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.
Or better “Anyway among Swedish donors to the Democratic National Committee Services Corporation he made two donations, one of $1000 in 2009 and another $1000 this year.”
JG.
Thanks for sources. Posted on Flashback big assangethread.
Best Regards from Sweden
Duqu here again.
Does anyone here know anything of a Guy J. Sims that is selling his e-book in this case ?
I can only find a 69 year old guy in Texas that never has written a book before.
The data taken in this book is from Flashback and NNN (Al Burke).
Whatever the “service” Guy J. Sims wanted to give the english speaking community, there are already free translates on sites like NNN.se etc, so its clearly that someone just wanted to gain money on Assange´s dilemma.
Wtfuk, thanks.
Duqu, I don’t think Guy Sims is trying to make a lot of money. He would have charged much more if he was. I get the impression he is Swedish (or English). Translation is expensive and time consuming. I was thankful for his book. He does explain that this information was already available in Swedish. I have found it a useful handbook for checking facts but to my mind its biggest service is to those who have no idea about what happened in Sweden. Nobody in the manstream media is allowed to mention the names of Irmeli Krans, Anna Ardin or Sophia Wilen. I just wish more people were coughing up three dollars to pay for it, and more importantly, to read it. Another thing is we don’t know whether he is donating the proceeds, say to Wikileaks. I assume Guy Sims is a nom-de-plume but have no idea of the identity of the author. If I did I would point out a few minor typos to improve it.
Well, both NNN.se and Rixstep.com are in English, and Rixstep was on since day one, while NNN showed up around 1 1/2 year later. Of course I understand your situation as non swedish speaking people, maybe both NNN and Rixstep had a poor public relations to reach out, but as most of the people today use google, the stuff that Guy writes about is already mentioned in the other 2 existing english sites, and also this Guy popped up in september this year, just 2 months ago, that whats make it odd. I just saw that this thread will be closed on dec 10, so whats are your plans then to communicate ?
@Duqu re: thread closing date
As long as there are new posts in this thread the closing date will keep rolling forwards
If anyone doubts there is a really high-level political push to get Assange extradited to the US via Sweden, well take a look at this:
Written by BBC journalist Martin Bentham (and God knows the BBC isn’t very happy with Assange after the embarrassment he’s caused them this week) and appearing in London’s Evening Standard and headlined “Top EU official tells Julian Assange: ‘Just go to Sweden and answer the charges'”:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/top-eu-official-tells-julian-assange-just-go-to-sweden-and-answer-the-charges-8375231.html
Swedish politician Cecilia Malmstrom claims to know very little about the Swedish sex crimes allegations – she simply can’t see why the US would extradite for sex crime allegations: “I don’t believe for a minute that’s why he would go to the US,”
Is she really trying to play that stupid? Nobody, but nobody, has ever thought that the US would attempt to extradite Assange for sex crimes.
But she’s not that dumb at all. This is both clever and nasty.
Here’s a Congressional C-Span video showing Cecilia Malmstrom sitting at the same table as US Attorney-General Eric Holder as he confirms they’ve had “informal talks about Wikileaks” and their supposed threat to “US National Security” at a 9 December 2010 US/EU conference about cyber-security and cyber-crime:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Cybercr
Details:
On 9 December 2010 US Attorney-General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with their European counterparts Viviane Reding, Principal Vice-President of the European Union, EU Council Interior Minister Annemie Turtleboom and Justice Minister Steefan de Clerck, and Cecilia Malmstrom, a Swedish politician currently serving as European Commissioner for Home Affairs to discuss US-EU cyber-security and cyber-crime partnerships. Eric Holder stated:
“We had, I think, informal conversations about the WikiLeaks matter and the concerns that it has raised in the minds of all of us. The hope here in the United States is that the investigation that we are conducting will allow us to hold the people responsible accountable” and “I think that the release of this information has put at risk American National Security, and whatever is to come… will be consistent with the concerns that I have expressed.”
In fact, Cecilia Malmstrom and Eric Holder co-authored an article only yesterday. How chummy…
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-299892-the-borderless-crime-against-children-by-cecilia-malmstrom-eric-holder*.html
I doubt such close and friendly relations between an EU Interior Minister and the US Attorney-General only yesterday are entirely unrelated to the former’s insistence in today’s Evening Standard that Assange MUST go to Swedish to face the (non-existant) charges…
Following on from my previous post, and to further dispel any lingering doubt about Ms Malmstrom’s motives, the date of the conference at which her own “informal conversations” about Wikileaks with the US Attorney-General are confirmed – 9 December 2010 – is only one day after the Independent newspaper confirmed on 8 December 2010:
“Informal discussions have already taken place between US and Swedish officials over the possibility of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being delivered into American custody, according to diplomatic sources”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/assange-could-face-espionage-trial-in-us-2154107.html
Given her own involvement in similar US/EU talks only one day later and her position in Swedish politics, if Cecilia Malmstrom is now claiming to have no knowledge of high-level diplomatic discussions about “delivering Assange into US custody” – and that’s precisely what she is doing in the above Evening Standard piece – then she’s lying through her teeth.
Is there anything we can do to call her out on this? Open letter perhaps? Or anyone able to publicise Malmstrom’s duplicity in Swedish media or blogs?
Arbed. took liberty to post your info on Flashback.
Best regards from Sweden
Wtfuk,
I was hoping you would. Best regards to you too, from this benighted isle.
Nice piece of detective work, Arbed. Why do they not guarantee Assange would not be deported? Why don’t they come to interview him here? It stinks. How anybody can kowtow to the US with its human rights’ record is above me. But it isn’t because I’ve been on this planet a good few years and know what they are up to.
Here is my latest blog on the McCormacs.
http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/breaking-news-on-mccormac-culpability.html
I see there’s to be a Christmas address to the crowds on Thursday, 20 December at 7pm, to mark six months of no-safe-passage-allowed political asylum.
Anyone from Craig’s blog thinking of going down to the embassy for this? Would love to meet up with anyone who is.
Someone posted a comment in Flashback about the possibility of organising a visit to London from Sweden. I wonder if Flashback are treating this as a serious idea? – Again, if any of the Good People of Flashback are thinking of coming over to London, maybe a “Flashback” placard in the crowd would be a good rallying point for those of us who’d like to come up and introduce ourselves, swap email addresses, etc?
Hope the balcony gets decorated with straw, manger, star on high, lowly cattle, etc, for the occasion… 😉 Ok, maybe just some sprigs of holly through the railings…
I found an old article dated 10 December 2010 from ABC News. It shows that Wikileaks lawyers were already hearing from US lawyers that an indictment was imminent (doesn’t actually specify it would be a sealed one, though). Also notable for the outrageous outright lies Claus Borgstrom was putting out in the press at the time. AA and SW were Wikileaks employees? According to Claus Borgstrom, they were. Yeah, right… Look at what he says:
“They were attacked by Mr. Assange and then they are treated like perpetrators themselves,” attorney Claes Borgstrom told ABC News. “He has molested them and then sacrificed them for his own interests.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/assange-lawyers-prepare-us-espionage-indictment/story?id=12362315#.UMhQ4aZw1II
I know that Borgstrom has been reported to the Swedish bar for making prejudicial statements in the press ahead of the never-gonna-happen-in-million-years “trial”, which is illegal under Swedish law, but that was regarding similar statements after Assange’s asylum was granted in August this year. I wonder if this statement to ABC could be added to the report filed against Borgstrom?
There’s been a request to “tell the world” about this one.
The Swedish FOI site Undermattan and another blog specialising in leaks of Swedish Government malfeasance – corruptio.blog.com/ – have both been abruptly closed down. Both are heavily pro-Assange and are venues where crucial information about the Swedish handling of the sex case against Assange has first emerged.
Use Google translate on this page. It gives a list of the names and times of networks visiting the Undermattan site immediately prior to the closure. Very revealing:
https://gnuheter.com/creeper/site/undermattan.com
Here’s the explanation Undermattan received from its host to their enquiry as to why they’d been closed down. The answer was apparently that it was done at the behest of the Swedish Army Special Intelligence unit:
http://callisendorff.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/bloggen-undermattan-com-stand-av-sveriges-regering-precis-som-corruptio-blog-com/
Hmmmm…
Answer to John Goss request for more info about Prime PR:
I don’t know very much about McCormac and Prime, other than what’s been posted on their connections to Karl Rove by Andrew Kreig and the Chilling Me Softly site:
http://www.chillingmesoftly.com/content/rove-reinfeldt-ny-assange-ardin-and-bodstrom
http://www.chillingmesoftly.com/content/six-degrees-karl-rove
…if you haven’t already seen them. Here’s Flashback’s page on Sofia Wilen’s possible connections to Prime PR, which might help your research:
https://www.flashback.org/sp28236066
and another – Flashback pg 1795 (13/1/11) – inc good links for SW connection to Prime PR via her mysterious American boyfriend, Seth Benson:
https://www.flashback.org/t1275257p1795
This might be handy (no guarantees on its accuracy, though) – List of CIA front companies (October 2012):
http://cryptome.org/2012/10/cia-proprietaries-agents.htm
This is just a hunch, but I think the most fruitful place to continue your research on McCormac is to look into a guy called Roland Poirier Martinsson, a Swedish-American who returned to the States recently and seems to have been quietly directing the smear offensive against Assange in Sweden. Details here:
Flashback on Timbro/Roland Poirier Martinsson’s anti-Assange campaign:
https://www.flashback.org/sp39865896
Hope that helps.
Re meeting up at the Swedish Embassy on the 20th, hope you can make it. Have you seen the details of what’s planned? It sounds like it’s going to be fun.
http://wiseupaction.info/2012/12/12/ecuadorian-embassy-thurs-20th-december-6-30-see-ya-there-solidarity-songs-speech/
For Clark, John Goss and those interested, more details on the Swedish Army Intelligence shutdown of the Swedish Freedom of Information sites requesting FOIs regarding the Julian Assange case:
http://rixstep.com/1/20121215,01.shtml
Swedish law says FOIs should be released within one week of request but, strange, the Swedish authorities claim to have no information at all to release concerning Julian Assange and Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, the on-duty prosecutor who issued the initial arrest warrant for “rape” on 20 August 2010 – before either woman had been formally interviewed – and who happens to be married to someone who works in Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask’s office.
Both sites seem to have been shut down as soon as they posted documents revealing the level of censorship they were under:
“We’ve received documents from a similar shutdown of another Swedish blog where we can see in black on white which individuals ands which Swedish agencies are responsible. This blog was also hosted by Blog.com.”
“So we’re convinced we’ve been watched for quite some time by the Swedish cabinet and their friends, and we’re making this information public for the first time.”
“The blog was most likely shut down at the behest of Swedish army intel, the government, and the foreign office. They were all exposed in the documents uploaded immediately prior to the shutdown.”
The names of the Swedish agencies reponsible “in black on white” is, I believe, the first link in my 13 December, 3.01pm post above.
Here’s the official press statement of the censored Swedish FOI site Undermattan, who have done so much to uncover documents relating to the Julian Assange case:
http://rixstep.com/1/20121215,00.shtml
and here’s the SMS messages between the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny’s office and Assange’s then-lawyer Bjorn Hurtig obtained by Undermattan that the press release is referring to. Two lots:
http://www.slideshare.net/swedenversusassange/sms-marianne-ny-and-lejnefors-with-bjorn-hurtig-assange-investigation
and
http://www.slideshare.net/swedenversusassange/assange-investigation-sweden-email-traffic-foi
It would be wonderful if any kindly Swedish-speaking visitors to Craig’s blog could provide us with an English translation of the significant parts of this correspondence.
Arbed, thanks so much for all the work you’ve been doing. I’ve been off Craig’s blog, or at least paying infrequent visits, while I’ve been writing up some of the available knowledge. I’ve had a look at some of the links but like you I do not have the Swedish, and because they are in slideshow format they cannot be put through Google translate. However under the circumstances I think it is well that as many copies are available as possible.
I’m not a vengeful person but I would shed no tears if some of the talented crackers with a conscience brought down a few military computer sites.
Arbed, 15 Dec, 3:54 pm,
I’ve made copies of the scanned documents from your two links to slideshare.com.
All: if you want copies, e-mail me and I’ll send them. The first link yielded twelve .jpg images. The second yielded fifteen. Compressed into a .zip file they come to 1888938 bytes. For my contact details, click on my name.
A new way to donate to Wikileaks – the Freedom of the Press Foundation – without it showing up on credit card or bank statements (tax deductible in the US too) has been set up by such luminaries as Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, John Perry Barlow and Trevor Tim of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Micah Lee and others.
Details here:
Crowd-Funding the Right to Know:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-ellsberg/wikileaks-funding_b_2313376.html
here:
New press freedom group is launched to block US government attacks:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/wikileaks-new-press-freedom-group
and here:
Group Launches to Encourage Transparency & Aggressive Journalism, Help WikiLeaks Survive Blockade:
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/12/16/group-launches-to-encourage-transparency-aggressive-journalism-help-wikileaks-survive-financial-blockade/
Fantastic work, John!
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2012/12/19/how-sweden-collaborated-with-cia-on-renditions-and-framing-of-assange/
I’m at the embassy, please find me
I posted the comment above on an iPhone kindly lent to me by a young woman. Did anyone else attend? I tried holding up a sign reading “craigmurry.org.uk” (sic, misspelt in a rush, much to my shame) and calling through a megaphone, but I didn’t find anyone…
Clark – Oh, bugger. Yes, I was there – on the steps directly opposite the embassy entrance. I did manage to meet up with John Goss and I was looking forward to meeting you (he told me you were there just before he had to rush off to catch a coach home). Never mind, next time, eh?
Arbed, yes, next time. I should have been earlier. I’ve posted a bit more detail at the links below, and thereabouts, as has John Goss:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/12/baghdad-conference-photos/#comment-386588
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/12/baghdad-conference-photos/#comment-386636
So, the complaint to the Swedish Bar Association Disciplinary Committee that Claes Borgstrom behaved corruptly when he colluded with the Supreme Court chief judge Goran Lambertz to skew a television debate about the Thomas Quick case/scandal has failed. The Disciplinary Committee exonerated “our dear Claes Borgstrom”TM of “disloyalty to a former client”:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/borgstrom-slipper-varning-for-mejlen/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.expressen.se/nyheter/borgstrom-slipper-varning-for-mejlen/%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dopera%26hs%3Dftc%26tbo%3Dd%26channel%3Dsuggest%26biw%3D926%26bih%3D661&sa=X&ei=U-zeULLmB-W60QXao4HACQ&ved=0CDYQ7gEwAA
Ah well. Perhaps it’s worth trying to get up a similar complaint against Frederik Werrsall, over this:
Dagens Juridik, 26/11/12: “Draft” to a conviction handed out to members of the Court of Appeal – before the actual court hearing:
http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagensjuridik.se%2F2012%2F11%2Futkast-till-fallande-dom-i-sexualbrottmal-delades&act=url
Only tangentially relevant to the Assange extradition case maybe, but relevant nonetheless as it was Wersall who approved the SVEA Court of Appeal’s upholding of the EAW warrant issued for Assange’s extradition:
https://www.flashback.org/t1275257p4198#goto_sharethis
Not only does this case have a prosecutor who believes it’s a good thing if men are locked up pre-charge (and, in this case, pre-questioning) even if they are subsequently acquited in court it also has an Appeals Court judge who thinks it’s perfectly OK to write out and distribute Guilty verdicts before a court case takes place…
The disciplinary committe was divided. The chairperson, Anne Ramberg and two others wanted to give him a warning. Borgstrom was lucky this time. But his star in Sweden is fading.
Blog post asking some very pertinent questions about Sophie Wilen:
http://darkhorsenet.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/welfare-check-where-are-the-women-in-the-assange-molestation-case/
Arbed wrote:
“This is just a hunch, but I think the most fruitful place to continue your research on McCormac is to look into a guy called Roland Poirier Martinsson, a Swedish-American who returned to the States recently and seems to have been quietly directing the smear offensive against Assange in Sweden. Details here:
Flashback on Timbro/Roland Poirier Martinsson’s anti-Assange campaign:
https://www.flashback.org/sp39865896“.
Roland Poirier Martinsson is very close to Karl Rove. He is also the only person employed by “Timbro mediainstitut”, a conservative PR-Agency which he manages. The way these things work means, I assume, that Rove could have placed a request for RPM to launch a trial by media against Assange in Sweden. Which he did in december/january 2010/2011. The money goes to Timbro Mediainstitut and because it is a business contract noone outside will ever see this.
RPM has now moved back to Texas where he took his degree some years ago.