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.
Snap 1.21 pm,
Thank you. I didn’t follow the case from the beginning so I’m not sure where the idea that they only wanted him tested first came from. I think Donald Boström’s account is reliable. Reading the original interview in Swedish, the description of his communication with Ardin and Assange on that day sounds genuine to me. At one point he reports that they wanted Assange to take a test or they’d go and file a complaint, a little like a blackmail. Did they think they could file a complaint just to have him tested? Or did they challenge him with “have a test or we’ll file a sexual assault complaint”?
According to the same interview, when Assange thought he had sorted it out with Wilén, perhaps by by assuring her that he didn’t have HIV or by a promise to get tested, or by arranging to meet and talk about it the next day, he thought everything was fine. But, according to Boström, Ardin said (she’s the one Boström is communicating with, I don’t think he talked to Wilén that day) that they didn’t want to talk to Assange. It is as he says confusing, lots of conflicting messages. According to Assange’s interview Ardin did talk to him that day, accusing him of a lot of things.
I never thought of the significance of the word sat in that context. It’s basically the same word in the Swedish original, satt, so there’s no problem with the translation. I’ve never been to Klara police station, but I’d expect people to stand when they first announce their business, that’d be normal. I’ll see if I can have a look next time I’m nearby.
The original Swedish behind the now we’ve been with the police is nu har vi varit på polisen “på” is to me a slightly odd preposition to use there, but I’d rather translate it as now we’ve been at the police (station) indicating that it is after they’ve been there. They could of course have taken a short break, perhaps while Linda Wassgren consulted with others on the phone, in which case it’d be quite natural to say so even of they were going back there shortly after.
I wonder when and how Ardin was told about the arrest warrant. Wilén was informed during her interview, about an hour after it was issued. Did someone call Ardin if she wasn’t still at the station and tell her? When did she first learn about it? Later than Wilén? Assange said he didn’t know until he read about it in Expressen (online, I suppose). If so, nobody warned him.
“is there actually any evidence that AA was present during SW’s interview? Where does this information come from?”
Yes, during the the interview conducted by police Linda Wassgren.
No, not in the interview conducted by Irmeli Krans.
The confusion stems from this chain of events:
1. At 2pm August the 20th: Anna and Sofia enters the police station together, met by police Linda Wassgren.
2. Linda Wassgren interviews both of them together. “Already in the beginning rape was mentioned and both women were victims” (my translation from the Swedish memo)
3. Linda Wassgren separates the two women and interviews them one by one.
4. Linda Wassgren talks (on the phone) to head of the police station Johan Hallberg, police Mats Gehlin and others.
5. At 4.21 pm August 20th 2010. Formal questioning of Sofia starts by police Irmeli Krans.
6. Before 5 pm August 20th. Linda Wassgren summarizes the case to Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, prosecutor on duty.
7. 5 pm sharp. The prosecutor on duty decides that Assange should be taken into detention, suspected for “rape etc”.
8. 6.40 pm August 20th. The questionnniong of Sofia stops because Sofia collapses when she hears that the police is out on town trying to catch Assange.
Note 1: Irmeli Krans questioning of Sofia did not influence the prosecutor at all. There was no contact between the two at all. In fact, Irmeli K was blocked from taking to the prosecutor by Linda Wassgren. Linda Wassgren’s interviews with the two women, partly together partly separately, were all that was needed to go for Assange in a big way. Thus, it is correct that the procedure was highly irregular.
Note 2: Linda Wassgren’s interviews are not taken down on paper or tape recorder. The only evidence is the memo that she was forced to write by the second prosecutor, Eva Finne, who closed the rape case on day 2.
Yes, it smells….
Irmel
Orb,
thanks for responding. Donald Boström seemed reliable, I was just considering all posibilities, such as his memory had been affected from a month of media bombardment, or he was pressured by someone like his newspaper employer, or whatever.
In a proper investigation, all these sort of points should be checked by cross-questioning. There are probably also SMS and phone records.
One mostly gets the impression that Ardin was saying different things to different people. If she didn’t already know about complaint procedures and if they could force a man to be tested, she certainly would have had contacts to ask and would quite likely have made a few phone calls rather than spend hours at the police. Wilen seems more innocent and anxious and trusting of Ardin. Didn’t Wilen go to some medical centre for tests earlier that day? When? Was that at Ardin’s direction? Did she receive any sort of counselling or psychological examination there then or later, or “guidance” about what had been done to her and that she must report it to the police? Having seen the scandals in other Swedish cases as a result of such psychological interpretations, one wonders if there is some such report lurking in a drawer…
As well as the timing of the “want him tested” story, it seemed odd that there was no emphasis on that in the initial witness statements, nor did there seem to be any ongoing concern by Ardin about getting him tested and finding out the results, in the media or Boström’s account. And as I pointed out in at 25 Sep, 2:38 pm, if indeed testing was all they wanted, then why did they not let the matter of police drop once it was all cleared? i.e. asking for the case to be reopened, was a willful accusation of rape made in the name of the two women by their lawyer. (Or was that still “only to get him tested”? …)
The initial media headlines were about him being a serial offender, which sort of has overtones of a serial killer on the loose endangering the public. Talk about character asassination! Is that also some sort of police standard practice to immediately hunt down such suspects?
Thanks also for looking at the words.
Orb,
you ask when she found out? One report says she went to a party with Kajsa Borgnäs.
It also seems hard to believe that after having made a remark that gave rise to the manhunt for Assange, the police did not ensure that she was formally interviewed there and then, either with another investigator, or to insist that she waited there that afternoon/evening until a statement was recorded. Hardly standard operating procedure to let such a witness go off to a party and then just do a telephone conceptual interview the following day.
For a background on standard (medical) procedure, see the following document from Uppsala Uni. (www.nck.uu.se):
NCK-Report 2008:1 (English version)
National Action Programme for the Health Care and Medical Services’ Reception and Care of Victims of Sexual Assault
http://www.akademiska.se/upload/55973/NCK_Handbook_EN_www.pdf
Goran,
I’m here and interested. Look fwd to it…
And the UK’s posture that “there is nothing in UK law which recognises diplomatic asylum” / “we are under a legal obligation to extradite Assange” [to face QUESTIONING in a case where there is forensic evidence that one complainant has faked evidence to back her allegations] collapses:
http://rt.com/news/ecuador-uk-talks-assange-162/
No wonder the BBC and other UK mainstream outlets are flooded with the ‘story’ of Amnesty calls for Sweden to provide [basically worthless] guarantees against onward extradition.
Diversionary tactic? Whoops, our hogwash has been exposed – Quick! Get that spin mojo rolling…
And cherry on cake time…
Ooh, look…
Following on from that open letter to Anders Perklev regarding investigation of Marianne Ny’s abuse of prosecutorial guidelines in the Assange investigation, here’s chapter and verse of Swedish law under which she could be sentenced to six years for it:
http://proassange.blogspot.se/2012/09/swedish-prosecutor-should-be-convicted.html
As the Flashback commenter quoted at the bottom of this article states, it’s interesting that this is longer than the maximum term Assange could receive for ‘rape’. Quite right too.
Arbed, 6 years is not enough for a member of the legal profession who perverts the course of justice. Every thinking person from the start suspected this ‘set up’ had political motives behind it, and now the truth is out. Marianne Ny needs to answer these accusations against her. I see that our media have been silent on these accusations. Now there’s a surprise!
Hello Arbed,
What would it take to get such a charge up and to court? Who gets to select which judges sit on the case? Some appeals court rulings have shown they are not all happy with the way lower courts are working, so there might be a distant hope there…
There is an Justice Ombudsman who normally looks at complaints about the administration of justice, but does it have any powers beyond investigating for a year or so and making a report telling them to do better next time?
Perhaps there is a way to get it out of these closed circles to some EU court eventually?
So it looks like a cake that will be a long time in the kitchen 🙂
PS. If you are so inclined, to move the dicussion along I left some questions to you above. I’ve found now my notes on the 2 JO complaints that mention Marianne Ny in them, but they are all in Swedish.
My Wikileaks tapes Thing2Thing (T2T)arrived yesterday. From what I’ve seen up to now worth every penny with John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Christine Assange(40 participants in all) and of course footage of the dreadful war-crimes the United States and NATO countries have inflicted on the poor people of the Middle East.
http://thing2thing.com/?p=2693
The other thing is your small contribution is helping to fund one of the few firewalls against US and Israeli-funded expansionism. You know what you should do.
@ Snap 28/9 5.43pm
Here’s a Flashbacker’s take on which clauses of Swedish law regarding arrest, detention etc Marianne Ny has disregarded. Looks well researched. Use Google translate.
https://www.flashback.org/sp39571395
Villager,
Just short on what happened at the seminar. There will be more info in coming posts on my blog.
Krister Thelin, a former judge, reported his work on the Swedish extradition laws. Krister Thelin has just finished a “green paper” on extradition. That is he has researched the laws and come up with proposals for how the laws should be changed. I think it is fair to say that Krister Thelin is one of the experts.
Krister Thelin’s view is that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US from Sweden. It is easier to have him extradited from the UK. He is also of the opinion that no guarantee can be given since it would interfere with the process.
Brita Sundberg-Weitman spent 15 minutes talking about the issue of proportionality. She is of the opinion that Julian Assange should be questioned in London. The only problem is that Julian Assange’s lawyers have had conditions for an interview. They wanted the complete case file, preferably in Enlish before Julian would take part in an interview. See Jennifer Robinson’s brief to Canberra MPs. Paragraph 13, 18 and 37. The lawyers have effectively stopped an interview in England and are trying to blame the prosecutor.
http://wlcentral.org/node/1418
I talked about the fact that Julian is to be considered charged. The Prosecutor General is i fact confirming that Julian Assange in charged. I have formally asked the Prosecutor General for a statement on the issue. I still have not received a formal reply. I have had some strange and comical phone conversations with people in high up places that I will reveal if the Prosecutor General does not make a statement.
http://samtycke.nu/eng/2012/09/swedish-prosecutor-general-confirms-julian-assange-is-charged/
“The only problem is that Julian Assange’s lawyers have had conditions for an interview.”
Göran: As far as I can tell they have only asked for his rights under the ECHR to be honoured. I’d be interested to know why you think this is unreasonable?
At this stage the technical details of what “charged” means are a masturbation with words.
The process is at a highly advanced international stage and involving national states. Most of the international community DO NOT trust the so called neutral Sweden involved in CIA rendition flights to the gulag. WE have seen from the Thomas Quick case, the Tito Beltran case etc, what a banana republic justice system this it. NO one has accounted for the rendition flights and no one will in this spineless “neutral country”
Sweden to regain some ounce of international credibility has to back down and behave in a civilised manner. Go to London and interview Assange immediately and throw out this shit bogus rape nonsense.
Hello Arbed,
was your remark at 10:51 am intended for me? I hope we can still get on the same page here and engage in meaningful discourse.
My posts bear re-reading more closely, as my words are usually carefully chosen and subtly hinting at matters where I do not wish to make outright accusations. Also, my questions may border on the rhetorical. I have been researching this since the start.
Given your earlier engaging discussions with other posters, I am at a loss that you hardly reply to my questions and my offers to help with info.
Given your post on 21 Sep, 1:00 pm beholding the wonder of “the tortuous legal knots the judges go through”, while not wanting to spoil your glee at the prosecutor serving 6 years, I was hinting that there is more to it than having a list of charges.
Hence, I don’t take kindly to being “tweeted” to with an “@” and little connect to the meaning of my message, nor told to “Use Google translate.”
So what’s up?
Johan and other Swedes,
A small treasure hunt for the weekend:
Which two words most easily find in the JO-beslut search at http://www.jo.se/ the two JO decisions which in some capacity include reference to Marianne Ny?
Now for the real treasure hunt:
Almost 2 years ago I was looking around the rulings made by the Justice Ombudsman (Riksdagens ombudsmän – JO) which are online at http://www.jo.se hidden away in a database in Swedish under JO-beslut. Put in your “favourite” name and see if they turn up, however it takes a reader of Swedish to carefully decide if they are:
1. an innocent bystander
2. someone maybe a bit involved
3. the main subject of the complaint
Then one would need to look further with great skepticism at those with names of interest still at 2. or 3. and then make an abstract of the main points, and consider if there may actually have been a more plausible interpretation of what occurred, or if blame was being deflected.
For reference, it is best to use the Diarienr. and name, e.g.:
3912-2007 – Magnus Bolin – [1, 2 or 3]
Suggested interesting names include (a few are not there, which is information itself):
Borgström
Bodström
Eva Finné
Lambertz
Magnus Bolin
Marianne Ny
Perklev
Pirate
Rolf Hillegren
Of course, most interest should first be given to the two decisions (any more than 2?) which in some capacity include reference to Marianne Ny.
Now, machine translation just does not make the grade for legalese, so we really need someone who can make sense of these documents and draw up a list and scrutinize them, and then to have the grace to return the goodwill by reporting back in detail in English, so this is not lost to us in some flashback post or Swedish blog. Any volunteers?
Happy Hunting!
I’m so sorry Snap – I’ve offended you and that wasn’t my intention at all. In these very long threads I generally use a @ username/time format to help people locate easily which post I’m replying to (or think I’m replying to…) I’m sorry if my re-posting of a Flashback comment on the possibility of action being taken against Marianne Ny was less than you were looking for.
As you’ve probably realised by now I’m UK-based and my remarks about “tortuous legal knots” were in connection with the court judgments in Britain. I don’t know enough about Swedish law to comment on possible remedial action over there.
I would very much like to respond to your offers of help but, forgive me, I can’t identify which post you’re referring to that has your questions in it. If you don’t want to use the @ / time marker yourself, perhaps you’d be kind enough to re-post the questions below? Thanks very much.
I do know journalist Helene Bergman tried to file something recently via JO, which was turned down flat, and there was an earlier “investigation” of the on-duty prosecutor via the same Judicial Ombudsman – also quickly shut down with a “nothing to see here” fob-off, so I had assumed that attempts by that route generally fail. I’m pretty sure I’d have no standing as a UK citizen to make legal complaints in Sweden, and I don’t personally know anyone in Sweden who could do so.
Hello Arbed (29 Sep, 9:54 pm),
it is encouraging to hear you are aware that I am (mildly) offended, and that your intentions are well disposed. Thanks, that is a good starting place. It is tricky to convey the usualb nuances of tone of normal conversations in such posts in a public blog with so many different people.
Since I don’t want this to develop into further misunderstandings, I’ve been pondering how to respond without writing more and more words explaining details to you. Besides, I get the feeling you hardly read the detail of what I actually say and carefully think about it, so what is the point? Before any more time passes, here is a start, nonetheless.
Reading some of your posts over the previous weeks, they indicated you had an aptitude for researching details and thinking sceptically, and awareness of legal machinations. So I hoped that the second paragraph of my 29 Sep, 7:15 pm post would have lead you to use those skills to re-read what I had written with the guidelines for interpretation of my tone and wording as I set out in that paragraph. Hence, I hoped this would lead you to see that my 28 Sep, 3:37 pm post did not ask for any list of charges, rather it was leading beyond that with rhetorical questions, taking a broader prespective that it is a long road from having a list of (potential) charges to securing an actual outcome in a court.
So would you kindly read again those posts I’ve just referenced and let me know if you now follow how I was using rhetorical questions to try to provoke some thought and discussion, and if you appreciate the disconnect I experience between my posts and your seemingly hasty replies.
Then I’ll continue…
kind regards.
Ok Snap, got it now. These – I think – are the rhetorical questions you are asking as possible avenues to somehow bring actual Swedish charges for the mess of this investigation to fruition:
1) Wilen seems more innocent and anxious and trusting of Ardin. Didn’t Wilen go to some medical centre for tests earlier that day? When? Was that at Ardin’s direction? Did she receive any sort of counselling or psychological examination there then or later, or “guidance” about what had been done to her and that she must report it to the police?
and
2) if indeed testing was all they wanted, then why did they not let the matter of police drop once it was all cleared? i.e. asking for the case to be reopened, was a willful accusation of rape made in the name of the two women by their lawyer. (Or was that still “only to get him tested”? …)
and
3) Is that also some sort of police standard practice to immediately hunt down such suspects?
I’m assuming 3) relates to the Wassgren/Kellsborg over-hasty decision to arrest, which has already been referred to JO and suffered a whitewash there. One possible other avenue to explore, though I’m not sure how far it will get, it that Kellsborg’s husband was attending Reinfeld’s annual crayfish party at Harpsung at the same time that Nic Svensson of Espressen newspaper (also at the party) received the tip-off about the complaints (likely suspect for that tip-off Mats Gehlin, supervising police officer at Klara). Carl Bildt is also known to have been at the Harpsund party.
2) I assume relates to possibly reporting Claus Borgstrom to the Swedish Bar Association for misconduct. I believe he is already under report there for blatantly prejudicial remarks made to the Swedish press at the time of the asylum being granted. However, perhaps something can be done here, given the scandal which is erupting around Lundgren and the way the Quick case has been conducted.
1) I disagree with your first sentence here (but, also because this is a public forum, I will not go into my reasons why). However, I don’t think there’s much mileage in pursuing that line in terms of getting the mishandling of the case before the courts. There could be some mileage in getting an investigation into the routine misdiagnosis of hospital “rape testing” from a certain Stockholm hospital and its chief clinicians. I believe Flashback has already done a considerable amount of investigation here, the results of which can be read on Rixstep. As I said earlier, as someone who is UK-based and not a Swedish speaker, I think Flashback are in a very much better position than I am in exploring further options for you to pursue criminal charges against the various miscreants in this investigation. They really do know chapter and verse on what is allowed/possible in the Swedish judicial system.
Arbed (1:32 pm),
actually, my rhetorical questions in my 28 Sep, 3:37 pm post were being far less detailed than that, and concerned directly the matter of a list of (potential) charges against Marianne Ny.
It was really just a train of thought, though I would welcome further info, I am not really pushing for it. You respond as if I am asking for advice or something. Not at all.
[NOAD] “Rhetorical”: asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information.
Perhaps I can start the chain of thought off this way:
A. “What would it take to get such a charge up and to court?”
Well, given someone has all these details from flashback, and whatever documentary evidence etc., do they just saunter down to the local police station and make some inquiries and present the evidence, and the police are compelled by law to immediately investigate (and – flight of fancy here – have the suspect MN immediately arrested to prevent her from interfering with evidence etc.)? I hardly think so? Maybe there is somewhere they can go – some anti-corruption unit? Maybe they first have to go to the JO, and it is for the JO to instigate charges. Maybe it has to be a directly affected party, such as Assange, so then he would become entangled in another process there, so that is no option [and indeed would highlight the cross-border impuity the EAW gives prosecutors].
So, first comes the task of getting the charges laid against MN following an investigation.
B. “Who gets to select which judges sit on the case?”
I was really just alluding to the way there are political-appointee lay judges, no jury as we know it, and so on, bearing in mind such examples as the Pirate-Bay trial.
So don’t count on it reaching the “obvious” outcome.
C. “Some appeals court rulings have shown they are not all happy with the way lower courts are working, so there might be a distant hope there”
So maybe some long time down the track it gets to an appeal court with judges who care sincerely about principles of justice etc., depending on luck. Now finally, MN is sentenced, and now maybe the little matter of an EAW and questioning of JA etc. gets dropped (or hopefully at some earlier stage in all this). By now Julian has grey hair.
[Also alluding to some interesting rulings I have seen relevant to discussion of the matters of consent, evidence etc. that bear on any potential case MN may have against JA, which I would like sometime to eventually get this topic moving along to].
D. “There is an Justice Ombudsman who normally looks at complaints about the administration of justice, but does it have any powers beyond investigating for a year or so and making a report telling them to do better next time?”
See above re JO, your own comments, and my “treasure hunt”. Did I see that the JO didn’t enter JA’s breach of privacy complaint as it was still a case in progress?
So that’s a toothless tiger.
E. “Perhaps there is a way to get it out of these closed circles to some EU court eventually?”
One last hope way down the track… By now Julian has no hair.
OK. So that’s a little elaboration of the thinking behind those brief rhetorical questions A.-E. I posed. Are you with me now?
If so, then great as I would like to move on to other perspectives.
I appreciate your looking at other aspects I had been raising in other posts than the two I had referenced with times, so I’d like to get back to those too. Is there any point there you’d most like me to pick up on?
kind regards
Arbed (1:32 pm),
very briefly on your points, taken aparently from my 27 Sep, .6:44 pm post to Orb, which for some reason you have brought into this whole matter of your post about charges against MN.
1. I emphasise “seems”. Who knows? Following Daniel’s timeline above, it would be nice to extend it earlier, as the whole matter becoming formal really starts at this Clinic. Rixstep/DaddysSverige etc. suggest may MN has some report from there, which could then be used by her as some sort of “evidence” in court, and as grounds to charge him.
http://www.daddys-sverige.com/3/post/2012/08/is-this-the-prosecutors-ace-in-the-hole.html
(see also the NCK_Handbook_EN_www.pdf link above)
2. Regards inconsistencies with the narrative and the motivations of CB etc. and the topic of Craig’s post here.
What I’d much prefer to be spending time on to explore and get some info. and write on!
3. Emphasis “serial” = such suspects. (more than 1 woman, same man, start manhunt) See full quote.
Oh, did you know that CB was a member of the Swedish Bar Association disciplinary board 1992-2000. He even once reported himself (Quick case?).
Clearer now?
Hi Snap,
Yes, I did know Borgstrom once reported himself. Absurb man.
Did you know Marianne Ny is due to retire January 2013 (according to Flashback)? I suspect therein lies the way in which Sweden will be able to drop this by now highly embarrassing non-case.
I am now much clearer on the points you’re making, Snap. They reveal very interesting and smart deductions and I think we are basically in agreement on many, many issues. I just don’t know what it is you want ME to do about any of them. Or at least you seem to be looking to me to do something, but I’m afraid I don’t feel qualified to pursue matters within Sweden – I don’t have legal standing for that for a start, and I don’t have the language or cultural knowledge to do it.
I’m not sure if she’s certain to retire. Apparently her 60th birthday is in January, and it’s been speculated that she might want to, or be “kindly encouraged” to take an early retirement then. Normal retirement age in Sweden is 65. An early retirement could be a way to solve the locked position that has developed without anybody losing face, because then the case would have to be taken over by another prosecutor who could take a fresh look at things. Not sure if Marianne Ny sees it that way herself, though.
Thanks, Orb, for the extra detail. No, very likely that Ny doesn’t see things that way. Ny privately admitted she wouldn’t change her stance even if she was wrong, DN.se, 19/8/12:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.dn.se/debatt/fallet-assange-ett-hot-mot-den-svenska-rattsstaten&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.dn.se/debatt/fallet-assange-ett-hot-mot-den-svenska-rattsstaten%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D959%26bih%3D680%26prmd%3Dimvns&sa=X&ei=FOkzUMzbC4aH0AW8_oHoBQ&ved=0CEsQ7gEwAA
Google Translate has mangled the actual quote but I’m pretty sure what the original Swedish is saying. Hopefully, the whole thing is getting just too damn embarrassing for both the UK and Swedish governments and someone will see sense and put pressure on her.
I notice UK Prime Minister has now committed to pulling the UK out of the EAW in three months’ time:
“Asked by the BBC whether Britain would opt out of EU justice and
policing powers, he said: “That has to be done before the end of the
year, and the opt out is there. We’ll be exercising that opt out.” His
remarks mean Britain will withdraw from 140 measures on justice and
home affairs, including the European arrest warrant, later this year.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/sep/28/david-cameron-nick-clegg-european-arrest-warrant
Note the wording of that quote – it’s a definite. Was confirmed in the FT too. I couldn’t be more pleased with this news, whatever effect it has for Assange’s situation, because of the huge number of miscarriages of justice in the EAW here in the UK. UK gets a disproportionate number of the wretched things.
I’m also pretty sure Assange’s case has hastened this decision. The way his extradition has been strong-armed through has brought new and dangerous precedents – no charge, investigator able to issue, etc – for all citizens. I guess the Supreme Court subverting parliamentary intent in their ruling was just about the final straw.
I’ve always suspected that – cf the Baker Review whitewash – the UK government was holding off its long-promised review until Assange was (from their perspective) safely off UK shores, but the Wikileaks One’s asylum bid nixed that one and now the whole embarrassing quasi-judicial spectacle is reaching Gigantic Spud proportions, how the hell do they get out of it? Is this how – withdraw from the EAW, grant safe passage and tell Sweden “you want him, go chase him yourselves”?
It’s a nice thought, but who knows. Perhaps another way to resolve it – more in line with what Snap envisages above – is to get Marianne Ny busted in Sweden for issuing the EAW without proper judicial oversight or informing the defence. This article from Espressen (sorry, Google Translated again) is dated 20th November 2010:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/assanges-forsvarare-till-attack-mot-overaklagaren/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.expressen.se/nyheter/assanges-forsvarare-till-attack-mot-overaklagaren/%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D959%26bih%3D680%26prmd%3Dimvns&sa=X&ei=FuQzUIioDqWG0AWApYD4BQ&ved=0CDwQ7gEwAA
so that’s after the rubberstamp exercise she sent her assistant Erika Leijnefors to Stockholm lower court on 18 November to get, but before the appeal to the Svea court on 24 November.
I know Hurtig was at the hearing on 18 November because he’d been shown (but not allowed to copy) the infamous SMS texts between the women the day before. Now, this is where I get confused… Is it the 18 November hearing which took 1 hour, 15 minutes to review a 100-page protocol, or is that the Svea appeal on the 24th? Who was at the Svea court on behalf of Assange? Were the defence fully informed there? Were all Assange’s legal rights respected, or did Ny do her usual fast-and-loose with the ethical guidelines of her office? Rixstep has outlined some of the laws Hurtig feels she’s broken; anything pursuable in these:
http://rixstep.com/2/20120806,01.shtml
There’s also an open letter to Anders Perklev (available from the Justice4Assange site’s Action page) that I’ve posted in one of Craig’s blog threads somewhere here, which points out her behaviour around the forensic report does not meet the Swedish Prosecution Authority’s guideline “Objectivity Demand” – I think that’s a definite possibility for bringing some sort of charges against her.
Thoughts, please?
Arbed, et al, I find it fascinating that Marianne Ny is due to retire in January 2013. The president of the Supreme Court here, Lord Nicholas Phillips, retired at the end of September to take up his reward in Qatar. I think they use people about to be retired to take on uncomfortable tasks. Then they reward them for their services.
Orb,
thanks for correcting the impression Arbed gave that this was more or less a certainty. From what you say, it seems a more cautious interpretation would be:
“Marianne Ny becomes eleigible to early retirement in January 2013 when she turns 60, but may stay in office until 65.”
Is that about the gist of it (assuming her birthday is then)?
Other such turning points may be elections – Sweden in ? Sept. 2014.
As an aside to Arbed – please take more care that when you state something in factual terms – “is due to retire” – you stand by that as an assertion of fact. That will let us spend more time on researching new facts…
more to follow soon…
regards
John Goss,
if it is something you take an interest in, I’d appreciate your take on the lecture given by Lord Phillips on judicial independence, complaining about the part funding by the Ministry of Justice, sometime around Feb 2011.
Seeing a reference to this recently by pure coincidence, it raises the question, might this have been a sort of veiled complaint that the Ministry had been using a review of funding as a leverage to exert pressure on them regarding say the upcoming EAW case of Assange?
One wonders if anything encouraged him to brush up on his French?
Isn’t that humiliating to the Monarch/Establishment that English law is now subject to French interpretation?
Aha – but that is due to those foreign EU frameworks, so lets free ourselves from all those and go back to having our own laws…
Which ties back to what Arbed posted about what Cameron said on this.
Hmmm, by golly Eccles, you are onto something… 🙂
Hello Snap, I did bracket my assertion with: (according to Flashback).
Apologies if it wasn’t clear to you that I was quoting a secondary source.
Arbed,
I thought you might bring that up, and hoped you would reflect more on my request, and consider how it might possibly apply, and not try to pick more petty arguments, after having taken up so much time explaining my rhetorical questions to you where you have displayed similar propensities in word use.
I also emphasise the word “impression”.
Of course I saw that, and I resent the implication you try to make about what was not clear to me, since there is more to quoting secondary sources than that. Have you ever written a refereed paper in the scientific literature?
flashback has a solid reputation of reaching decent conclusions, so did you consider that Orb corrected in a very polite way the wrong impressions you had given to avoid further misinterpretations of this in their name?
(PS. this further delays my responding on other questions you made to me.)
Finally back to some research…
On Borgström’s “didn’t even know one could reopen…” quote.
Does someone have a precise reference to a mainstream media report that quotes Claes Borgström making his “gaffe” on the reopening of the investigation. The one where he explains that she/the women (one or both?) didn’t even know one could reopen a preliminary investigation that a prosecutor had already closed.
I know it is mentioned multiple times in Rixstep, I am after a more first hand reference, which is proving hard to find. Perhaps it was mainly on TV. A date of the media event would help. Pity the MSM don’t provide full transcripts.
thanks.