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.
Hi John,
Yes, absolutely sure. Prior to Assange’s case EAW’s in the UK were invalid. It was mentioned at the High Court appeal that there had been 60 previous appeals on the basis that the subject had not been charged. I don’t know the details of those appeals – whether they had succeeded or failed – but Justice Thomas just waved his hand and refused permission for that aspect of the case to be taken to the Supreme Court. That’s why only the issue of whether an investigating prosecutor was an impartial judicial authority was considered “a point of general public importance”, because that question had simply never come up in previous appeals.
But, yes, I am 100% certain that Assange’s case set new precedents on both issues. Arbitrary (and decidedly twisted) decision-making by the UK courts in this highly politicised case is precisely what gives these new precedents ‘standing’.
Contrast with Ireland’s Supreme Court, who refused to extradite Ian Bailey on this exact issue. He was wanted in France for questioning and had not been charged. The Irish court therefore ruled that an EAW could not be used against him:
http://nolet.com/article/bailey-case-highlights-extradition-flaws
were invalid < for questioning only. Sorry.
Thanks for that information Arbed and thanks for the link concerning Ian Bailey.
Looks like Obamas choice of going to Sweden, as a protest against Russia and Snowden, is a big lie.
It got public on the 7 of August, Carl Bildt claims that he spoke to Obama a couple of days before.
Today, swedish military is placing mobile radar-stations in the center of Stockholm, to protect Obama.
But there is a catch, swedish military was checking the same position on july 2 for it´s radarsystem, as choosen today to protect his hotel from being attacked by missiles. It was recorded in july 2nd by an amatur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouc1MBLQVck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SMpR0rUDAk
So we can rule out Snowden as the source for Obamas late re-arragement, its gets more chilling that the Syrian conflict may was planned way ahead of what we know so far.
Here’s hoping Obama gets a little surprise during his visit to Stockholm on Wednesday…
Today Wikileaks announced that it is filing a lawsuit in Sweden demanding an investigation into illegal FBI/intelligence activities against Wikileaks, and will be filing a further three similar lawsuits in other jurisdictions. There’s an 186-page affidavit by Julian Assange, of which so far they’ve made public the first 50-odd pages (without the appendices):
http://wikileaks.org/Press-Release-WikiLeaks-Launches.html
Affidavit:
Pdf: http://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/Swedish_Unlawful_Seizure_Complaint2013.pdf
Online: http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavit_of_Julian_Assange.html
Only managed a brief skim through as yet, but at the end the affidavit requests Swedish police to use the opportunity of Obama’s visit to question him and/or US Govt officials in his delegation about the illegal intelligence operations. Hah! Now that’s what I call chutzpah.
There’s also explosive stuff about the Swedish investigation in it. I’ll put the most obvious bit (well, obvious to me after a brief look, anyway) in a separate post below.
Ok, here we go. Paragraph 97 of Assange’s affidavit – http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavit_of_Julian_Assange.html – contains translations of Sofia Wilen’s SMS messages from the police station on the day the women first visited police to get advice about HIV tests, or so they say. A footnote explains that his Swedish lawyers were allowed to view, but not copy, this suppressed evidence and these translations are taken direct from his lawyers email of 8 December 2011.
What in hell was going on at Klara police station on 20 August? AFAIK, the women arrived at 2pm and Sofia Wilen’s formal interrogation with Irmeli Krans did not start until 4.21pm – and the only person we *know* the women talked to between those times is Linda Wassgren – yet here is Wilen saying at 2.26pm TWO HOURS BEFORE she is formally interviewed she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange but that the police were keen on getting a grip on him”… ?
Sorry, but this sounds like bullshit to me. It’s only 20 minutes after she first walked into the station. (How long does it take for a policeman to say “sorry love, the police can’t force someone to take HIV tests”?) Believe me, reporting a rape is an arduous and lengthy business and the police do NOT generally start taking the whole thing uber-seriously within the first 20 minutes. And she could easily have walked straight out the station before any formal i/v if she genuinely wanted to avoid “putting any charges on JA” and could see the police were taking things further than she wanted.
I’ve just noticed something else. If Sofia Wilen’s 2.26pm SMS is deeply suspect because it was 2 hours before her formal interview, well the second SMS makes no sense at all. The time of the SMS given in this affidavit is 17.06. The duty prosecutor issued the warrant for Assange at 5pm precisely (see the UK Supreme Court’s Agreed Facts for confirmation of this) but Wilen’s interview with Krans was not terminated until 18.42 – directly after someone stuck their head round the door to inform them FOR THE FIRST TIME that the warrant had been issued. At that point, so Krans records on the witness statement Wilen became too “distressed” at this news to continue the interview. How, therefore, can she send an SMS only minutes after a warrant is issued in another part of the building (I’m assuming her formal Krans interview would be conducted in a private interview room rather than directly in front of the duty prosecutor’s desk…) where she says she ALREADY KNOWS ABOUT THIS WARRANT. Wilen’s interview started at 16.21pm and continued until 18.42pm – so, unless she was given breaks to wander around the police station and text her friends, it is impossible that SW would know about the warrant until at least 18.30ish.
My personal view is that both of these SMSs are part of Sofia Wilen setting up her alibi against false allegation charges. It’s all of a piece with other inconsistencies in her story: saying that she didn’t know she’d been a victim of a crime (that’s in her Krans statement) until speaking to friends, but she seems not to have phoned any of them until AFTER she had visited TWO hospitals on Tuesday 17 August (why? surely the first one gave her HIV test or morning-after pill, if that’s all she was after. And why go to a hospital AGAIN on the Friday morning, 20 August); phoning her old boyfriend Seth up “out of the blue” specifically to talk about Assange and “rape”; etc etc I still believe she told Linda Wassgren, the first police officer the women spoke to, Assange had deliberately torn a condom – the “popping balloon sounds in the night” Mats Gehlin notes on the forensic report that Wilen had reported at some point – and Anna Ardin backed her up (as she tells Donald Bostrum, according to his statement) then she changed her story for Krans, and got out the station fast via playacting “distress” on hearing about the warrant.
It’s great that these SMSs have come out. They add a whole new layer of inconsistency to the very, very start of the story – the actual report of the women to the police. I wonder if George Galloway can be pursuaded to now release the rest of the 22 that he says he’s got?
Yes, the texts at 14.26 and 17.06 are oddly timed. Could there be something wrong with the timing? The texts must be given in local Swedish time, surely?
The content of the first text seem inconsistent with Linda Wassgren’s memo, which claims that everyone was very much in agreement that it was rape. Or, it is possible, that it took half an hour to convince Sofia to be in agreement?
The second, if the time is correct must mean that Irmeli Krans interrupted the questioning to let Sofia send her text. Odd. Very odd. If the text is correctly reported (in the mail from the lawyer) it means we have got something very wrong.
Could the second mail have been fabricated by someone else in some way to give her a better story to tell afterwards…
Hi Axel,
Good questions. Personally, I’m pretty sure that if Assange is including these SMS in an formal affidavit in a lawsuit (to be presented to the Swedish police by the very same lawyers who wrote that email, having seen the SMS evidence) that they will be damn sure they’ve got the times the SMS were sent right.
On your point about Linda Wassgren’s memo, two things: it doesn’t give precise timings, IIRC, and “everyone agreed it was rape” DOES fit my theory that Sofia Wilen DID deliberately intend to report rape (as her new lawyer Massi Fritz accidentally let slip) by telling her story of “the sound of someone pulling on a balloon” and finding a condom fragment under the bed. That, of course, does not exclude that Sofia Wilen might also at the same time have been furiously sending “decoy” SMSs to her friends claiming innocence and being “railroaded” by police in order to avoid eventual prosecution for making false allegations.
Well, the whole story stinks !
the text one more below:
did not want to put any charges on JA but that the police were keen on getting a grip on him (14:26)
she was “chocked when they arrested JA because she only wanted him to take a test (17:06)”
she wrote at 07:27 on 21 August 2010 that she “did not want to accuse JA for anything”;
and at 22:25 that “it was the police who made up the charges”
The interview was conducted 14:43 till 18:40CET by Irmeli Krans, where Irmeli states that she ended it as Sofia got so upset over Julians arrest. Sofia knew by the sms at 17:06 that Julian was to be arrested but she continued the hearing until 18:40CET, thats 1 hr and 34 minutes AFTER she gets the info. This also means that the police informed here during the hearing directly of the upcoming arrest, 17:06 matches the internal paperwork from the police.
Both the policewoman Irmeli Krans and Sofia are lying in this matter.
If Julian had released these timings erlier, it could have helped him a lot !
Hi Duqu
“17:06 matches the internal paperwork from the police.”
Can you explain a bit more exactly what you mean by this? Which bits of internal police paperwork confirm this timing please?
Duqu,
Yes, I agree the timing of the second SMS – the 17.06 one – does allow for the possibility of collusion between Sofia Wilen and the police (or the intelligence services??), but it is also possible that Sofia somehow surrepticiously sent a short text message without Irmeli Krans necessarily being aware of what she was writing. The main question either way is “How did Sofia Wilen know that the duty prosecutor had issued a warrant six minutes after the fact?”
How is news of these SMS timings being viewed in Flashback? Can I ask my usual favour please – can you repost my 11.13pm post [not in spoilers – they’ll ignore it] into Flashback, to fire up the discussion a bit?
Another juicy morsel from Julian Assange’s affidavit – http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavit_of_Julian_Assange.html – requesting a criminal investigation in Sweden.
In paragraph 115, Assange describes arriving at Arlanda airport “shortly after noon” on 27 September 2010. He goes on to say in the following paragraphs that he could not get a ticket for the early afternoon flight and was forced to hang around for the flight at 17.25, despite knowing that the airport was likely monitored by intelligence agencies (para 118). Check-in for that later flight would not have opened until approx 15.25 and Assange sets out how, as part of his personal counter-intelligence practices, he doesn’t buy his flight tickets until the very last moment.
Guy Sim’s book Julian Assange in Sweden – what really happened details how Marianne Ny herself confirmed the timing of the arrest warrant she issued on 27 September in response to an email query (the arrest warrant that, notoriously, the Swedish Prosecution Authority’s website is extremely coy about – their timeline for the whole of September 2010 simply reads “September 2010. Julian Assange arrested in his absence. The investigation continues.”):
Paragraph 74 of Julian Assange’s affidavit deals with the Australian government’s public confirmation that they would explore the possibility of cancelling his passport, but that this idea was ultimately rejected. The accompanying footnote (87) says:
So, at 15.25pm or thereabouts, Assange’s passport at the check-in counter would have “set off alarms” and would have “triggered” a law enforcement process, ie in this case prompt arrest. Except it didn’t. Instead it seems to have “triggered” an intelligence operation which deleted all trace of his luggage from the baggage-handling computer systems. I wonder if that 14.15 arrest warrant was meant to trigger that latter process?
Flashbackers, other interested Swedish folk – is there any kind of Freedom of Information request you can think of which might draw out what was written on this arrest warrant? What FOI requests have been put in so far?
Another interesting juxtaposition to emerge fairly clearly in Assange’s affidavit is this:
The following day, 14 August, Assange gave a talk at a seminar about Wikileaks Afghan War Diaries publications. Sofia Wilen attended the seminar, although no one can quite work out how she managed to get a ticket as the seminar was already sold out. Assange accompanies her to her apartment on 17 August, refusing her suggestion that they go to a hotel instead.
18 August 2010, it must be remembered, was the day that Assange applied for Swedish residency, something that was required in order to register Wikileaks as a Swedish publication and thereby gain protection under Sweden’s exemplary source protection laws.
The affidavit goes on
On 18 October 2010 Assange’s residency request was turned down by the National Migration Board, very usually and without explanation. There’s an error in this report concerning the identity of various prosecutors but the facts about the residency permit are correct:
http://www.thelocal.se/29684/20101018/
Not really hard to guess which Swedish institutions applied pressure on the Migration Board regarding Assange’s application. The real puzzle is where – or if – Sofia Wilen’s (mis)adventures fit into this.
We all know what happened on 20 August 2010. But we still don’t know whether it was Wednesday 18 August or Thursday 19 August when Sofia Wilen first phoned up Anna Ardin and talked her into accompanying her to the police station.
Breaking news.
Remember the kerfuffle when Sofia Wilen’s new lawyer Elizabeth Massi Fritz (also the Swedish Prime Minister’s ‘family’ lawyer) released a strongly worded press release to the international media demanding that Sweden get tough with Ecuador to force Assange’s extradition for questioning? Then, embarrassingly, it was noticed there were actually two press releases, saying contradictory things. The second press release – the one stating that Sofia Wilen HAD originally intended to file a rape report – was ante-dated and the international and domestic versions of the presser swapped.
Well, now that – even more embarrassingly – some of Sofia Wilen’s text messages from the Klara police station on the actual day of her visit – have come into the public domain via Assange’s affidavit concerning the illegal seizure of his luggage from Arlanda airport that second press release has been removed from Massi Fritz’ website entirely. Here’s a Google translate of a post by the sharp-eyed Flashbacker who first noticed it:
https://www.flashback.org/sp45074241
See my post above – 2nd Sept, 11.13pm – for what Sofia Wilen’s SMS messages reveal she said on the day. Here are two more she sent the following day, also reproduced in the affidavit:
Quite the contrast! Perhaps Sofia Wilen’s new lawyer should have a word with her client, so they can get her story straight?
One of the best articles on the latest Wikileaks release, Spy Files 3, from PrivacySOS. This one actually explains in simple terms what some of the products these security contractors sell to governments and corporations actually do:
http://privacysos.org/node/1172
What I find most interesting in this Wikileaks release is the new(?) WLCIU – the Wikileaks CounterIntelligence Unit, busy tracking which countries these private security contractors’ salesmen visit – repressive regimes and (supposed) democracies alike. Aside from the delicious irony of the spooky types who are selling out entire populations getting a taste of their own medicine, it’s interesting stuff to see who visited where and when, and how that correlates with forthcoming elections, sudden and massive interference with net access in particular countries, and such like. The WLCIU data released in the Spy Files 3 seems to have been acquired via cell phone tracking done by Bugged Planet. That’s Andy Muller-Muguhn’s (co-founder of the CCC) outfit, IIRC.
Very good work, Arbed. Look at this:
https://twitter.com/rixstepnews/status/375589473951551490
The picture is getting very clear now. US- UK- Sweden work closely together in global surveillance of people and governments.
Of course Assange was always a threat to this. Of course, the Swedish Government under Reinfeldt/Bildt tried to stop him from settling down in Sweden in 2010.
http://www.thelocal.se/50096/20130906/
http://www.thelocal.se/50102/20130906/
http://www.thelocal.se/50114/20130906/
The Swedish police have now confirmed that they are opening a formal police investigation into the suspected illegal seizure by an intelligence agency/ies of Wikileaks encrypted laptops containing evidence of a US war crime from Assange as he was leaving Sweden (with permission) on 27 September 2010.
http://wikileaks.org/Sweden-Formally-Initiates.html
Flashbackers / Swedish peeps
Can anyone find out for me who is the prosecutor in charge of this new investigation into the missing laptops? (I assume this preliminary investigation is not one where the suspected crime is deemed minor enough for the police themselves to lead the investigation and a prosecutor will be in charge.)
Also, I understand that various people who were prominent in the 20 August preliminary investigation have now moved/been moved from their original jobs. It would be really handy to know where the following people are now, and what are their current job titles:
Mats Gehlin
On-duty prosecutor Marie Kjellstrand
Linda Wassgren
Ewa Olofsson
Sara Wennerblom
Anyone else who’s moved since? I believe Eva Finne now has a new role too; remind me what that is, please. And where’s Irmeli Krans nowadays?
If I’m reading this link correctly (supplied by Flashbacker Groink – use Google translate), then under Swedish law, if Assange is to be prosecuted (all prosecutions? – even ones based in the US?) he must be notified if any evidence has been obtained by surveillance/interception. However, there are a whole heap of exemptions – “terrorist” crimes, “major” crimes, etc. The outcome of the Swedish investigation into the suspected seizure of Assange’s laptops at Arlanda airport may render any evidence obtained that way that winds its way through to the US Wikileaks Grand Jury inadmissable in court.
http://www.notisum.se/rnp/sls/lag/19420740.HTM#K27P31
Groink’s post on the matter: https://www.flashback.org/sp45142379
I think that may be right. On the advice of his US lawyers, Assange’s affidavit already confidently asserts that the Icelandic evidence obtained by the FBI through ‘Siggi’ is inadmissable, because the Icelandic Parliament has already declared the FBI actions there “illegal”.
And the same thing is said about the possible outcome of the German affidavit – Martin Hosbrough’s evidence against Chelsea Manning will be used in Manning’s appeal against her “wanton publishing” conviction if, as a result of Germany’s investigation of Assange’s lawsuit, Hosbrough’s surveillance of Assange at the 2009 CCC convention is deemed illegal under German law. That would make it inadmissable under US law and it should not have been used in Manning’s case.
Damn, they’ve thought through the effects of these affidavits very, very carefully. I’m impressed. Can’t wait for the other two still to come. 🙂
Question:
Even if the formal Swedish preliminary investigation now opened is closed down again promptly with a “no result” (ie. opening one is a purely face-saving manoeuvre), doesn’t the mere fact that the issue has been formally raised in a lawsuit affidavit make it impossible for the US DoJ to use any evidence obtained via clandestine seizure at Arlanda in any US court action further down the line, because they will have to disclose how they came by it – and then this affidavit about the admissability of that evidence kicks in?
If so, clever – very clever.
Good article on the inconsistencies in Sofia Wilen’s story and evidence:
http://www.marthamitchelleffect.org/censoringthelastparagraph/4579229896
I hope this gets a decent amount of pick-up, or gets tweeted widely – it gives a good overview of the switch-and-bait that [both SW and] Marianne Ny did when she took this “investigation” international. It is not only an international readership that has been misled by Marianne Ny’s characterisation of the case on the EAW but, in deliberately ignoring this evidence she already had on the desk in front of her, the international courts too.
Coo-ee, Flashback! I think I’ve turned up something interesting. There was an article about the Fifth Estate movie in Buzzfeed yesterday:
Why The Benedict Cumberbatch-Julian Assange Movie Doesn’t Address The Rape Case
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jordanzakarin/the-fifth-estate-bill-condon-julian-assange-movie-rape
I want to draw your attention to a discussion I got into in the comments underneath the article with someone called “nalnlaus” [here’s their full contribution, for ease of reference: http://www.buzzfeed.com/nafnlaus%5D. I’ll highlight the bit I think is particularly interesting.
Is this the first confirmation that we have had that Linda Wassgren and Mats Gehlin heard the same story at the same time (ie. TWO women, TWO “deliberately torn”/”noises like someone pulling a balloon” condoms – AA tells us it was the fact that, after her one-sentence intervention, two women had a “similar” story about the same man that made it a “formal complaint”), and prior to the formal interview by Irmeli Krans?
This commenter is quite specific about the order of decisions in their post, and is definitely asserting that Wassgren and Gehlin reached the same decision together. Did we previously know that Mats Gehlin was an “investigating officer” this early in events? – I had thought he was in the Family Violence Unit and was consulted by telephone, not that he was an on-the-spot investigator alongside Linda Wassgren.
As you can see by the link to Nafnlaus’ comments above, they have a very, very detailed knowledge of the Swedish investigation. I am trying to think who else might know these kind of details of the exact events and personnel present during the very early hours of the women’s visit to Klara station, other than someone who was on the spot at the time… 😉
There’s definitely something radical changing in the allegations between Wassgren/Gehlin, then Krans, then Finne for them all to reach such different conclusions – and the changes are specifically to do with the number of “rapes”.
By the way, I think nafnlaus is attempting a little sleight of hand here, as they conflate the “first” (ie. duty) prosecutor – 1x, 2x, 2x – with the other “first” prosecutor (ie Eva Finne) – 1x, 2x, 0x. And that last bit is also a lie, of course – Eva Finne reduced the investigation to one count of molestation only, which I guess would be 0x, 1x, 0x.
And then there is, of course, the oddity of which allegation, exactly, Eva Finne had in mind with that final 1x count of “molestation, non-sexual”. It has never made sense that when Mats Gehlin interrogated Julian Assange he focused exclusively on the ripped condom incident – the incident alleged by Ardin could never be described as “non-sexual”; Eva Finne’s outstanding matter to be investigated was more likely “molestation-ripped the necklace from my throat”, or something.
But Mats Gehlin’s thinking makes a lot more sense if the first story he heard was The Tale of Two Broken Condoms. He’s a policeman, so a “policeman’s nose” might tell him the first story he heard is likely to be closest to the truth and, if he’d been sufficiently convinced by the women’s “enquiry” as Linda’s Wassgren’s fellow “investigating officer” during those first two hours on 20 August, all his subsequent actions have some logical sense:
1. He’s confused by Eva Finne dropping the case. He writes a memo grumbling about her telling him to drop it. (Is it possible that he doesn’t even see Wilen’s formal statement to Krans before it gets biked to Finne’s country cottage over the weekend and the first time he sees how different Sofia Wilen’s formal statement turned out from the Tale of Two Broken Condoms he heard is days later?)
2. He sends Wilen’s 20 August statement to Claes Borgstrom on 25 August for the “necessary changes” to be made, and orders Irmeli Krans to input them to Durtva the next day (under protest, we know). This doesn’t sound quite so corrupt if we consider he may be just baffled that Wilen has “forgotten” to mention what to him was the most crucial incident – the “sound like someone pulling on a balloon, she didn’t see the condom broke because it was dark in the room” – in the middle of her night with Assange. He’s expecting Borgstrom to fill in these details to his client’s statement. I believe it’s quite legal for counsel to “correct” mistakes in statements in this way in Sweden.
3. He sends Sofia Wilen’s condom fragment along to the lab with Ardin’s “torn” condoms the same day he makes Wilen’s statement available to Borgstrom, 25 August. Quite logical, to him – never mind that Finne closed it down because of the “mistake” of Wilen “forgetting” her popping balloon noises – it’s still the same case: The Tale of the Two Broken Condoms. The most important thing to find out is WHEN and WHERE the Wilen condom came into the police custody chain. On the form sending them to the lab Ardin’s condom says “produced/location/time”, Wilen’s just says “produced” with nothing else.
4. Despite now knowing the “necessary changes”/26 August version of Wilen’s statement still doesn’t include Wilen’s story indicating Assange is some weirdo who deliberately “rapes” women by damaging condoms, Gehlin’s “policeman’s nose” still tells him that’s the heart of the story and when he interrogates Assange on 30 August about Ardin’s torn-condom allegation (not a “molestation, non-sexual” matter, I’d say) he twice asks about a “sound” he claims Ardin heard, though her statement simply says “from the sound, she thinks he removed the condom” – not exactly enough to make Gehlin say “sorry to nag, but I want to go back to the ‘sound’ thing” (paraphrase from JA witness statement). Gehlin is clearly trying to elicit any information he can get about “popping balloon” or other weird rubbery noises.
5. It’s not until he phones the SKL forensics lab on 20 October and hears that there’s no trace of DNA on Ardin’s condom he starts wondering some more about the Tale of Two Broken Condoms he first heard two months earlier. He immediately jots down his recollection of what Complainant 1 [Wilen] said about the “sound of someone pulling a balloon, but she didn’t see a condom broke as it was dark in the room”, and where the condom fragment was found. The day after the results themselves come back Wilen is reinterviewed yet again, 26 October (by Gehlin? do we have any confirmation about who interviewed her on this occasion?), and the day after that Gehlin interviews Wilen’s friend Marie Thorne, mainly about SMS text messages mentioning going to the newspapers, making money and revenge (27 October).
I’ll repeat: The most important thing to find out is WHEN and WHERE the Wilen condom came into the police custody chain. On the form sending them to the lab, Ardin’s condom says “produced/location/time”, Wilen’s just says “produced” with nothing else. In his notes on the forensics report Gehlin says the condom fragment was “found under the bed” – but is that Wilen saying she found it there, or the police did? Surely, if it was the police who either found it in Wilen’s apartment, or received it from her there, there would be the same “produced/location/time” details noted as for Ardin’s condom when sending it off to the lab?
Does just “produced” for Wilen’s fragment mean she herself handed it in to Wassgren/Gehlin at Klara on 20 August, but that neither of them thought to tell Finne about this physical evidence because they both assumed it would be mentioned in Wilen’s statement biked over to her? But it wasn’t. So, by the time Gehlin sends Wilen’s condom fragment off for analysis, Finne has closed Wilen’s case and he can’t therefore put too many details against it because it’s on Ardin’s ticket.
Actually, missed a bit
4.a – When Marianne Ny is giving Bjorn Hurtig all that run-around between 8 and 21 September as he’s trying to fix up a time for Assange to be interviewed about the resurrected Wilen/Ardin allegations, is the fact that she insists there is only one policeman able to conduct it, and he’s off sick, related to the fact he’s the ONLY senior “investigating officer” who actually heard The Tale of Two Broken Condoms from BOTH Wilen and Ardin on 20 August, ie Wilen’s report of the mysterious “pulling balloon” noises? What if the two of them, Gehlin and Ny, each for their own reasons – Gehlin, because that’s what he first heard; Ny, because Wilen/Ardin’s matching ‘torn condom’ allegations are exotic enough to make a great test case for her Sex Crimes Development project – are keen to push The Tale of Two Broken Condoms as the basis of the case, but they are frustrated/baffled because they have nothing much on it anywhere else in the documented evidence (at least at that stage in early September 2010). But they know what Gehlin heard… Perhaps there’s something in the unredacted version of Linda Wassgren’s 22 August memo to Eva Finne, but that’s quite short so there’s likely not much about Wilen’s “balloon noises” there either.
If Wilen has omitted the “pulling balloons” incident from her statement to Krans, then from the “necessary changes” to the 26 August version, then refused to confirm it in her 2 September statement (Ny to UK court: “it says essentially the same thing as the earlier statement”), and there’s no mention of it in any of her friends’ statements or her phone/text records (which we know were requisitioned on 10 September), then they have a problem that only Mats Gehlin is ‘qualified’ to tease out of any interview with Assange about Wilen.
The four SMS messages from Wilen on 20 and 21 August from Marianne Ny’s suppressed trove of 100 that have now come out in Assange’s laptops seizure affidavit would seem to indicate that Wilen was using text messages as “decoys” from her actual intent to maliciously report Assange for “rape” and to set up her “I was only asking about HIV” alibi. So, I think the above idea that Gehlin/Ny were stumped between 8th and 21st September by the lack of evidence to prove The Tale of the Two Broken Condoms in the file documentation is a fair guess. And that’s why she’s putting off interviewing Assange.
We also know that Wilen was interrogated one more time around this 8-21 Sept period, when Ny appears to be hedging. On 10 September Wilen is interrogated at Claes Borgstrom’s office (by which police officer, we don’t know) but then, on the same day, she goes to a police station with Claes “for conversation with chief investigator and to submit mobile phone” < that must be Mats Gehlin.
She is also interrogated again on 11th October, just over a week before Mats Gehlin makes his phone call to the SKL lab on 20 October. It seems unlikely that Wilen has said anything substantial about the torn condom fragment/ "pulling balloons noises" in the 10 September interrogation (perhaps she's back-tracking as much as possible while still sounding reasonably consistent, or play-acting dumb "cashmere girl", by this stage?), otherwise Ny would not have felt compelled to give Assange permission on 15 September to leave the country. It's possible she did say something to Gehlin about the condom fragment in her 11 October interview, and hence it's fairly fresh in his mind when he jots his notes on his file report on his conversation with the lab: http://assangeinswedenbook.com/2013/07/01/the-lab-results/
I wondered whether I made a mistake in my previous post, and it was actually 24 August, not 25 August, when Mats Gehlin made Sofia's statement to Krans available to Borgstrom? But I see I was correct after all. This line:
"2010-08-25 Review of interrogation 2010-08-26"
is Borgstrom reviewing the 20 August statement on the 25th and returning it to be input and dated 2010-08-26 the next day. So, what's this, do you think?
"2010-08-24 Review of complaint from 2010-08-20 with attachments"
Some kind of log of the visit to the station that is given to people, with a crime number and telephone contact number on it? What would the "attachments" be? Do we already have this document, or has anyone tried obtaining it under a Freedom of Information query?
****
2010-08-23 Preparation for and visit by Complainant A
2010-08-24 Write to lower court regarding appointment as legal representative
2010-08-24 Review of complaint from 2010-08-20 with attachments
2010-08-24 Review of police memo 2010-08-22
2010-08-25 Review of decision of prosecution authority
2010-08-25 Review of interrogation 2010-08-26
2010-09-01 Review of prosecutor’s decision in petition to reopen case
2010-09-01 Review of interrogation 2010-08-30 of Julian Assange
2010-09-02 Preparation for and conversation with Complainant A before and after police interrogation and representation during interrogation
2010-09-10 Preparation for and conversation with Complainant A before and after police interrogation and representation during interrogation (in my offices)
2010-09-10 Visit together with Complainant A to police for conversation with chief investigator and to submit mobile phone
2010-09-20 Visit by Complainant A
2010-10-11 Preparation for and conversation with Complainant A before and after police interrogation and representation during interrogation
2010-10-13 Review mail from Complainant A
2010-10-18 Write mail reply to Complainant A
2010-10-26 Preparation for and conversation with Complainant A before and after police interrogation
2010-10-26 Preparation for representation of Complainant A before and after police interrogation (in my offices)
http://assangeinswedenbook.com/2013/03/28/anna-ardin-no-longer-wants-the-services-of-claes-borgstrom/
What happened on 22 September that Marianne Ny decided she DID want an interview after all? Can’t have been all that urgent at that stage if she suggested six days later, the 28 September… Can anyone remind me what was happening external to the investigation around 22 September? Anything to do with Assange’s known plans, Wikileaks’ news, statements by US Govt figures? In Assange’s affidavit he speaks of cancelling his plans to remain in Sweden to clear his name, but no specifics. Other than that, there’s this:
para 128 – “Mr Muller-Maguhn’s affidavit estimates that the meetings were set up in early September 2010 (Appendix C). The meeting with Stefania Maurizi was arranged over open email, which meant that this correspondence was interceptable.”
Arbed quoted the affidavit: “para 128 – “Mr Muller-Maguhn’s affidavit estimates that the meetings were set up in early September 2010 (Appendix C). The meeting with Stefania Maurizi was arranged over open email, which meant that this correspondence was interceptable.”
Is it possible that Marianne Ny already know, on September 22nd, about Assange’s coming meeting in Berlin on September 28th? Perhaps she suggested September the 28 for the questioning of Assange to stop this meeting (where new material was going to be delivered to Stefania Maurizi, his Italian press partner)? If so, it is not surprising that Assange’s computers were stolen at Arlanda airport: to stop Assange from deliver material to his Italian partners.
Of course, this suggests that Marianne Ny, or her superiors, work hand in glove with Swedish and/or American security forces.
Nice one, Axel!
Hey, are you Swedish? We really need Swedish people lobbing in a few more Freedom of Information requests, to see if we can wheedle any more documentation re the investigation [see above posts for specific questions that could be asked].
Holding post to keep thread open. Bit busy at the moment. [Mods: you can delete this one once proper posts are made]