I am slightly updating and reposting this from 2012 because the mainstream media have ensured very few people know the detail of the “case” against Julian Assange in Sweden. The UN Working Group ruled that Assange ought never to have been arrested in the UK in the first place because there is no case, and no genuine investigation. Read this and you will know why.
The other thing not widely understood is there is NO JURY in a rape trial in Sweden and it is a SECRET TRIAL. All of the evidence, all of the witnesses, are heard in secret. No public, no jury, no media. The only public part is the charging and the verdict. There is a judge and two advisers directly appointed by political parties. So you never would get to understand how plainly the case is a stitch-up. Unless you read this.
There are so many inconsistencies in Anna Ardin’s accusation of sexual assault against Julian Assange. But the key question which leaps out at me – and which strangely I have not seen asked anywhere else – is this:
Why did Anna Ardin not warn Sofia Wilen?
On 16 August, Julian Assange had sex with Sofia Wilen. Sofia had become known in the Swedish group around Assange for the shocking pink cashmere sweater she had worn in the front row of Assange’s press conference. Anna Ardin knew Assange was planning to have sex with Sofia Wilen. On 17 August, Ardin texted a friend who was looking for Assange:
“He’s not here. He’s planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?”
Yet Ardin later testified that just three days earlier, on 13 August, she had been sexually assaulted by Assange; an assault so serious she was willing to try (with great success) to ruin Julian Assange’s entire life. She was also to state that this assault involved enforced unprotected sex and she was concerned about HIV.
If Ardin really believed that on 13 August Assange had forced unprotected sex on her and this could have transmitted HIV, why did she make no attempt to warn Sofia Wilen that Wilen was in danger of her life? And why was Ardin discussing with Assange his desire for sex with Wilen, and texting about it to friends, with no evident disapproval or discouragement?
Ardin had Wilen’s contact details and indeed had organised her registration for the press conference. She could have warned her. But she didn’t.
Let us fit that into a very brief survey of the whole Ardin/Assange relationship. .
11 August: Assange arrives in Stockholm for a press conference organised by a branch of the Social Democratic Party.
Anna Ardin has offered her one bed flat for him to stay in as she will be away.
13 August: Ardin comes back early. She has dinner with Assange and they have consensual sex, on the first day of meeting. Ardin subsequently alleges this turned into assault by surreptitious mutilation of the condom.
14 August: Anna volunteers to act as Julian’s press secretary. She sits next to him on the dais at his press conference. Assange meets Sofia Wilen there.
‘Julian wants to go to a crayfish party, anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow? #fb’
This attempt to find a crayfish party fails, so Ardin organises one herself for him, in a garden outside her flat. Anna and Julian seem good together. One guest hears Anna rib Assange that she thought “you had dumped me” when he got up from bed early that morning. Another offers to Anna that Julian can leave her flat and come stay with them. She replies:
“He can stay with me.”
15 August Still at the crayfish party with Julian, Anna tweets:
‘Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing! #fb’
Julian and Anna, according to both their police testimonies, sleep again in the same single bed, and continue to do so for the next few days. Assange tells police they continue to have sex; Anna tells police they do not. That evening, Anna and Julian go together to, and leave together from, a dinner with the leadership of the Pirate Party. They again sleep in the same bed.
16 August: Julian goes to have sex with Sofia Wilen: Ardin does not warn her of potential sexual assault.
Another friend offers Anna to take over housing Julian. Anna again refuses.
20 August: After Sofia Wilen contacts her to say she is worried about STD’s including HIV after unprotected sex with Julian, Anna takes her to see Anna’s friend, fellow Social Democrat member, former colleague on the same ballot in a council election, and campaigning feminist police officer, Irmeli Krans. Ardin tells Wilen the police can compel Assange to take an HIV test. Ardin sits in throughout Wilen’s unrecorded – in breach of procedure – police interview. Krans prepares a statement accusing Assange of rape. Wilen refuses to sign it.
21 August Having heard Wilen’s interview and Krans’ statement from it, Ardin makes her own police statement alleging Assange has surreptiously had unprotected sex with her eight days previously.
Some days later: Ardin produces a broken condom to the police as evidence; but a forensic examination finds no traces of Assange’s – or anyone else’s – DNA on it, and indeed it is apparently unused.
No witness has come forward to say that Ardin complained of sexual assault by Assange before Wilen’s Ardin-arranged interview with Krans – and Wilen came forward not to complain of an assault, but enquire about STDs. Wilen refused to sign the statement alleging rape, which was drawn up by Ardin’s friend Krans in Ardin’s presence.
It is therefore plain that one of two things happened:
Either
Ardin was sexually assaulted with unprotected sex, but failed to warn Wilen when she knew Assange was going to see her in hope of sex.
Ardin also continued to host Assange, help him, appear in public and private with him, act as his press secretary, and sleep in the same bed with him, refusing repeated offers to accommodate him elsewhere, all after he assaulted her.
Or
Ardin wanted sex with Assange – from whatever motive.. She “unexpectedly” returned home early after offering him the use of her one bed flat while she was away. By her own admission, she had consensual sex with him, within hours of meeting him.
She discussed with Assange his desire for sex with Wilen, and appears at least not to have been discouraging. Hearing of Wilen’s concern about HIV after unprotected sex, she took Wilen to her campaigning feminist friend, policewoman Irmeli Krans, in order to twist Wilen’s story into a sexual assault – very easy given Sweden’s astonishing “second-wave feminism” rape laws. Wilen refused to sign.
At the police station on 20 August, Wilen texted a friend at 14.25 “did not want to put any charges against JA but the police wanted to get a grip on him.”
At 17.26 she texted that she was “shocked when they arrested JA because I only wanted him to take a test”.
The next evening at 22.22 she texted “it was the police who fabricated the charges”.
Ardin then made up her own story of sexual assault. As so many friends knew she was having sex with Assange, she could not claim non-consensual sex. So she manufactured her story to fit in with Wilen’s concerns by alleging the affair of the torn condom. But the torn condom she produced has no trace of Assange on it. It is impossible to wear a condom and not leave a DNA trace.
Conclusion
I have no difficulty in saying that I firmly believe Ardin to be a liar. For her story to be true involves acceptance of behaviour which is, in the literal sense, incredible.
Ardin’s story is of course incredibly weak, but that does not matter. Firstly, you were never supposed to see all this detail. Rape trials in Sweden are held entirely in secret. There is no jury, and the government appointed judge is flanked by assessors appointed directly by political parties. If Assange goes to Sweden, he will disappear into jail, the trial will be secret, and the next thing you will hear is that he is guilty and a rapist.
Secondly, of course, it does not matter the evidence is so weak, as just to cry rape is to tarnish a man’s reputation forever. Anna Ardin has already succeeded in ruining much of the work and life of Assange. The details of the story being pathetic is unimportant.
By crying rape, politically correct opinion falls in behind the line that it is wrong even to look at the evidence. If you are not allowed to know who the accuser is, how can you find out that she worked with CIA-funded anti-Castro groups in Havana and Miami?
Finally, to those useful idiots who claim that the way to test these matters is in court, I would say of course, you are right, we should trust the state always, fit-ups never happen, and we should absolutely condemn the disgraceful behaviour of those who campaigned for the Birmingham Six.
Thanks Arbed for clarifying the texts issue. So nobody but Ms Ny has access to the content of these messages! So she could selectively question Julian on issues he has no knowledge of, which he has to hear through an interpreter for the first time. It is no wonder he does not want to throw himself on Swedish justice.
Göran, Arbed, Fredrick Jansson and other Swedes. My satirical video has taken 335 hits in just over a week. I am sorry to see that more people have viewed it in Canada than Sweden. Please spread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nIrLS3gI8A&feature=context-gau
And that goes for other nationalities. Thanks, you lovely people.
Göran, @ 9.30 p.m. 24 Sep 2012. I meant to write last night, but was prevented. Having read the statement of Ms S’s friend and work colleague it seems to me to be an honest statement in that she is not clear about everything because they discussed the events so much together. Unfortunately witnesses who are not absolutely sure about things are ‘turned over’ by legal interrogators, and what they say loses credibility. So much for honesty. There is nothing in her statement that labels Julian a rapist or even an alleged rapist. I would be annoyed if I had to pay for everything, but in his interview for Hard Talk Assange mentioned how accessing money was difficult for him, so I can understand Ms S’s annoyance. As well as the sentence which I presume you emboldened the following sums up, in my opinion, why an accusation of rape is ludicrous.
“Marie wanted also to say that, when Sofia visited the hospital and the police, it did not turn out as Sofia wanted. She only wanted Julian to get tested. She felt that she had been run over by the police and others.”
By the way, Craig Murray met with Julian Assange last week and will do agin this week.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/aiding-and-abetting/
Who are these people who send multiple text messages about what they are/have been doing while (or ‘in between’) having sex? Is this not an indication of the extent to which humans have entered thmselves, not only into a sort of dependent cyborgism, but also wholly into the society of the spectacle? And this entire farrago – which of course is many things – not also an illustration of that? This is something which Orwell never foresaw (though Huxley did). One might posit the vaguely incestuous title (and of course, it’s already been done by the wonderfully enematic Endemol TV) of, ‘In Bed with Big Brother’.
One objective datapoint on charged vs. indicted usage in UK (etc.) legal circles is the number of documents matching a search of each word respectively at the British and Irish Legal Information Institute. http://www.bailii.org
charge: 74265
charged: 33525
indictment: 11051
indicted: 1657
indict: 159
of which in UK:
charge: 17913
charged: 9268
indictment: 2538
indicted: 264
indict: 32
Searching for both terms, this appears:
The Criminal Procedure Rules 2012 No. 1726 (L. 6)
(Coming into force 1st October 20120
http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_reg/2012/uksi_20121726_en_1.html
No doubt this will provide ample material for argument for those who wish to infer the meaning of words simply from their usage. 🙂
At a glance in that, the usage is ambiguous – it may be a historical or linguistic-cultural equivalent alternative usage, or there may be a very fine legal distinction between charged and indicted; such as the state of the indictment listing the charges having been served or not.
Recent example of media usage by Swedish Radio of the term “indicted” in relation to Swedish offences:
2012-09-22: Ecuador: Move Assange to Stockholm embassy?
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5280700
…
Assange is wanted for arrest in Sweden for alleged sex offences, but is avoiding extradition from London by sheltering in the Ecuadorian mission there.
…
Swedish prosecutors have previously turned down offers to go to London, saying that they need to question Assange in Sweden as he could be indicted straight afterwards, something which can only be done on Swedish soil as a court case would begin within two weeks of the indictment.
…
How Borgström sees it: “IF he’s charged with a crime …”
Earlier example of media usage by Swedish Radio of the term “charged” in relation to Swedish offences:
2012-05-30: Swedish reaction to the Assange ruling
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5130486
(A long article, also with an interesting legal opinion by Christoffer Wong on the Vienna Convention, and statements by Per Samuelsson.)
…
Borgström said he expects Julian Assange will come to Sweden.
He said after that, Assange would go to a remand hearing. Then he would be questioned and then the two women will be questioned again to comment on Julian Assange’s new statement.
“And if he’s charged with a crime,” Borgström said, “then the women will participate in the trial, but they’re aware of that, and they are ready to face the stresses of that, and they want him to answer for what he’s done to them.”
…
Another recent (unrelated) example of media usage by Swedish Radio of the term “indicted” and “charges” in relation to Swedish offences:
2009-10-06: Police Not Indicted for Detainee’s Death
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=3147942
Swedish Radio reporters have exposed unlawful procedures of judicial authorities in the case of a man’s death in police custody. The prosecutor handling the case admitted that he had been negligent.
The incident dates back to April of last year, when a 24-year-old man was apprehended by police and died of injuries suffered after being arrested. Even though a coroner’s report pointed out that the man’s death was caused by the police officers who detained him, the public prosecutor had not brought charges against them.
Returning to Craig’s title and the matter of inconsistent statements, right at the very start we have a very disingenuous claim of independence. To a casual listner, it sounds as if two women independently contacted the police, presumably even on separate days (details were unknown then).
Claes Borgström is reported by Swedish Radio to have said that:
(“) … the women did not know each other before and that they have filed their complaints with the police independently from each other. (“)
Another inconsistency of fundamental importance concerns the statements regarding AA only wanting to support SW who was only wanting to have JA tested, as opposed to Borgström objecting about the initial charges being dropped and downgraded, and then his requesting that the case be reopened.
2010-08-24: “The Women Have No Reason to Smear Assange”
( incidentaly this also apears with a freudian slip at SR as: “The Women Have No Right to Smear Assange” (Aug. 24, 2010) )
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/gruppsida.aspx?programid=2054&grupp=13199&artikel=3946725
…
Claes Borgström, representing the two women, one the other hand, is questioning why Assange still has not been questioned by police. In an interview with Swedish Radio News, Borgström dismisses the claims that the complaints have been filed as part of a smear campaign, orchestrated by Pentagon. Assange himself had earlier told the newspaper Aftonbladet that he had been warned this could be the case, after Wikileaks published thousands of classified US documents regarding the war in Afghanistan.
But the two women have no reason to smear Assange, says Borgström, who points out that the women did not know each other before and that they have filed their complaints with the police independently from each other. That they would be tools in a smear campaign is “100 per cent wrong and has no substance” Borgström told Swedish Radio News.
…
Johan,
It is not details. Let’s not get down in the trenches. We are big boys. There are two issues. We can talk about them both if we separate them. Let me make the following division.
1 How shall we interpret Jennifer’s statement?
2 If we just agree for arguments sake there is a text saying she was half-asleep. What are the implications. I think you like the second one first so I start with nr 2. After we are through let’s look at number 1. It is good for my understanding of the English language. I am not saying that my interpretation is right, I just think so on reasonable grounds. I understand you can prove me wrong, fine with me, then I will know better.
Number 2
What effect does a text saying she was half asleep have on the case? I would say none what so ever where the case is now. Even if there were 10 texts saying she was half-asleep it does not change the case. The prosecutors have evaluated the texts and haven’t found them important enough to write off the accusation.
What Julian has to to is to “begära resning” (apply for revision) (ask for new trial). He could do that without being present in Sweden. I do not know of any case where that has been granted. The normal way to sort things like this is done is to show up for an interview. So I cannot see any possibility for Julian to get away from the arrest warrant without going to Sweden. This is the heart of the matter
Is it likely that the case will be dropped? I don’t think so.
There is already a witness saying she was half-asleep. Katarina Svensson. If it is Katarina Svensson’s text it adds nothing.
What have to remember it is the prosecutors that have more info than we do. In my view the whole text issue is a dead end.
As you can see now that if my interpration on issue 1 is correct it does not change one millimeter.
That’s why I say text talk is silly speculation and leads to no new knowledge.
Comment on 2 and I go on the one i separate comment
Johan,
Jen’s statement
The only thing important to decide is when the text was sent. Then the issue is solved. From the statement above I take out only the relevant words. If thinkt I took out to many words say so.
the second complainant had been texting her friends in between sexual encounters with Julian over the course of the evening in question
Now we can take out some more
the second complainant had been texting her friends in between sexual encounters
complainant had been texting in between encounters
This is what Jennifer states is the time when the texts were sent.
Now the next bit. The reported encounter is the last one.
To me it is impossible for the complainant to text anything between the last and second last encounters that concerns the beginning of the last encounter.
Bring in the interview. Ms S states she went shopping, they breakfast, JA undressed her, they had sex, they fell asleep, she woke up with him inside.
To me it seems extremely unlikely that Ms S texted between the last and second last encounter.
When it is likely that the text were sent. Most likely when Ms S says she texted. Between the first non successful encounter and the first succesful. At this time it is likely talked about things in the future? Don’t think so. She can only have talked about things happening things that happened. She was half asleep between the first unsuccessful and the first successful.
No lets look att Katarina’s statement.
She says Ms S slept. Nothing about texts
Marie’s statement
She mentions she got a load texts. She says nothing of sleep half asleep. She knows little about the assault
My conclusion
Jennifer mixes things up. What she says has no bearing on if Ms S was half asleep in the beginning of the assault.
Jennifer’s conclusion a “very important factual error in the warrant which undermines the entire case” is not supported by any facts Jennifer offers.
Jennifer’s claim is made up from thin air. Have we seen this before?
KF
Then in textmessages some time AFTER the final intercourse, S mentions to her friend that she was half-asleep, and therefore not fast asleep as S has stated in her police interrogation. This is mentioned by this friend when she gives her statement to the police, that S had in a textmessage said that she was half-asleep or half-awake or the correct swedish word she used was “slummrade”, dosing/dosing off
I’ve checked the interviews for the 40th time. I cannot find support for your claims. Can please specify where you found this info.
Göran:
I believe you may have missed my point. Hopefully the following quotes from your own comments will make it clear enough:
and finally, when you are challenged:
If text talk is indeed “silly speculation”, why are you wasting so much energy on said text messages, to the point of nitpicking about missing commas in Jennifer Robinson’s statement?
My conclusion is that you are willfully trying to derail the discussion and obscure the important issues.
Lastbluebell, Arbed, Johan and friendly others,
nice to see some insightful and constructive comments here and on earlier pages. I hope it quietens down here and that you keep a presence. I have various ideas and questions and articles I have noticed, and started with a few posts in a earlier blog topic (AA’s PS) and above. Most is probably known to you veterans, but not so much here. Do you have any insights perhaps on my remarks above about inconsistencies?
On the Wassgren’s memo – what prompted her to be at work at ca. 6pm on Sunday 22 Aug in the middle of summer (weather? work roster?) so as to write it then and not say on Monday?
Did they already know about the complaint filed against the duty prosecutor on the Monday?
Thought I might as well post my find on this thread too…
I found a very interesting open letter to the Swedish Prosecutor-General Anders Perklev requesting that Marianne Ny be investigated for the way she’s handled the Assange case:
http://justice4assange.com/Action.html#SE
there’s a translation into Swedish too.
Note to Snap: Yes, up the thread a bit I suggested that the reason for the 22 August 2010 date on Wassgren’s memo was post-facto justification, because of all the fuss and international scandal of an arrest warrant being withdrawn within 24 hours. Now someone has pieced together a good attempt at filling in the redacted gaps in Wassgren’s memo I’d say she was trying to cover herself and explain her own part leading up to the decision by the duty prosecutor to issue an arrest warrant. So she’s writing out a full account of the story told to her while speaking to the two women before she split them up and sent Wilen in to be formally interviewed by Krans (who seems to have been told a very different story, or at least a very watered-down version to the one Wassgren heard – I have my own theory about why that might be the case, explained in my earlier posts, if you’re interested).
People in the world get the personal loans in various banks, because it is easy and fast.
Greetings Arbed!
See also the even earlier thread where I posted about AA.
On your find – readers appreciate being given some idea of the date, and the outcome if it has been decided. Is this recent?
I recall there were numerous such complaints a year back, as well as some consitutional? complaints against the government regarding some matters disclosed in Cablegate; did any cause more than brief embarrassment? Usually they find some hilarious legal argument to wrangle out of it, as in US consular surveillance is fine since they are immune and hence not breaking Swedish privacy law. On the US side, I once saw that since the data collected is of foreigners, it is not subject to US data privacy rules.
There was a complaint much earlier against Ny (not certain) about a man kept detained a long time since a file was misplaced. If I dig up the reference, are you able to read the Swedish and briefly summarise?
Indeed you wrote some great posts a page back. It seems to be worth piecing together all the times and documents and events of 20-23 Aug in fine detail, and then 18-27 Aug or so. Also look at when various narratives changed, perhaps indicating new players getting involved (lawyers, politicans, higher prosecutors, other agents). See my remarks above about inconsistent statements at 2:38 pm.
Is there a good page somewhere setting out the recent documents appearing from FOI requests? There are a few things I’d suggest trying to FOI if not already tried.
On Wassgren’s memo – surely the date was valid from the computer document system. I was looking at it from the other angle. Did Kjellstrand maybe know of this by Sunday and contact/help Wassgren? (Oh, was she in the same building or city?)
On the other hand, perhaps she was on duty that weekend and then had days off and such a memo was just standard procedure… 🙂
See this SR article, it captures a lot of the events then,
as do a few others there around that time period.
2010-08-23 15:01: Prosecutor Under Fire for Charging WikiLeaks Founder
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=3942732
… “On Monday, the Swedish justice ombudsman received a complaint against the prosecutor on duty Friday, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand.” …
Rudling on 24 Sep 11:28 pm I think you are missing prosecutor Hillegren’s point. If the police hears about a serious crime and the suspect is a foreigner with no real connection to Sweden and it is likely he will leave the country they have to immediately arrest him. That is the duty of the police in order to protect the victims. Then you make an investigation including interviews. I see nothing wrong in the first prosecutors decision to arrest Julian immediately.
That makes you wonder why the women waited until Friday afternoon to contact the police. If they wanted him caught and tested, they could have made at least a phone call earlier than that, while he was still living in Ardin’s flat. He moved out from her flat on the same day that they went to Klara police station.
According to page 18 of this set of documents http://undermattan.com/files/2012/09/UC-ARKIV-120903171025.pdf he appears to have checked in to a hotel at 21.20 pm on Friday. (Look a little below middle of the page, the line marked 2010-08-21 19:25:12.) Was he at her flat until he went to the hotel? She didn’t spend the last night (between Thursday 19th and Friday 20th) at home, and was quite busy on Friday going to the police and then to a party in the evening, so perhaps they never met after Thursday.
If the area code (områdeskod) 116 21 found higher up on the same document, under “—- Adressinformation —-” is anything to go by, he didn’t move far. According to google maps there are five hotels with that area code, located 200-700 meters from Ardin’s flat. Still the police searched for him around Stureplan? In a totally different part of Stockholm? What kind of information did Ardin give the police?
Hi Orb,
Thanks for the pdf. How would you describe this set of documents, ie what is it called please? I can work out what some elements are but I want to know more about it. Is it part of the FOI documentation that has recently been requested. Finally, is there an English translation available, or at least of any particularly significant pages (I don’t speak Swedish)?
Thanks.
Göran
I hope you’ve read and signed the open letter posted by Arbed (25 Sep, 2012 – 10:50 pm). It clearly shows that Marianne Ny had an agenda beyond her legal brief. You have been so supportive of Marianne Ny when all along it appears she was not following Swedish legal protocol. So we have a prosecutor who does not follow legal protocol, a police interrogator who spices up an unsigned statement from a complainant who “only wanted Julian to get tested” and who “felt that she had been run over by the police and others.”
There is, and never was, a case to answer. It wants dropping and those who concocted it should face charges and pay compensation.
Arbed, I’m sorry I don’t know much about it, it’s just a link I saw at the Flashback forum, in the very long thread about the Assange case, https://www.flashback.org/t1275257 . Perhaps someone else knows more. I think they’re FOI (freedom of information) request.
At http://undermattan.com/2012/08/27/assange-handlingar-fran-domstolar-och-annat/ this set of documents is called “*Åklagarmyndigheten – Assange* – Diverse kommunikation”
(*Swedish Prosecution Authority – Assange* Various communications) and there are a few more links on the same page, but I don’t know of any translation to English.
On page 36-37 in the same set are the documents that didn’t ask for DNA analysis of Ardin’s condom. On page 36 photo (“foto”) is requested, and on page 37 the code M31 can be found, which according to page 14 at http://www.skl.polisen.se/PageFiles/205660/Bestallningskatalog2012_04_05.pdf , the catalogue for tests available at SKL, the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Science, is “undersökning av skador i material med avsikten att fastställa hur/varför skadan uppkommit” (examination of damage in material to determine how/why the damage occurred). The odd thing about those two documents from the 24th and 25th of August 2010, is that the crime code (brottskod) is 0661, which means rape (woman, indoors). Who decided to describe Ardin’s case as rape? It’s not what it said when the complaint first was registered at 16.31 on the 20th.
A well written piece making a very good point I hadn’t thought of that my self why didn’t she warn Sofia Wilen? This whole case is so obviously flawed I don’t believe it would ever make it into court with the evidence available, Its shambolic.
@ Orb 8.50pm
Thanks. Very helpful
Reading the polis memos in this case, thanks Orb, is shocking and disgusting. I read Swedish and the political interference here is so bloody glaring. The police involved here are like savages.
The Assange defence team has been too lame in tackling the Swedish authorities. There must be a concerted international campaign to expose these crooks.
Here is bit of ancient Mesopotamian poetry. (Can’t all blogs use some?)
“The wild bull who has lain down, lives no more,
the wild bull who has lain down,
lives no more,
Dumuzi, the wild bull, who has lain down,
lives no more,
…the chief shepherd, lives no more,
the wild bull who has lain down, lives no more….
“On his couch you have made the jackals lie down,
in my husband’s fold you have made the raven dwell,
his reed pipe – the wind will have to play it,
my husband’s songs – the north wind will have to sing them”
— “The Most Bitter Cry”
@ Rico Santin 27/9 5.11am
Rico, can I ask a favour? Can you give me an English translation of the passages in the police memos which so outrage you and/or reveal political interference please? It would be great to have these with a teeny bit of explanatory detail, ie: sender/recipient, date, page number.
Only if you have time/the inclination…
Thank you.
Hello Orb,
your thoughtful posts here are much appreciated. Your recent one at 26 Sep, 3:36 pm makes one wonder, when exactly did the storyline “we only wanted to have him tested” first actually appear in print etc. and by whom?
Was it perhaps in the Aftonbladet newspaper on the Sunday Aug 22, when the women (one or both?) were speaking out, which was after the charges having been dropped leaving one downgraded charge remaining on the Sat. and hence they were perhaps backpedalling to avoid being caught making false accusations?
Looking at the English versions of the police interviews for SW and AA there does not seem to be any mention of going there wanting to force him to be tested. JA is not questioned about it, nor a lot of other points either for that matter.
It is mentioned in Donald Boström’s interview made 1 month later. (Are there any doubts on his reliability?)
So what is your take on this? Was it first in some paper around 22 or 23 Aug?
Another detail caught my eye in Boström’s interview, reportedly
the two women were seated together. So unless that station has a very informal open plan design, that would generally imply that they were not simply standing at the front desk counter making enquiries at that stage, but had by then been taken to some office or interrogation room. So what does Klara front desk and offices look like?
… “And then Anna rings again and says now we’ve been with the police and Sofia told her story and, yeah because I sat there so I added a comment of my own. This is very ‘word for word’ and as I remember her telling me.” …
Some commenters have been trying to infer a lot from the verb tense used in this statement “now we’ve been with”, which is a translation from Swedish from a record of an interview recalling a phone conversation one month previously. In English it sounds like it could also be an ongoing situation, as in “we’ve been here waiting…”, so that does not seem very conclusive. Perhaps the Swedish verb usage is clearer?
Hi Arbed,
Sorry, I thought you were Swedish, and probably followed flashback.
To clarify, when I earlier asked you about recent documents appearing from FOI requests, this was referring to the various pdf files appearing at undermattan.com, as well as a few at samtycke.nu/doc/new. Somewhere there had been talk of new FOI requests, presumably these. Like you I was hoping someone had more details what these all were, and agree it would be very helpful to have English translations. A first start would be some sort of list of the documents and what they are and any key dates or main points they provide.
I don’t read Swedish either. There are at least 17 pages on undermattan.com starting at undermattan.com/2012/05/14/assange/,
but perhaps there are older ones deeper down. Some of these link to pdf files; about 6 for 2012/08 and /09. Shall I post a list of these pdfs here for you?
Anyone Swedish,
kindly explain the word undermattan and tell us in general terms about this site. Thanks.
I don’t know anything about the site itself, but under mattan means literally under the carpet and is probably related to the expression to sweep something under the carpet as an easy way to hide something you don’t want in the open. Like dust, or information. Undermattan is looking under the carpet.
Rico Santin,
I don’t know if you were at the seminar yesterday. At least you did not introduce yourself and you did not ask me any questions.
I will in the near future write a full post of the translation errors involved in the case and what happened at the seminar. I will also reveal my conversations with the Prosecutor General. A conversation that looks much more like it is out of a comedy book.