This statement was written by Irmeli Krans, a Swedish police officer, on 20 August 2010 and amended on 26 August 2010. It purports to be the record of an interview with Sofia Wilen, but Sofia Wilen refused to sign the statement and has not done so to this day.
It is nevertheless this unsigned statement which the British High Court stated contains an allegation which would, if true, amount to rape. Some may recall that fact being triumphantly and aggressively read out to me on Newsnight by Gavin Esler, with no mention that the statement referred to had never been signed by the “complainant”.
The Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, had told the British High Court that even though the statement was unsigned, it was valid as evidence under Swedish law (it would not be under British) because the interview was conducted before two witnesses, Irmeli Krans and Anna Ardin.
Contrary to police protocol in virtually every developed country, including Sweden, the interrogation although in a police station had neither been audio recorded nor video recorded. Irmeli Krans has claimed she could not find a working dictaphone – in a major Stockholm police station that does of course have video-taping facilities.
Irmeli Krans and Anna Ardin had known each other for at least two years before they were present together at the police interview of Sofia Wilen. They had been on the same ballot paper as candidates for the same political party in a council election. They were facebook friends and had exchanged messages on a relevant subject, the abuse of power by white men:
Irmeli Krans to Anna Ardin April 2009:
Hello! Thanks for the compliment. And like you say, white men must always defend the right to use abusive words. Then they of course deny that these very words are part of a system that keeps their group at the top of the social ladder.
I will analyse Anna Ardin’s behaviour in detail in a further post in a few days. According to Ardim, Sofia Wilen contacted her concerned that unprotected sex with Assange may have given her a sexually transmitted disease. Rather than take her to a medical facility, Ardin took Wilen to a police station, under the pretext that the police might be able to compel Assange to take an STD test – which even in Sweden must be an extraordinary proposition.
Ardin did not take Wilen to the nearest police station. She took her right across Stockholm to the police station where Ardin’s friend, lesbian feminist campaigner Irmeli Krans, was serving. They arrived at 2pm and rather than see another officer, they waited two hours until Krans came on duty. Then Ardin was present throughtout Krans’ interview of Wilen – which appears to have very much informed Ardin’s presentation of her own subsequent allegation against Assange. Ardin’s “assault” by Assange took place several days before the Wilen “assault”, but was not reported by Ardin until two days after she had sat through Wilen’s interview with her friend Krans.
And always remember, Wilen refused to sign the resulting statement, given here, as a fair account of what occurred.
Statement of Irmeli Krans
Following is Krans’ interrogation of Sofia Wilén 20 August 2010, subsequently modified by Krans 26 August 2010.
Background
Sofia says she saw an interview a few weeks ago on TV with Julian Assange who is known to be behind the WikiLeaks publication of US military documents from Afghanistan. Sofia thought he was interesting, courageous, and admirable. For the next two weeks she watched the news carefully, she read a lot of articles, and saw interviews. One evening when she sat at home and Googled the name Julian Assange she discovered he was invited to Sweden to hold a lecture arranged by the social democrat brotherhood movement. She posted a message to the brotherhood press secretary Anna Ardin whose contact details she found on their website and asked if he would be coming to Sweden and if she in such case could attend his lecture. She offered to help out with practical details in return. Anna Ardin replied that she’d forward her message to those in charge.
But Sofia got no further reply and suddenly one day she saw an ad with the time and place for the lecture. The lecture was to be held in ‘LO-borgen’ at Norra Bantorget Saturday 14 August. She rang those in charge on Friday and asked if it was OK to attend. She was told she was one of the first to apply and it’d be OK. She took the day off from work and went to LO-borgen on Saturday. She saw a woman who she presumed was Anna Ardin standing outside LO-borgen and went up to her and introduced herself. Anna told Sofia that she was on the list so she was welcome to attend. At the same time the lecturer himself, Julian Assange, approached with a man in his 30s. She got the impression the man was Julian’s press secretary or something similar. Julian looked at Sofia as if he was amused. She got the feeling he thought she didn’t belong there in her shocking pink cashmere jumper amongst all the other gray journalists.
The Lecture
She sat at the far right front when she entered the venue, the lecturer would stand all the way to the left. The room seemed full of journalists. A half hour before the lecture was to begin, Anna approached Sofia and asked if she could help buy a cable for Julian’s computer. They needed a cable and Sofia had offered to help out. Sofia went up to Julian to ask what type of cable he needed. He explained what he needed and then wrote it down on a small piece of paper. She took the paper and placed it immediately in her pocket. Julian looked contemptibly at her and said ‘you didn’t even look at the note’. She told him she didn’t need to as he’d already explained what type of cable he needed.
She took a cab to the ‘Webhallen’ boutique on Sveavägen but they were closed. The time was 10:30 and the store would open first at 11:00. But that’s also when the lecture was scheduled to begin, so Sofia started feeling stressed. The cabbie drove her instead to the Haymarket where she purchaed two types of cable for safety’s sake. She got back in time, she had the right type of cable, but she wasn’t thanked for her help by Julian. The lecture went well.
The Lunch
There were many journalists who wanted to interview Julian after the lecture. Sofia stayed around because she too wanted to speak with him. She asked Anna if this was possible and Anna said Julian would stand outside the entrance to LO-borgen to be accessible to the public in case anyone wanted to ask him questions. Sofia went out and sat in the shade and waited for the interviews to be over. There were more interviews outside. Sofia approached LO-borgen again and overheard that the brotherhood people were going to treat Julian to lunch. Sofia asked if she could come along too, after all she’d helped them with the cable. She was invited and went together with Anna, Julian and his entourage, and two members of the brotherhood to a restaurant on Drottninggatan across from the Central Bathhouse. She ended up next to Julian and started talking with him. He looked at her now and again during the lunch. On one occasion when he put cheese on his knäckebröd she asked him if it tasted good and then he reached over with his sandwich and fed her with it. Later during lunch he said he needed a charger for his laptop. She said she could get one for him, after all she’d got the cable for him earlier. He put his arm around her and said ‘yes you gave me the cable’. Sofia thought this was flattering for it was obvious he was now flirting with her.
The others left after lunch, leaving only Sofia, Julian, and Julian’s companion. They went off together to buy an electric cable for Julian’s computer. ‘Kjell & Co’ didn’t have the product, so they went on to Webhallen but it was closed again. They walked back on Sveavägen towards the Haymarket and talked about what they’d do next. Julian’s companion asked him if he wanted to come along and help move furniture for his parents and Sofia offered Julian a visit at the natural history museum where she worked. It was decided Julian would accompany Sofia to the museum and his companion left them. Julian and Sofia went into the Haymarket subway station where she purchased a blue access card good for the day as he didn’t have the monthly commuter card and no money either as he said. They took the train towards Mörby Centrum and stepped off at the university stop. A man in the subway recognised Julian and told him how much he admired him.
The Natural History Museum
On the way from the university subway station Julian stopped to pet a few dogs, which Sofia thought was charming. In the museum they went to the staff room where Julian sat down and starting surfing the net, he was looking for tweets about himself. They sat there waiting for a film that was to be shown at Cosmonova at 18:00.
They were let into the cinema by Sofia’s colleague and Julian held Sofia’s hand. In the darkness of the cinema he started kissing her. A few latecomers arrived and sat behind them and so they moved to a row at the back. Julian continued kissing her, touched her breasts under her jumper, undid her bra, unbuttoned her pants, caressed her buttocks, and sucked her nipples. He muttered about the armrest being in the way. She was sitting in his lap when the lights went on and he tried to put her bra back on. She thought it embarrassing to sit there in view of her colleagues who she knew could have seen it all.
They went out through the inner courtyard and she went to the toilet. When she came out, he was lying on his back on a picnic table resting, he said he was very tired. He was supposed to be at a crayfish party at 20:00 and wanted to sleep 20 minutes before leaving. They lay down together in the grass next to each other and he had his arm around her. He fell asleep and she woke him twenty minutes later. Then they promenaded over lawns, passed cows and Canadian geese, he held her hand, it was wonderful in all possible ways and he told her ‘you’re very attractive to me’. He’d also told her in the cinema she had pretty breasts. She asked him if they’d meet again. He said of course they would, they’d meet after the crayfish party.
She accompanied him to the Zinkensdamm subway station where he caught a cab back to Anna Ardin’s where the party was to take place. He gave her a hug and said he didn’t want to part from her and encouraged her to charge her cellphone. She went home to Enköping, arriving at home at 23:00. She had a voice message waiting from Julian from 22:55 when she’d recharged her phone, telling her to ring him when her phone was working again. She rang back at 23:15, realising he was still at the party. She’d developed a stomach cramp from a sandwich she’d eaten on the way home and told him she wanted to go to bed. He insinuated it wasn’t about stomach cramps as much as a feeling of guilt.
On Monday
She rang Julian twice on Sunday but his phone was turned off. She told her colleagues at work on Monday what had happened at the weekend. They told her Julian felt dumped and therefore hadn’t rung back so that the ball was in her court. She rang him and he answered. She asked if they should do something together. He said he’d be at a meeting which could take a long time up until 20:30 but he could ring her back later. He also asked about her stomach cramps. He insinuated she’d lied about her cramps and he used the third person to tell her. She promised to wait for him so after she finished work at 19:00 she went to Kungshallarna and had sushi. Afterwards she strolled about town and ended up in the old town where she rang him back at 21:00 when he still hadn’t got back to her, asking what was going on. He said he was in a meeting in Hornsgatan and he wanted her to come there. She got the address and went there. She couldn’t find the address when she arrived, rang Julian, and spoke with a man who spoke Swedish who explained she was to get in through a side entrance. She stood there and waited for him when he came out together with a another man, they said goodbye to one another and looked very happy.
Julian and Sofia walked up Hornsgatan towards Slussen and from there to the old town. They sat by the water at Munkbroleden and he commented on girls who sat there as ‘lonely and abandoned’ and who ‘probably need saving’. They lay down and starting making out, heavily. Amongst other things he put his hands under her jumper and when they left the area she noticed people were looking at them. They decided to go home to her place. They went into the subway where his card was now invalid and she got him through by swiping her own card twice. They took the train to Enköping from the central station, she paid for the tickets, SEK 107 (~$10) each. He claimed he didn’t want to use his credit card, he didn’t want to be traced. They sat in the direction the train would move all the way back in the car. Julian connected his computer and started reading about himself on Twitter on the computer and on the phone. He devoted more attention to the computer than he did to her. She’d suggested they take in at a hotel but he said he wanted to see ‘girls in their natural habitat’.
To Enköping
It was dark when they got off the train and they passed old industry buildings where he went off to pee. She also took a pee. When they arrived at her flat she went in before him into the bedroom to clean up a bit before he saw it. They took off their shoes and the relationship between them didn’t feel warm anymore. The passion and excitement had disappeared. They made out in the bedroom but she wanted to brush her teeth. It was midnight, pitch black outside, and they brushed their teeth together – it felt banal and boring.
When they want back in the bedroom Julian stood in front of Sofia and grabbed her hips and pushed her demonstratively down on the bed, as if he were a real man. He took off his clothes and they had foreplay on the bed. They were naked and he rubbed his penis against her nether regions without penetrating her but he got closer and closer to her slit. She squeezed her legs together because she didn’t want sex with him without protection. They carried on for hours and Julian couldn’t get a full erection. Julian had no interest in using a condom.
Suddenly Julian said he was going to go to sleep. She felt rejected and shocked. It came so suddenly, they’d had a really long foreplay and then nothing. She asked what was wrong, she didn’t understand. He pulled the blanket over himself, turned away from her, and fell asleep. She went out and got her fleece blanket because she was cold. She lay awake a long time wondering what had happened and exchanged SMS messages with her friends. He lay beside her snoring. She must have fallen asleep for later she woke up and they had sex. She’d earlier got the condoms and put them on the floor by the bed. He reluctantly agreed to use a condom even if he muttered something about preferring her to latex. He no longer had an erection problem. At one point when he mounted her from behind, she turned to look at him and smiled and he asked her why she was smiling, what she had to smile about. She didn’t like the tone in his voice.
They fell asleep and when they woke up they could have had sex again, she’s not really sure. He ordered her to get water and orange juice. She didn’t like being ordered in her own home but thought ‘whatever’ and got the water and juice anyway. He wanted her to go out and buy more breakfast. She didn’t want to leave him alone in the flat, she didn’t know him well enough, but she did it anyway. When she left the flat he lay naked in her bed and was working with his phones. Before she left she said ‘be good’. He replied ‘don’t worry, I’m always bad’. When she returned she served him oatmeal, milk, and juice. She’d already eaten before he woke up and spoken with a friend on the phone.
The Assault
They sat on the bed and talked and he took off her clothes again. They had sex again and she discovered he’d put the condom only over the head of his penis but she let it be. They fell asleep and she woke by feeling him penetrate her. She immediately asked ‘are you wearing anything’ and he answered ‘you’. She told him ‘you better not have HIV’ and he replied ‘of course not’. She felt it was too late. He was already inside her and she let him continue. She couldn’t be bothered telling him again. She’d been nagging about condoms all night long. She’s never had unprotected sex. He said he wanted to come inside her, he didn’t say when he’d done it but he did it. There was a lot running out of her afterwards.
She told him what happens if she gets pregnant. He replied that Sweden was a good country for raising children. She told him jokingly that if she got pregnant then he’d have to pay her student loans. On the train to Enköping he’d told her he’d slept in Anna Ardin’s bed after the crayfish party. She asked if he’d had sex with Anna but he said Anna liked girls, she was lesbian. But now she knows he did the same thing with Anna. She asked him how many times he’d had sex but he said he hadn’t counted. He also said he’d had a HIV test three months earlier and he’d had sex with a girl afterwards and that girl had also taken a HIV test and wasn’t infected. She said sarcastic things to him in a joking tone. She thinks she got the idea of taking the drama out of what had happened, he in turn didn’t seem to care. When he found out how big her student loan was he said if he paid her so much money she’d have to give birth to the baby. They joked that they’d name the baby Afghanistan. He also said that he should always carry abortion pills that actually were sugar pills.
His phone rang and he had a meeting with Aftonbladet on Tuesday at noon. She explained to him that he’d not make the meeting on time and he pushed his entire schedule forward an hour. Then they rode her bicycle to the train station. She paid his ticket to Stockholm. Before they parted he told her to keep her phone on. She asked if he’d ring her and he said he would.
Afterwards
She rode her bicycle home, showered, and washed her bed sheets. Because she hadn’t made it to work she called in sick and stayed home the whole day. She wanted to clean up and wash everything. There was semen on the bed sheets, she thought it was disgusting. She went to the chemist’s and bought a ‘morning after’ pill.
When she talked with her friends afterwards she understood she was the victim of a crime. She went into Danderyd hospital and went from there to the Söder hospital. There she was examined and they even took samples with a so-called ‘rape kit’.
Forensic Certificate
Sofia gives her permission for obtaining a forensic certificate.
Claimant Counsel
Sofia desires a claimant counsel she will identify later.
Sundry
Julian says his name is Julian Paul Assange and was born 31 December 1971.
Interrogator’s Comments
Sofia and I were notified during the interrogation that Julian Assange had been arrested in absentia. Sofia had difficulty concentrating after that news, whereby I made the judgement it was best to terminate the interrogation. But Sofia had time anyway to explain that Assange was angry with her. I didn’t have time to get any further details about why he was angry with her or how this manifested itself. And we didn’t have time to get into what else happened afterwards. The interrogation was neither read back to Sofia nor reviewed for approval by her but Sofia was told she had the opportunity
to do this later.
Irmeli Krans, just after she called the solicitor a ‘male jerk’ tweets her boss, Harald Ullmann, who has called on her for restraint.
‘Harald, so unexpected that you jump onto the conspiracy theories… Yawn! And the court is a long way from a decision. The person in question is like sought by the authorities and will be interrogated… And it seems that he’s now being sought by maaany intelligence agencies. I do NOT want to be in his clothes…’
I’m intrigued by the ‘maaany intelligence agencies’ that Assange is being sought by according to Irmeli Krans, since it appears to have been her department that leaked the double rape story to Expressen 4 months earlier. How much did this woman actually know at the time of the leak? She seems gleeful at the prospect of Assange facing further troubles. My suspicion is that she is an agent together with Anna Ardin. Sofia Wilen may be innocent in all this.
Would that you would occasionally give us an opinion, CE.
But you don’t. Your posts are short and, remarkably, without developed argument; they consist of low-level but persistent carping and the cunning use of the subtle smear (example: in your post of 4.43pm you say “I think being dismissive of someone because of their sexuality…” – would you like to identify who was being “dismissive”, giving a quotation as evidence?).
That is why, while accepting your right to post as often and tendentiously as you like, I identified you as a provocateur.
Without Ardin and Krans, Blairism could not exist.
The debate over Wikileaks is about governmental lies, massacres and the plundering of defenceless peoples.
But not among social democrats. To them such matters are tedious and beyond the power of humanity to control. Thus it is that instead of insisting, on the eve of a Presidential election, that the criminals exposed in Wikileaks be dealt with, and that imperialism is a political matter, the “progressive left” is salivating over semen stained sheets, one night stands in Stockholm and other such nonsense.
And this is what happened to the “left.”
It is what is happening in the USA where Obama’s imperialist massacres, epochally regressive and repressive social and economic policies, anti-Trade Unionism and warmongering are being forgiven him, by the “progressive left” just so long as he makes noises favourable to homosexual matrimony and LGBT rights.
Small wonder that, as living standards plummet throughout the EU and across north America, as the numbers of those living in poverty and unemployed reaches record levels and young people begin to recognise how comprehensively they have been sold out by their elders, the rump of the working class movement, which, like Academia, has become a form of out-relief for the cynical and the mediocre, has nothing to say about the social and economic crisis.
Anyone who cannot see why this makes fascism, and anyone but the “left” appealing to so many is spending too much time examining linen and lingerie.
Those, by the way, who regard CE as a troll are probably wrong: the lack of proportion and common sense he exhibits are very much in that puritan evangelical tradition which so conveniently allowed our ancestors to ignore Manchester’s teeming slums until the possibility arose that, among all the disease and starvation, (the co-lateral damage of capitalism), unlicensed sexuality might exist. From Malthus and Hannah More to CE and AA nothing is ever of more importance than what young men and women do when the fancy takes them. That and doing what the government tells you.
And all this in a sado-masochistic culture in which Fifty Shades of Torture is the publishing sensation.
Yes, the more I read about this case, the more I tend to agree with whoever it was (?Jon, possibly) who suggested that the initial dynamic was not redolent of an organised “honeytrap” (not that I’m expert on such matters). It seems far too messy, inefficient and to some extent incompetant, with variable narratives/statements, one unsigned (and so, uncomfirmed) that are far from clear. Waiting for 2 hours in such a sensitive situation to speak to a cop one trusts is not unexpected. It seems possible that the cop ought to have excused themselves from dealing directly with the case, given the scope for people later to accuse them of having a conflict of interests, even in a basic, non-international politics-associated case but certainly in what was always going to be high-profile, public – and any legal case, surely, might fall apart in court on that type of thing. I don’t know, though, about police procedure in Sweden (or in the UK).
One would’ve thought that if they’d been out to ‘get’ Assange’ in an organised manner, one of them would’ve claimed violent rape or something similar, surely, got him locked up right away, etc.? I agree too that subsequently, certain powerful politician(s) aligned with NATO et al may have sensed that this represented a good opportunity to go after a whistleblower and so facilitated the re-opening of the cases.
No-one really comes out of this looking good.
I agree too with Jon’s approach of resisting the automatic accusation of “Troll!!” towards those with whom we simply disagree. There have been (to use a Yorkshire-ism) proper trolls on this site in the past and sometimes they re-appear, though thankfully, they now seem shadows of their former selves, probably because of the active moderating facility (i.e. Jon and Clark!).
Mr. Murray, please keep up the good work. I’ve a question to you or other respondents about the relation between AA and SW. A video blog say they had a lesbian relation. Their defending lawyer Claes Bergström states in interviews the two women didn’t know each other before they met in august 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_cXUMcLrf0
Living in Holland I don’t understand much about the Swedish juridicial system and the witch-hunt by the Swedish press. As I estimate it. But the least i understand the muteness of the Swedish public opinion. How come?
Villager,
Yes,ultimately it is a moral issue.
I,for example,know a few people in the bars i frequent who often boast that they have friends or relatives in the police.Whether they do this to boast,to intimidate others or to look more connected i can’t say.
But what i am certain of is this: If i was in a spot of bother,or someone i knew was,the very last person in the police i would approach-out of basic respect for the friendship and their professionalism- ould be a personal police contact.
And i am equally sure any plod worth their salt or even a cursory understanding of basic protocol would immediately declare an interest and request other officers to pursue the investigation.
The fact that this hasn’t happened in the JA case is highly suspicious indeed.
I do not know Swedish law, but have some idea of what constitutes a fair investigative process and a fair trial.
As regards the interviews done by the Swedish police, the following strikes me as fundamental flaws:-
1. There is no audio recording of the interview.
2. There is no video of the interview.
3. The methodology used in the interview is fundamentally wrong. It cannot be trusted as accurate and reliable when the interview is one that is interpretative of the complaint’s complaint, as distinct from having the complaint’s words verbatim and directly recorded or transcribed. The methodology used gives the prosecuting authorities too much leeway to introduce into the interview his/her conceptual interpretation. Surely, the interview’s purpose should be to establish, in a factually accurate and unadorned manner, the basis for determining whether or not criminal wrongdoing has occurred.
Those observations aside, as I have stated before, the whole Swedish process, assisted by the British judicial system, debases the concepts of fairness and justice.
@ George Knight,
” Living in Holland I don’t understand much about the Swedish juridicial system and the withchhunt by the Swedish press. As I estimate it. But the least i understand the muteness of the Swedish public opinion. How come?”
The answer – I believe – is called “main stream media”.
That, I believe, is why we are all here, with Craig Murray’s help, trying to unearth the truth which the main stream media keeps hidden from the public. And, thanks for the internet, it gives me access to informed and concerned members of the global public.
George i haven’t heard about that aa-sw lesbian relation before. But fact as they say is stranger than fiction as this case is amply revealing.
As for the Swedes, i’d like to hear from them too. Their country is really beginning to look like the banana of Europe so they’re going to have to wake up and engage.
Meantime, i shan’t forget that they are one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world–according to Assange per capita way ahead of Israel. Plus they were the largest supplier of arms to the US in Iraq, in absolute terms. They are 21st century mercenaries. And they’re drawing a very unhealthy attention to themselves, at a critical time.
Come on Suhayl, you say:-
“Yes, the more I read about this case, the more I tend to agree with whoever it was (?Jon, possibly) who suggested that the initial dynamic was not redolent of an organised “honeytrap” (not that I’m expert on such matters).”
Surely, you must have had more than a little “honey” in your time, even if never in an organised trap.
(Ha…ha….sick little joke – grimace)
John G, please keep us posted if you uncover anything more in developing that remark of ‘maaany intelligence agencies’. Disconcerting but crucial in the vein that some unpredictable turn is going to affect the proceedings of this case.
Am I the only one NOT to think it strange that Ms Wilen was taken to see a friendly police officer by Ms Ardin? We can all assume why she did it and make up all sorts of conspiracy scenarios, but I actually think it was because she wished to see a friendly face where she would be received with sympathy. No more, no less.
Poor old innocent me!
Michael, thanks for your rational comments. The two (?) people shouting at CE in capitals make their point look doubly invalid, from this side of the keyboard.
I don’t quite understand this statement. Is it supposed to be an accurate rendition of events, or something cooked up by AA and the policewoman? I don’t like reading it, anyway.
Rick Worth,
“Am I the only one NOT to think it strange that Ms Wilen was taken to see a friendly police officer by Ms Ardin? We can all assmue why she did it and make up all sorts of conspiracy scenarios, but I actually think it was because she wished to see a friendly face where she would be received with sympathy. No more, no less.
Poor old innocent me!”
Ardin and Krans were both involved in politics and surely not naive about due process.It’s one thing being friendly with a police officer but so friendly that Ardin (against all protocol) sat in on the interview which was not audio or video recorded (as basic protocol demands) is stretching the point of naivety to breaking point.
Take your pick,Rick…either staggering incompetence through naivety by two politically adept persons (strange to say the least) or a wholly illegal process driven by a buddy scene.
Neither look good at all.
@Jon “Have journalists tried to contact SW?”
Do bears? 😉
“I wonder if she has been instructed by Swedish (or other) authorities not to speak on the subject?”
I suspect she has. She isn’t difficult to find; nor is information about her background.
She is probably an exploited pawn in all of this, but that’s not certain. Some of her internet tracks have been scrubbed, e.g. the traces of her website at Archive.org. But her mother’s husband Steffan Serrestam’s website is still up and running.
She advertises some of her photographs at Saatchi Online. Interestingly, ones that have been removed from that site include one that was apparently taken in Brooklyn. She used to live in Brooklyn, by the way, with US artist Seth Benson. She lived in the US for some time. She was living in Seth’s flat in Sweden at the time of her encounter with Julian Assange. Meet Seth here, here, and here) He was in Sweden at Hyper Island; now he’s back in the US. His Twitter handle is “serth”.
He was one of 12 people to give interviews to the police. The 12 were:
Sofia Wilen
Anna Ardin
Julian Assange
Donald Boström
Johannes Wahlström
Petra Ornstein
Hanna Rosquist
Kajsa Borgnäs
Katarina Svensson
Marie Thorn
Joakim Wilén
Seth Benson
See translations of the interviews here, in particular what Benson says about Wilen and condoms. Unlike Wilen, Benson did approve his statement. It seems to me that he ‘protests too much’. Curiously the interview, which was by telephone, was not recorded.
“Seth said the issue of infection was crucial for Sofia and that, before they had sex the first time, they had both got tested for disease and shown each other the results. They did not have sex without a condom on a single occasion during their two and a half years together. That was completely unthinkable for Sofia. Seth said that such was their agreement. He said that, as far as he knew, Sofia had never had sex with anyone without using a condom.”
You wonder what the point in having the tests was, if she was always so concerned about the possibility of infection from Benson that she insisted on him wearing a condom every time they had sex for 2.5 years.
Bear in mind, of course, that it wasn’t Benson who noted down this interview. Apparently he and Wilen hadn’t been in contact for several months, but then she phoned him out of the blue, asked him what he thought about Wikileaks, and said she’d been raped by Julian Assange.
Do you know what? I think someone’s telling porkies, that’s what.
Bloody annoying there’s not more metadata on SW’s photos! Was none there in the first place? Or was it scrubbed? Are there any photo experts in the house?
Villager, I don’t know what more there is to be unearthed. I don’t read Swedish and anyway all three women involved have been instructed to make no public comments on their web-sites, twitter accounts, Facebook accounts and so on. However Irmeli Krans does not describe herself as a police interrogator on her Facebook account, but a Politician, which she undoubtedly is, and as Craig Murray mentions all three women belong to the same party. She is a gay rights campaigner and there is nothing wrong with this (unless it turns into man-hate).
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Irmeli-Krans/168867889836069
My worry is of a different kind. Too many politicians make big money from their actions. Tony Blair’s rewards for waging war on Iraq are phenomenal. His rewards from JP Morgan alone amount to £2.5 million for advice. Nicolas Sarkozy is about to accept a similar offer from Morgan Stanley £200,000 per hour, but the reward is for dirty work they have done. It looks like legitimate money – but this is the real money-laundering in my opinion. It does not stop there. The priest of Hungarian extraction, László Tőkés, who fomented the revolution in Romania that caused the overthrow, kangaroo trial and execution of Ceausescu and his wife, became, and I think still is, vice-president of the European Parliament. At the time Romania was the only country without a national debt. And so it goes on. Rewards for services. This Assange set-up wreaks of CIA involvement.
The weakness of the ‘conspiracy’ interpretation of this case is that it hinges on a chance event initiated by JA himself i.e. unprotected intercourse with SW. It would have been much more straightforward for AA to go to the police following her own sex with JA and accuse him of rape. AA could have provided the forensic evidence that intercourse did at least take place. In any case, since the purpose of this ‘conspiracy’, according to its advocates, is to have JA extradited to the US, then the accusation alone would have been sufficient.
@Courtenay Barnett
Ok, msm, but that isn’t really an explanation, isn’t it? Although I completely agree with you. In this sense it’s interesting Claes Bergström states he received from Swedes a lot of messages which weren’t in his favour. Does he mean it or is it strategy in saying so?
@Villager
Right. As Craig Murray experienced in his Newsnight appearance morals are a hard nut to crack. It’s an ideal defending wall -and hiding ground- because it belongs to the private domain. Vagueness is tolerated and understood there. Attacking it asks a double effort. Clearing away prejudices about sex and openness before talking business.
J.Storry,
“The weakness of the ‘conspiracy’ interpretation of this case is that it hinges on a chance event initiated by JA himself i.e. unprotected intercourse with SW. It would have been much more straightforward for AA to go to the police following her own sex with JA and accuse him of rape. AA could have provided the forensic evidence that intercourse did at least take place. In any case, since the purpose of this ‘conspiracy’, according to its advocates, is to have JA extradited to the US, then the accusation alone would have been sufficient.”
The major flaw in your post is that Ardin,albeit a week later,did provide police and forensics with a torn condom.Tests revealed zero DNA info.In fact the tests showed that the condom had never been used at all.
Jives
What you say is not a flaw but reinforces my point. Why all the bother with a torn condom or even intercourse itself when a simple accusation of rape would have been enough to keep him in custody until he was extradited?
“What you say is not a flaw but reinforces my point. Why all the bother with a torn condom or even intercourse itself when a simple accusation of rape would have been enough to keep him in custody until he was extradited?”
Perhaps because Sofia Wilen wouldn’t sign off on the police interview they needed another desperate measure to attempt the honeytrap? N.B. Assange was questioned by the Swedish authorites and no charges were forthcoming.He was free to leave.
Courtenay, ha! You are a rogue 🙂
Your points about procedure all strike me as entirely valid.
N_ that’s interesting. Especially Johannes Wahlstrom’s statement. He says he repeatedly warned Julian to be on his guard against certain women.
“EO: Let us return to where we were, when you were talking about the attitude toward men among Anna’s friends, rather than Julian’s [toward women].
JW: As I said, I picked up some strange vibes…. It happens now and then, especially in the university environment, that you encounter something that… I don’t know quite how to express it, because sooner or later this will come out in the evening tabloids. But it happens now and then that you encounter young women who have taken a sort of…
They have completed a sort of journey, as a result of which they tend to be as chauvinistic in the name of feminism as the most chauvinistic men can be, but from a feministic standpoint. It often expresses itself in that young women of that sort can refer to men as sexual implements, that they are not needed for intellectual discourse. And it is only men, or only women who need each other. This is perhaps something that applies only to my generation; perhaps you have never come across it.… But I have run into it quite often, especially in the university world.
I had a sense of that from some of Anna’s friends, for example in connection with that brief comment that I mentioned. I don’t want to say that Anna is like that. But she affirmed that sort of attitude in her friend.… That is the only thing that happened which suggests a character trait, but I don’t know if any shadow from it should fall on Anna. It is difficult to interpret. ”
There is a massive amount of information in this case. But I am still convinced there are political motives behind this entrapment.
To answer some of the above points:
I think Kraus’ sexual identity is important because sexual politics is very plainly the issue around which she has based her career. I would argue strongly that a distaste for heterosexual relations is manifest throughout the account she wrote and which Wilen refused to sign, of which I have highlighted:
“There was semen on the bed sheets, she thought it was disgusting.”
Wilen had had long term relationships with men. It is improbable she found semen on the bedsheets unusual, yet alone disgusting.
To believe a conspiracy – that is to say a number of people acting together malevolently – may be present, it is not necessary to believe the conspirators are omniscient or following a strictly pre-determined plan. it is indeed much more likely they insert themselves and look to take advantage of circumstances.
@ George,
O.K. you posted:-
“ Courtenay Barnett
Ok, msm, but that isn’t really an explanation, isn’t it? Although I completely agree with you. In this sense it’s interesting Claes Bergström states he received from Swedes a lot of messages which weren’t in his favour. Does he mean it or is it strategy in saying so?”
I will try another angle, and you can tell me if you agree.
Sweden, which I visited once in my travels, and had a Swedish girlfriend in London ( for a short time) and visited her in Stockholm when a young student in London, left me with some impressions about the country.
Very liberal and open. Has a justified reputation for tolerance. Has a welfare system that in many ways is generous. There are downsides as well, but we will leave the worst for last.
Let’s get back to my Swedish girlfriend of many years past. I recall her sister living in an apartment and we visited her sister. Part of the conversation centered about what the state provided in Sweden, and the sister was complaining that she was not provided with enough while living in a state provided apartment, with a lovely view of the water and what I thought were generous monetary benefits. I said to her that to my mind she was very fortunate and stated that although I lived comfortably as a student in London, I had visited people in council housing in London and by a long shot what she had, provided by the Swedish state, would equate to a middle class home in England ( at the time – and I was at university in the 1970s). Trying to give a little context and feel to my answer George. All that to say that from what I observed, there was a strong feeling within Sweden for protection of women, protection of rights for all and what I perceived to be a pretty liberal climate. I left Stockholm with a feeling that the women had a strong sense of the right to be respected and protected, along with what I have stated and experienced as a climate of liberalism. Of course, I could be wrong and totally off target.
For the number of rapes reported in EU countries, the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics gives the figure of 53 offences per 100,000 inhabitants in Sweden, and is the highest in the EU and Britain is second. In other words, the women in Sweden are more readily prepared to report sex crimes. I am a British trained lawyer, and my perception is that the Swedish laws on sex offences are far more stringent than the British laws. By way of parity – what would fly as a sexual offence under Swedish law would not fly in an English court. But this comment brings us closer to the actual semantic twists and turns that their Lordships had to go through to get to extradition.
From what I have read up on since the Assange matter, Sweden I believe, has:-
“severe rape” – violence involved
“regular rape” – probably involving some violence
“less severe rape” – maybe some violence but involving intercourse
And under Swedish law there seems to be the concept of “unlawful coercion”.
All the foregoing to provide some context and to state that the idea of women’s rights is taken seriously ( at least on the law books) in Sweden.
Now, to the perception and responses of the Swedish public.
I am trying to be fair in expressing my views George. I think that given the socio-legal climate that I have just described, then the Swedish response is by way of instinct and cultural context, more receptive to Anna Ardin’s complaint than any other nation within the European Union. The idea of having sexual intercourse with a woman without violence but without her consent (i.e. the “ less severe rape” category) could lead to a prison to a sentence of up to four years.
NOW – IF THERE IS A SWEDISH LAWYER OR EXPERT OUT THERE – THEN PLEASE JOIN THE DEBATE AND EDUCATE US ALL. I DID NOT STUDY SWEDISH LAW AND I AM NOT AN EXPERT IN SWEDISH LAW.
The view I take is that anyone who appears to cast aspersions or questioning in Sweden the allegation of “rape” might then instinctively be viewed less than favourably within the Swedish public mind and general opinion.
The issue is that, while coming from a different legal tradition, I am focused very much on what is the strength of the evidence. I have acted as defence counsel in rape cases, so have some understanding of the seriousness of the allegation and its consequence under law, but one does not have to be a lawyer to accept that rape is serious offence. My difficulty with the Swedish legal conceptualisations is that the subjective elements seem to play the kind of role in the law that can lend to manipulation and the kind of subjectivity in the trial that could lead to what I would perceive ( from my training and background ) – as an injustice to the accused man. I seriously doubt that what Craig Murray has made available here is as readily available to the Swedish public. At the same time, I believe that if the factual details were made available, via the Swedish media, then Swedish public opinion, once properly and fully informed, would change. It is the evidence that justice systems focus on, and in an earlier post I tried to state what I saw as the weakness in the evidence to be led.
It is the Swedish government that is facilitating the Assange extradition process. It is Swedish main stream media that is flowing with the dominant narrative. It is the Swedish public that may yet not have had a chance to analyse the first hand evidence to be led ( i.e. the interview statements; the “torn” condom; the relationships and sequencing of events that relate to the alleged sexual offence). For, if the Swedish public were properly informed by its media, then, as Craig Murray is doing here, I believe that the public mood in Sweeden would change, the political momentum would move in a different direction – and, the result for Julian Assange could be a just result.
P.S. I said there were some negatives about Sweden, but I pull this out of the main narrative related to the Assange situation and state that the Swedish record with arms and the Nazis and in more recent times – Swedish arms sales for the Iraqi war is horrible.
P.P.S. Craig – I simply do not see a sexual offence in this – not the way I was trained. And, as I said, the evidence in any legal system has to be related to the alleged offence. Unless there is more that I do not know – where is the offence under law – Swedish or Britsh?
That’s right Craig.
I wouldn’t mind the vulgar voices here that automatically leap to the conclusion that you are anti-LGBT for underscoring the lesbianism of this individual.
It is just plain bigotry to oppose revealing that someone is homosexual. You wouldn’t object if the press pointed out that someone was heterosexual, would you?
Lesbianism is actually quite decisive here, just as it was decisive in the breakdown of my last relationship, which was with someone whose best friend was a possessive lesbian and constantly seeking to undermine our relationship.
@ Craig Murray,
Right:-
“There was semen on the bed sheets, she thought it was disgusting.”
So, in the interviews that I have read in criminal cases, I read direct responses to questions asked by the police.
Here it is for purposes of emphasis:-
” …she thought it was disgusting.”
The direct narrative would have stated from Wilen: ” I thought it was disgusting.”
Again, is Kraus a mind-reader? This very point is poignant and illustrative with regard to my earlier post of the interpretative methodology in the Swedish police interview procedure. But – “fuck it” – she did not sign the interview, despite what Kraus thought. Is a man to be extradited and face potential imprisonment – or – worse yet, the kind of “Bradley Manning justice” or Guantanamo version “ justice” we see operating?
What is happening to Assange is not right; it is not fair; it does not equate to justice.
Sorry:-
Not – ” she did not sign the interview”
Should have read:-
“Did she sign the interview?”
I am too tired and have had a crap day, so the most obvious lessons drawn from all these revelations;
Never, ever, ever, travel to Sweden.
If you must, then make sure you are never, ever, ever alone with a female.
Best still videograph the whole time of your stay in that frozen shit hole, and ensure that it is streamed on the internet and is in public domain.
Swedish blonde my arse, more like a potential rape claimant, to consider a wet patch as disgusting is an indication of sex in Sweden is far more ceremonious than the fucking Japanese tea ceremony.
Stuff that for a game of soldiers.
Six month of nights leaves a lot of time on Swedes hands to come out with new means and innovative ways of criminalising everyone as the developing story has shown so far.
@ Fedup – guess I was lucky mate when I was able to slip in and out without getting caught – huh?