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.
more on RPM.
He became director of Timbro Mediainstitut in the summer of 2010. He pushed out Billy McCormac who was believed to be the candidate for that job. Billy McCormac instead took up a senior job at Prime PR only a week or so before the rapecase against Assange exploded.
In this TV interview, december 2010, RPM wants to see Assange behind bars
http://www.makthavare.se/2010/12/09/tv-timbro-chef-jag-vill-se-assange-bakom-las-och-bom/
Arbed, Axel, I’m dropping behind a bit here. Just been checking the last two comments to add to the Assange set-up intrigue. I agree Martinssen is an interesting character too. He and McCormac are probably in it up to their elbows. Proving it might be difficult. But certainly Martinssen has both expressed a desire to see Assange in jail and left for the US (either because the task is completed, or rather, I suspect, to get further instructions now the plan has somewhat backfired). Thanks for keeping us up to date.
Arbed, it seems the ‘ha, ha’ comments never really caught on. I felt I was the only one. Then I saw yours. It is one of those things that everyone should be doing to make it a success.
As to the well-written Darkhorsenet.com article I don’t know about Sophia Wilen whereabouts, but Anna Ardin’s blog is still going. It just does not contain much connected with Assange. The seven steps are not there but comments about them are. My guess is that she has been advised not to mention anything to do with the allegations she and Wilen made.
Re-post from
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/01/market-madness/#comment-387636
The Indymedia article was posted at 04.01.2013 18:00, just over 24 hours ago. I have found no other mention about this; nothing in the corporate media, nothing found by Google. Any further info, anyone?
Total hoax Clark, don’t worry about it:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/287631460985344001
However, this is worth worrying about:
http://falkvinge.net/2013/01/04/two-swedes-renditioned-to-the-us-possibly-to-death-penalty-in-secrecy-and-without-lawyers-knowledge/
This 2nd Jan 2013 article in the Independent illustrates better how both the UK and the Swedish governments co-operated ahead of time to serve the political will of the US:
Rendition gets ongoing embrace from Obama administration:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rendition-gets-ongoing-embrace-from-obama-administration-8434963.html
Note the way Britain stripped its own citizen of citizenship to smooth the way. Note the Swedish government’s complete unwillingness to even protect the rights of its own citizens – it just served them up on request (wonder how a non-Swede or Australian would fare…?). Note the existence of a secret Grand Jury indictment handed down months before these individuals were detained in Djibouti – only unsealed just after arrest. And before you say “ah, but they’re terrorists”, note that the UK (ex-)citizen was a Somalian-born care worker working in Britain who filed a formal complaint in 2009 claiming harassment by the MI5 intelligence service, who threatened him with all sorts of trouble if he didn’t become an informant.
For the kind of questions being asked about the legality of this case in Sweden, see this SvD Opinion article:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/ud-bor-forklara-hur-utlamningen-gatt-till_7793002.svd
Not a whole lot of speculation needed to see from the above what would happen to Assange if he went to Sweden. All the better (from their point of view) that the ridiculous sex allegations case is so weak it can be dropped almost instantly in favour of a US request for extradition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/us/new-evidence-to-be-introduced-against-bradley-manning.html?_r=1&
“The prosecutors also said they would present logs of Internet chats in February 2010 between Private Manning and Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, including one in which the two men appeared to be “laughing” together about a New York Times article. The March 17, 2010, article said that the Pentagon had listed WikiLeaks as a threat to military operations and security.”
Manning and Assange laughed in February about an article printed in March? How is that possible?
These chat logs are, presumably, those where the US Govt claims the Nathaniel Frank alias is Julian Assange. There’s a lot of problems with whether those chat logs can be authenticated as not being overwritten at a later date. I’ve said before that Nathaniel Frank – an actual person, btw, a campaigner against the US Army’s policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – doesn’t strike me as an alias that Julian Assange would choose. Maybe Bradley Manning (or an Army “forensic investigator”), but not Assange.
PS to previous post.
Even worse, the US Government is asking the judge to take “judicial notice” (ie, effectively treat as fact) that New York Times articles and a June 2010 New Yorker profile of Assange as authenticating the chat logs. From Alexa O’Brien, one of the few journalists who has covered the Bradley Manning trial in person from Day 1 and who has produced the only close-as-dammit transcript of proceedings:
https://twitter.com/carwinb/status/289076311975145474
Arbed did you notice that the NY Times artilce finished by saying how short of funds Wikileaks is? It says also that Wikileaks is supported by the CIA. To which Assange made a witty response,
“Perhaps the most amusing aspect of the Army’s report, to Mr. Assange, was its speculation that WikiLeaks is supported by the Central Intelligence Agency. “I only wish they would step forward with a check if that’s the case,” he said.
What a travesty though. Poor Bradley Manning. The good are imprisoned while the bad powermongers are imposing all kinds of diabolical crimes on the world.
Truthout article that ties together all the disparate threads regarding the CIA cocaine smuggling plot against Ecuador’s president Correa which, of course, we all first heard about here in Craig’s blog. Craig gets mentioned quite a lot in this. There’s also a VERY intriguing parallel between Swedish accuser Anna Ardin’s association with CIA-backed activity in Cuba and those of the woman accusing Chilean whistleblower Patricio Merybell in the Chile/Ecuador subplot; the recent extraordinary rendition of UK and Swedish citizens to the US from Djbouti; and the rape smears/attempted extradition of Julian Assange – all covered here.
A Tale of Cocaine-trafficking, Sex crime charges, Extraordinary rendition and Julian Assange:
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/a-tale-of-cocaine-trafficking-sex-crime-charges-extraordinary-rendition-julian-assange/
Also details Craig’s and other whistleblowers’ stories of similar sex crime smears, and Craig’s speech outside the Ecuadorian embassy back in the summer. Recommended reading.
And here’s an update from Sweden on the Djbouti rendition story, courtesy of Rixstep. It’s starting to get a LOT of attention in the Swedish MSM. (It’s almost like journos there don’t dare touch on the Assange case, but they are starting to cover this one properly, so the parallels are becoming clear.) Swedish intelligence was following the two Swedish guys for four years but promptly closed their investigation (and therefore any reason to bring them back to Sweden) as soon as the US request came in. Ditto the timing of the UK’s stripping of citizenship from the third suspect looks a bit suspicious:
http://rixstep.com/1/20130112,00.shtml
Cage Prisoners also tweeted this link last night, along with the message “Does the #extradition of Swedish national M.Yusuf to US set a dangerous precedent for #julianAssange?”.
European terrorism suspects secretly held in New York under false names:
http://www.cageprisoners.com/learn-more/news/item/5758-european-terrorism-suspects-secretly-held-in-new-york-under-false-names
Anyone been following the Live Mail Art project? A Swiss artists’ collective, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, posted a package yesterday at noon addressed to Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy. It contained a camera and a GPS tracker which has been uploading pictures every 10 seconds to the Bitnik website. Assange was alerted it was on its way:
Delivery for Mr Assange: http://cryptome.org/2013/01/assange-delivery.htm
The website keeps going down, presumably due to heavy traffic, but the Twitter account is fun:
https://twitter.com/bitnk/
(PS. Yes, it did go via Vauxhall.)
Just thought I’d post these details here too, for anyone who’s interested.
Unfortunately there is a protest planned against Assange speaking at the Oxford Union. The usual sorry mixture of presumed-guilt and woeful ignorance of the facts of the case:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/09/julian-assange-speak-oxford-university-protests_n_2440339.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Backed to the hilt, of course, by the Guardian:
https://twitter.com/santaevita/status/289082517594710016
(note: this woman’s twitter account was set up literally one day before this tweet, so seemingly specifically for this protest. Talk about jumping on bandwagons…)
She refuses to look at any ‘source’ about the case other than David Allen Green’s Legal Myths article in the New Statesman, despite having now been warned that it contained serious factual errors and was later (partially) corrected by Glenn Greenwald, here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/24/new-statesman-error-assange-swedish-extradition
Never mind… what can you do with people like this? As the protest is planned for both Oxford and outside the Ecuadorian embassy, a counter-protest is also planned (a dignified silent vigil). Here’s a factsheet that’s been produced to give out at the counter-protest if anyone fancies shuffling down to Hans Crescent, SW1 on 23 January:
http://wikileaksetc.blogspot.ch/2013/01/fact-sheet-julian-assange-his-asylumand.html
Arbed, please check your Inbox; I’ve started a multiple-recipient e-mail for communication about the meet-up for the vigil.
Thanks Clark – yes, will do later today. Sorry, bit rushed right at the moment. Just got time to post the latest on the Wikileaks Grand Jury.
Some journalists have been digging into the reasons behind the US DoJ’s persecution of Aaron Swartz. First, there’s this:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/13/two-days-before-cambridge-cops-arrested-aaron-swartz-secret-service-took-over-the-investigation/
Not conclusive of anything much, but the involvement of the Secret Service in Swartz’s JSTOR case is odd. I understand it’s well off their patch. Then there’s this:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/18/was-aaron-swartz-effort-to-foia-bradley-mannings-treatment-why-doj-treated-him-so-harshly/
In December 2010 through early 2011 Aaron Swartz was persistently FOIing David House’s visits to Bradley Manning in Quantico. That article includes a handy timeline to bear in mind when reading this Wall Street Journal article, dated 9 February 2011:
Assange probe hits snag:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703313304576132543747598766.html
The Empty Wheel blog is starting to put two and two together, here:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/19/the-six-week-delay-in-the-swartz-investigation/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=the-six-week-delay-in-the-swartz-investigation
And then comes this:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/292503580135538688
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/292503892569239552
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/292504484016439296
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/292504975865692160
Holy Hell!
I’d put my money on the above being to do with the 8 February 2009 Wikileaks release that WL retweeted immediately after the above 4 tweets about Aaron Swartz. That release was a fully up-to-date archive of Congressional Research Service reports:
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Change_you_can_download:_a_billion_in_secret_Congressional_reports
and the reason I think Wikileaks is guessing Aaron Swartz was the source for that (they can’t prove it because their submission system was set up to anonymise leaks by pinging [technical term, that through dozens of different domain servers, shedding metadata as it goes, and keeping no logs) is this article I read a few days ago in the Naked Capitalism blog:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/aaron-swartzs-politics.html
Aaron Swartz interned in Congress in 2009.
The other thing to bear in mind is that it was the Secret Service who were on Aaron’s tail. It’s really worth studying the detail of those links to the Empty Wheel blog I’ve posted above. There’s a wealth of clues in them for peeps who’ve been researching the whole Wikileaks saga and know the background quite well.
The Secret Service, of course, report directly to Barack Obama – at least I think I’m right in saying ‘directly’. They’re in charge of the President’s personal security detail, arn’t they?
This is getting very big, and very juicy. I’m kinda hopeful that this is the turning point, the moment when people start realising just how merciless – and morally bankrupt – the whole Get Wikileaks/Extradite Assange witch hunt is.
The excellent Marcy Wheeler at the Empty Wheel blog appears to be drawing the same conclusions that I am:
First, there’s this where she analyses the US Govt requests for Swartz’s private data held by Google, Twitter and Amazon, despite those companies apparently having nothing to do with the JSTOR case:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/14/what-kind-of-fishing-trip-did-the-government-conduct-into-aaron-swartz-amazon-data/
then she notices the coincidental timing of these subpoenas with similar requests being made in relation to known Wikileaks associates:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/19/the-fishing-expedition-into-wikileaks/
This comment is in answer to something on another thread. I’m copy-posting it here (and the three or four above it) in the hope that someone from Flashback picks it up.
“it seems, not wildly speculative, that a deal was reached, making Aaron either a Witness for Prosecution against Wikileaks, or a CI”
I think this may be wrong. There was no deal reached by the time of Aaron’s death. The prosecution’s offer was plead guilty to all 13 felony charges and do 6 months in jail, or we up the ante (I think I’ve seen mention that the US DoJ would have asked for 7 years if it had gone to trial). The prosecutors were warned not long before Aaron’s death that he was suicidal. Their response was along the lines of “we’ll put him in jail then”.
Aaron did not wish to plead guilty to ANY felony charges. It’s heavy shit being a felon in the US.
All this is not to say that he had not been subpoenaed in the Wikileaks Grand Jury. Glenn Greenwald (while he was still at Salon) stated that the very first witness subpoenaed to the WL Grand Jury (in April 2011, I believe, two months before David House, Tyler Watkins and Nadia Heninger appeared there 15th/16th June 2011) was “an unnamed Cambridge, Mass. resident”. In a later post Greenwald confirmed that this first witness had refused to testify anything other than confirm his name.
David House posted to the net what he claimed was his testimony [Ben, is it even legal for witnesses to publish Grand Jury testimony? I know it’s a criminal offence for prosecutors and jurists]. It consisted of “I invoke [the fifth amendment right to not self-incriminate]“, “I invoke”, “I invoke” etc. It is not known whether he was granted immunity, which would force him to either testify or go to jail. He has become heavily anti-Wikileaks in recent months. Originally, House spoke publicly about being approached by the FBI with offers of money to become an informant on the “Cambridge hacker set” (of which both Bradley Manning and Aaron Swartz were a part). Many people now think David House has become an FBI informant. And he’s not doing much to dispel that idea:
https://twitter.com/anewmath/status/289946013832196098
A man who sees friendship as a commodity, something you can use as trade. Nice friend. Now, why would he be so keen to “ingratiate [him]self with Julian Assange”, I wonder?
…and:
https://twitter.com/anewmath/status/291797617841688576
See Quinn Norton’s (Aaron Swartz’ ex-girlfriend who was subpoenaed by the Grand Jury in his JSTOR case) comment right at the top of this twitter thread. By the logic of that, David House’s own comment, and the fact his published “testimony” is invoking the Fifth, he should be in jail.
Re the reopening of the Swedish case against Assange, does anybody know if it is true this happen because “This dismissal has upset the two women so much that they took a solicitor who went on their behalf to the Swedish courts to advise the prosecution to open it again.”, as claimed in the first comment posted under this article:
http://oxford.tab.co.uk/2013/01/19/christines-compelling-comeback/
Hi Macky,
No, it’s not true. I tried to add a comment to that Tab article, setting out the facts behind Borgstrom’s involvement but my comment didn’t make it past the moderators. Often happens with me… (I’m always polite but certain venues don’t really like people posting facts :))
AFAIK, Anna Ardin phoned Claus Borgstrom on 24 or 25 August 2010, the latter being the day that Eva Finne closed down the investigation into Sophie Wilen’s allegations, leaving only Anna’s “deliberately torn condom” allegation outstanding. Bear in mind the following:
1) Claus Borgstrom’s reputation (or lack of it now, following the Quick scandal) is as a defence lawyer.
2) Borgstrom is on record as publicly stating that “the women” did not even know it was possible to get a closed investigation re-opened.
3) Although Sophie Wilen’s allegation reached the level of seriousness needed to make it a ‘statutory crime’, meaning the State is obliged to prosecute whether the ‘victim’ agrees or not, the sexual molestation allegation of the torn condom does not meet that level, leaving the complainant as the person legally responsible for it.
4) On 21 August 2010 – several days before she telephoned Borgstrom – Anna Ardin had handed in to the police a used-looking, torn condom as evidence to back her allegation that Assange had deliberately ripped it during sex. On later examination by Sweden’s national forensics lab (twice), this condom ‘evidence’ turned out not to have any DNA – male OR female – on it.
4) In Sweden, the making of false allegations is prosecuted as a crime, with a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment (although it is rarely, if ever, used in cases where women make false rape or domestic abuse claims; nevertheless, Anna Ardin is a high profile politician in Sweden, so I doubt she could just slip under the radar).
5) In Sweden, in sex cases, complainants are entitled to the services of a “Counsellor”. This is a State-paid role. Claus Borgstrom applied directly to the relevant authority to be assigned this role and has been paid directly by the State for his services over the last two years.
6) It is now generally known that the ‘official’ leaked Wilen witness statement dated 26 August was heavily doctored by person/s unknown (but the evidence so far points to the culprit being Claus Borgstrom; lawyers in Sweden have the right to ‘amend’ witness statements, as long as it is BEFORE the witness signs it). It has been rumoured that Sophie Wilen made a further witness statement on 2 September 2010, the day after Marianne Ny – at the request of Claus Borgstrom – took over the case. However, in the UK court hearings Ny only produced the 26 August statement. She made reference to Wilen making a later “statement” but she nevertheless elected to use the earlier, unsigned version. Hmmm. All Ny would say was that the “second statement said substantially the same thing” owtte. Then why not use it, eh? In all, this provides strong circumstantial evidence that as at 18 November 2010 Sophie Wilen was still refusing to sign her statement. Borgstrom regularly claims to have spoken to both his “clients”, but only Ardin has ever publicly said anything.
Get my drift here, Macky? Ardin contacted Borgstrom because she knew she might need a defence lawyer in a potential future prosection for making false rape allegations.
Thanks Ardin, for the detailed replied; I’ve not followed all the intricate details, but this new “factoid” seemed very suspect to me; anyhow I see that the Poster who made that first Post has now received a lot of replies pointing out his/her many errors.
For Stjarna Franfalle:
Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir has put in an official nomination for Bradley Manning to get the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize:
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/01/21/bradley-manning-nobel-peace-prize-nomination-2012/
This article’s dated yesterday, but it’s a little confusing because the text of the nomination mentions that Bradley has been incarcerated for “well over a year” when he’s actually been in prison for nearly two and a half years (and still no trial…)
From a review of “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks”, Alex Gibney’s new documentary:
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/we-steal-secrets-the-story-of-wikileaks/5050934.article
“… while also probing the sensationalistic Swedish rape allegations against Assange that coincidentally erupted at the same time. But the film shrewdly squashes the conspiracy theories and reveals the banal truths behind the sex case.
We Steal Secrets is impressively researched, including interviews with nearly everyone involved, from a former CIA director to Assange’s second-in-command to one of the Swedish women who accused Assange of rape. However, the filmmakers did not have direct access to Manning, who is in a military prison, and Assange, who is hiding out in Ecuador’s consulate in the UK.”
Interviewing Anna Ardin? Assange is legally barred from discussing the allegations publicly, so isn’t this film prejudicial to any potential future trial?
When challenged that the title of the film itself “We Steal Secrets” was not only factually wrong, but incredibly prejudicial given the ongoing Grand Jury investigation in the US, Alex Gibney claimed the title was actually a quote from the CIA’s Michael Heyden, who appears in the film at one point. He’s been roasted alive on Twitter for the absurdity of this statement.
Arbed, Bradley Manning’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize reminded me of what an unusual prize it is. It was set up by Alfred Nobel apparently because people were abusing the inventions for which he held patents, dynamite and detonators, which were being used for nefarious purposes like blowing up banks and stage-coaches. As with nuclear weapons once invented these things cannot be uninvented.
What is surprising most of all is the people to whom it has been awarded, a curious mix of real peacemakers and out-and-out warmongers. Nobel was a freemason and all Nobel award winners, not just the peace prize winners, consist of a top-heavy brigade of the brethren of the firm handshake. For this reason alone I think the chances of Bradley Manning winning are very slim. He has already won many awards where the vote has been left to the public and my own feeling is there should be some kind of award like the Noble People’s Award for Peace.
Though I am never likely to be nominated for a Nobel prize in any category, if I were, a question I would have to ask myself is whether or not I would like to join the company of people like Sadat and Begin and Obama. It is a burdensome question.
For Arbed, regarding: Alex Gibney’s documentary, “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks”.
Cryptome’s view of the film “We’re averse to participating further in the Wikileaks exploit[ation film, ‘We Steal Secrets’]”. Young & Natsios, seems to conform to WikiLeaks opinion. Both went through a process of participation are finally rejected offers to take part. http://cryptome.org/2013/01/wikileaks-jigsaw.htm
Further, I don’t believe that a filmmaker can make such stunning omissions by ‘happenstance’ (the ongoing U.S. Dept’ of Justice investigation and looming indictment). His view on the Stockholm affair seem naive and blinked, speaking of which; the inappropriateness of one of Julain’s accusers yet again appearing in the media is beyond description. Quite why accusers (especially regarding such serious and sensitive allegations) who engage in such morally questionable behavior are not named in the MSM, when those they accuse have to endure a permanent associate with unproven accusations and are unable to legally respond – does not seem fair – at all.
Finally, did Gibney bother to ask the main question? Why the Swedish prosecutor continues to refuse (without giving any explanation of her reasoning) to interview Julian in London under the standard Mutual Legal Assistance Framework? Because we need an answer to this..
Hi Stjarne, nice to see you here!
And as Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt struggles to cover up the fact that he’s lied that Sweden didn’t make “an informal agreement” to allow the extraordinary rendition of the two Swedes from Djbouti to the US, news about what’s happened to the British ex-citizen (courtesy of Theresa May)has come out.
British man who ‘vanished’ after being stripped of citizenship says he was tortured and forced to sign a confession by the CIA:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265185/British-man-vanished-stripped-citizenship-claims-tortured-forced-confess-CIA.html
So, it would be impossible for the Swedish government to agree to Assange’s onward extradition to the US because it’s against Swedish law to extradite to countries which torture? Yeah, right.
Anyone here know a ‘person of influence’? Someone’s done a brilliant open letter asking for action to protect Assange, which can easily be adapted for any recipient you fancy sending it to:
http://cyklistbhriste.blogspot.ie/2013/01/my-open-letter-to-person-of-influence.html
Hi Arbed! Information regarding Alex Gibney’s ‘sources’ for the documentary, “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks”.
Mirrors of Distortion – Cases of the Old Media: Vendetta against WikiLeaks, the ‘Liberal’ Press &a Threatened History:
http://marthamitchelleffect.org/#/cases-of-the-old-media-2/4572966061
Finally!
The Oxford Union appears to have relented and put up Julian Assange’s speech at the Sam Adams awards ceremony. I reckon the fuss must have been about Wikileaks’ use of Collateral Murder as a backdrop because the green screen here has been replaced with the Oxford Union’s logo but you can still see Collateral Murder behind Assange in the long shots from the auditorium.
It’s a great speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vQNWYnQjUE&feature=youtu.be
Hi Stjarne, that’s a great article you’ve done there. I read it yesterday and was really impressed. Thanks for including that snippet of one of my comments in the Guardian on the issue – it’s frustrating sometimes that there’s just not the space in a comment to a newspaper article to get all the relevant info, evidence and context about something you know really, really well to include it all. But you’ve certainly solved that problem with your article. Well done, it’s a corker!
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Hi everybody,
Remember how I said that the diary of the on-duty prosecutor, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, who first issued an arrest warrant for Julian Assange on the night of 20 August 2010 had disappeared? She ordered Assange’s arrest for ‘rape’ before either woman had formally given statements and then – illegally – leaked his name to the press.
“Sorry, it’s disappeared” was what was first claimed by the Swedish Prosecution Authority when a Freedom of Information request was filed for MHK’s official diary. (In Sweden, it is a legal duty for all prosecutors to keep a diary of their official activities. Well, apparently it’s now been ‘found’ again, but look at the state of it:
http://rixstep.com/2/1/20130127,01.shtml
It’s for the wrong date – 21 August and not 20 August – and it’s completely blank (ie. whited-out, censored) except for the date/time at the top and the phrase “New contact in the afternoon”.
Here is Marianne Ny’s personal response to the FOI citing the Secrecy Act as a reason to not release the information, also translated by Rixstep:
http://rixstep.com/1/20130127,00.shtml
Rixstep does a wonderful job of explaining the full significance of placing this material under the Secrecy Act, but there’s one detail he leaves out here. It is known that Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand made her decision on the basis of “several phone calls”. The details would, of course, be in MHK’s diary but she may have spoken to Linda Wassgren, the policewoman on reception duty at Klara police station, and to Mats Gehlin at the Family Violence Unit, who became the lead police investigator reporting directly to Marianne Ny, who is officially Chief Investigator on this case (I’ll never understand how the Supreme Court managed to convince themselves Ny was an ‘impartial judicial authority’ with a title like that…).
The other person who Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand may have spoken to on that fateful day, of course, was her husband, an official working for Beatrice Ask, Minister of Justice. Rixstep shows just how close this could make Carl Bildt, Swedish Foreign Minister, to this initial, otherwise nonsensical, decision to arrest Assange with the information available at 5pm exactly on 20 August. The detail Rixstep leaves out is that MHK’s husband was actually with Carl Bildt in person at that exact time. Both were attending the annual Harpsund party at the Prime Minister’s summer residence. Someone from Flashback kindly supplied photographs of the event, which are somewhere further back – page 5 or page 6, I think – in the Why I’m Convinced Anna Ardin is a Liar thread:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-6/#comments
I’ve been asked for an update on the state of public opinion in Sweden about Assange and whether there are any calls there for greater transparency about the case.
Well, opposition to the Swedish Prosecution’s stance IS building over there and more critical articles are starting to appear in some of the more established blogs. One or two even in the MSM. In fact, sentiment about Assange does now seem to be shifting, and shifting quite rapidly, in Sweden. The levels of secrecy and obfuscation around the recent extraordinary rendition of two Swedish-Somalian citizens has made a lot of people wake up to the facts that Assange’s fears on onward extradition to the US are very well-grounded. Here’s a great example, from yesterday (use Google translate):
http://www.etc.se/ledare/swartz-slogs-var-skull
Maria-Pia Boethius is a highly regarded Swedish feminist and she agrees Assange is at clear risk if he goes to Sweden.
Or, to save the bother of translating through Google, here’s Rixstep’s translation of the above:
http://rixstep.com/2/1/20130127,00.shtml