believed that Mr Solemo and Mr Sederholm were victims of politics; the Philippines has come under pressure from Western nations, particularly the US, for its poor record on human trafficking. This, the friend alleged, was why the two were so severely punished.
Mr Solemo and Mr Sederholm are expected to appeal against the verdict and the sentence.