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.
REPOSTED: Arbed: ORIGINAL TIMESTAMP: 5 Dec, 2013 – 6:08 pm
Axel,
Yes, Anna could have been referring to “Assange pinned me down and wouldn’t let me reach for a condom” (until, of course, she explained to him that’s what she was trying to do, with which he immediately complied). This alternative meaning would mean Anna’s interjection came at the point where Sofia is, perhaps, telling Linda Wassgren “he completed unprotected sex over my clear, loud protests ‘no, don’t go on’”, as she had already, falsely, claimed to Anna. But that alternative reading doesn’t seem to fit Anna’s explanation to Bostrum – “that bit about the condom” – nearly so neatly as the “deliberately ripped condom” scenario. Nor does it explain the photograph in the police forensics report of a deliberately ripped condom from Sofia.
REPOSTED: Arbed: ORIGINAL TIMESTAMP: 6 Dec, 2013 – 2:56 pm
I promised to do a post on when exactly I think that first call between Sofia Wilen and Anna Ardin happened. Some people have quoted a 1st September 2010 Aftonbladet article as saying that first contact took place on the Wednesday, 18 August. I don’t think this is correct. (Do we know who Aftonbladet said their source for this claim was? Does the article mention where they got the idea that the women first spoke on the Wednesday? It could have been part of ‘damage-limitation’ exercise to muddy the waters by Claes Borgstrom, or friends of Anna, for example.) Here’s my reasons:
1) We know that Sofia Wilen already had DNA samples taken by a hospital on the Wednesday. Presumably if the hospital had done a ‘rape-kit’ examination by then, they would have advised her that she could/should report the matter to police. But she didn’t – she waited until Friday – so why did she wait? Obviously, on Thursday 19 August she had not yet decided to act on the hospital rape clinic’s advice. Perhaps she still hoped that Assange would telephone her, as he had promised her he would? Perhaps she still hoped that her relationship with the ‘fantasy figure’ superhero internet whistleblower she had gone all-out to ‘snag’ could be rescued, would work out somehow? (Remember Bjorn Hurtig saying after he had been allowed to view, but not copy, the women’s SMS that one of them “had high hopes” pinned on Assange? Could equally refer to AA’s attempts to become WL press spokesperson in Sweden, I suppose, but there’s just as much possibility it could refer to ‘groupie’ SW’s hopes.). So, what changed Sofia Wilen’s reluctance to act on the ‘rape-kit’ DNA samples so that by Friday she had changed her mind?
Here’s what else we know about the timing of that first contact:
2) We know that Anna Ardin did not stay at her own apartment Thursday night, 19 August. She stayed overnight at a journalist friend’s place. But we know that Anna Ardin did return to her apartment on the Friday morning before Assange left for whatever appointments he had that day:
It is interesting, however, that Ardin did not immediately challenge Assange at this point in time (early-ish on Friday morning?) about Sofia Wilen’s experiences, nor did she ask him to pack his bags and leave. She does seem to be looking at him a bit sideways, though. I’ll come back to this point.
3) From Anna Ardin’s own witness statement:
Oh, what a wealth of information is obscured by Sara Wennerblom’s “etc” there… Never mind, Anna’s statement seems to indicate that she looked at her inbox early Friday morning and that an email from Sofia Wilen contained a phone number to call her back on [NB. We know from Johannes Walstrom’s statement that on Tuesday 17 August Anna Ardin did NOT have a phone number for Wilen, only an email address.] – it’s much more likely the women spoke directly when “swapping notes”; I doubt you could have that kind of exchange simply by back-and-forth emails. Perhaps Anna checked her emails and made that call to Sofia Wilen while still at her journalist friend’s house, but whatever was said initially was not yet enough to get Anna really worked up, to the point where she’d immediately demand answers from Assange when she returned to her own apartment?
4) From Petra Ornstein’s witness statement:
Hmm. Odd phrasing there – “Julian had seen to it” – particularly as Anna has never alleged any occasion where she had sex with Assange where a condom was not used at all…
It also sounds like Anna is regularly updating Petra throughout that Friday morning as she’s speaking with Sofia and with Donald Bostrum. Notable, then, that Petra writes a Facebook entry at 12.10 on Friday 20 August accusing Julian Assange of being a rapist. This is nearly two hours BEFORE the two women turn up at Klara, and BEFORE Johannes Walstrom phones Anna just as she is leaving to join Sofia and taking her to visit a sympathetic police officer friend at Klara station, but tells him they are only going to get advice about HIV testing. [Aside: personally, if I wished to help a younger woman deal with the police on a delicate matter, I’d take them to someone I knew who I felt would be sympathetic.]
Also notable that Petra makes it clear that Anna’s descriptions of sex with Assange earlier in the week were much milder, to the point where earlier Petra had failed to see them as serious complaints: “the whole story got more and more uncomfortable for her [Petra] and she’s accused herself of not understanding from the beginning so she could have supported Anna right away”. Sounds like someone is winding Anna Ardin up over the course of the morning and encouraging her to exaggerate how she now sees her own dealings with Julian Assange.
5) But then we have this, again from Julian Assange’s unauthorised autobiography [page 234]:
This sounds, to me, as if over the course of the morning Anna Ardin got increasingly wound up by phone calls she had with Sofia Wilen but (as she’s still “Wikileaks’ press spokesperson in Sweden” at this point) she is trying to calm Wilen down, and thinks she has succeeded to the point where Wilen is only going to the police to get advice about HIV testing. Wilen, meanwhile, is clearly saying one thing to Anna Ardin and something completely different to Assange himself.
6) I know in Donald Bostrum’s statement he’s not quite clear on when the story he’s hearing from Anna Ardin first starts changing. He says at one point, I think, that it was on the Thursday she ‘confessed’ it wasn’t true what she’d said earlier about not sleeping with Assange. But he does make it clear that talk of broken condoms and going to the police only happened on the Friday morning [Johannes Walstrom’s statement indicates the same], and got progressively worse throughout that morning. He also makes it clear that Anna’s change of tune was a THREE-step process – “three different versions” – so perhaps the Thursday (evening?) Step Two ‘confession’ was only really about Anna getting fed up with having her unhygenic, night-owl house guest around, but hadn’t yet gotten round to telling the man himself so. Perhaps she cowardly hoped that Bostrum would have a discreet word to save herself the embarrassment of having to do so?
All in all, I’d say that Sofia Wilen’s and Anna Ardin’s first telephone call about Assange happened early on Friday morning, 20 August 2010, by at the latest, say, 9.30am. During this conversation Wilen learns one fact which is NOT news to Anna Ardin: that they have both had sex with Julian Assange. Perhaps Anna Ardin also thought that she had learned a new ‘fact’ during this conversation that she didn’t *know* for sure before: someone was telling her that Julian Assange had also “deliberately ripped” a condom with another woman?
REPOSTED: Arbed: ORIGINAL TIMESTAMP: 6 Dec, 2013 – 2:57 pm
One thing I think it’s worth bearing in mind is that, although Anna Ardin has undoubtedly deleted exculpatory tweets, faked evidence and run a social media campaign to disparage Assange, all of these actions are subsequent to and reactive to finding herself in the extraordinary position of i) having a formal police investigation into her experiences even though she didn’t set out to initiate one, ii) being left ‘holding the baby’ as the ONLY complainant when Finne announced she could see no crime in Wilen’s report [NB. Remember Ardin’s tweets about “one is the loneliest number” and “it was at least as much the other girl driving”?] – It would be REALLY interesting to find out EXACTLY when Ardin first knew what Sofia Wilen had actually said in her formal statement to Irmeli Krans, and how closely it matched (or didn’t match) her expectations of what would be in it, was she surprised?, was she worried/troubled by any discrepancies?, etc.
So, Ardin’s undoubtedly done all of these bad actions, but I don’t think that necessarily means that she set out to deceive or had malicious motives from the outset. If you look at the difference between Ardin’s and Wilen’s formal statements: whereas Ardin’s goes into detail about the alleged assault/s and while she may exaggerate, she stops short of lying about them. Telling Wennerblom that Assange asked her “what are you doing?” as she’s wriggling about to prevent penetration is NOT an attempt to deceive; Ardin’s statement reads more like an attempt to justify the fact there’s a formal investigation in the first place. Wilen’s, however, meanders all over the place (AFTER she’s first heard that there’s an arrest warrant for Assange [issued at 17.00, which Wilen seems to know about it already her text of 17.06]) about irrelevant details and her feelings about time spent with Assange days before any ‘assault’. In fact, as soon as she eventually gets there, there’s very little detail (and practically NONE about what she did AFTER Tuesday 17 August) before she’s out the door.
If Anna Ardin is now heartily sick of the whole investigation and wishes it would just go away, and she WAS originally hoodwinked by Wilen and then dropped right in it, there is still a way out of the whole damn mess for her – if she’s bright enough to see it. She should come out and say publicly that Wilen originally told her a different story to the one everyone thinks they know from Wilen’s formal statement and Wilen’s (coached?) witness friends.
REPOSTED: Arbed: ORIGINAL TIMESTAMP: 6 Dec, 2013 – 3:19 pm
Can someone do me a favour, please, and drop links to the above two posts into Flashback? I’d kinda like them to appear somewhere where Anna Ardin might see them.
REPOSTED WITH SUBSTITUTED, NOW CORRECT, LINKS: Arbed: ORIGINAL TIMESTAMP: 6 Dec, 2013 – 3:40 pm
Make that three links I’d like some kind soul to drop into Flashback, where there’s a possibility that Anna Ardin might get to see them:
This one, where I go through some of the evidence already in the public domain that indicates that Sofia Wilen’s credibility as a witness is much much lower than Anna Ardin’s:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-9/#comment-437423
then these two showing how Anna Ardin might have been hoodwinked by Sofia Wilen into taking the actions she did, and how she can get herself out of this whole mess:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-9/#comment-437436
and
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-9/#comment-437437
REPOSTED: Duqu: ORIGINAL TIMESTAMP: 6 Dec, 2013 – 7:01 pm
@arbed.
Your message has been relayed direct to AA, but I cannot promise any action from her side.
At 17:48CET this blog lost all pages after 2009 and went into error mode, now it seems to work again. But I see it strange that just after Trenterx made a thread at FB about your writings and listings here. the whole blog went nuts…..
Hi Arbed, hi all. Trust you’re all well.
Apologies for the site hiccup – our host moved some sites around, and mis-configured ours. Oops!
Were some posts lost? Apologies if so. We are hopefully in the process of moving to a more stable set-up, but Craig is between visits to Africa, and is pressed for time. I’ll see what can be done…
Jon, hello. Please send me a moderators’ list e-mail, as I lost my records of those e-mail addresses. Thanks for your ongoing work.
Yeah. Thanks for all your good work, Jon.
Can I second that, please? Thanks to both Jon and Clark.
Jon,
You might be interested in Simple Comment Editing plugin for WordPress. It allows users to edit their comments for up to 5 minutes after making them to fix typos etc. You’ll be glad to know that it just installs and works 🙂 Or at least if did for me at Squonk. No fancy configuration required.
Happy to see things have been resolved here. Weekend detective work over at http://squonk.tk/blog/2013/12/06/craig-murrays-blog-reverts-to-2009/ Special thanks to Richard Kastelein for taking time out of his weekend to respond.
Sweden’s FRA and NSA/GCHQ hand in hand. This is the latest document revealed by Snowden, published by Swedish Television yesterday. Very close collaboration-Swedish FRA delivering to NSA or GCHQ on demand.
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/sverige/article1659506.svt/binary/samtliga.pdf
Think about Assange’s intention, in August 2010, to seek permanent residence in Sweden, to establish Wikileaks on Swedish servers, to move its head quarter there, to become the editor of a net-based news magasine protected by Sweish freedom of the press legislation, and so on. Can you imagine the discussion between the american ambassador in Stockholm and Swedish government officials when that became clear to them? And what did they do after that discussion?
Oh, rather good. Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyers Thomas Olsson and Per Samuelson, together with his US lawyer Michael Ratner, have finally succeeded in getting the Swedish mainstream press to print some pointed questions for Marianne Ny.
DN.se 10/12/13: There is considerable risk that Sweden will extradite Assange to US:
http://mobil.dn.se/debatt/risken-ar-stor-att-sverige-utlamnar-assange-till-usa/ (Google translate required)
Thanks for that Arbed. Just thought i’d clarify that the ‘article’ you linked to appears as an *advertisement*. So, not quite the same thing as the media asking (pertinent) questions.
I have to admit that the stalemate is very frustrating. One goes in circles and then asks what leverage really does Ecuador have? What are the possible next moves it could make?
Of course the advertorial is trying to influence Swedish public opinion. But isn’t that a rather hopelessly slow boat?
Repeat, very frustrating indeed.
Julian Assange is effectively already incarcerated. When a prisoner has been held on remand pending trial, the time spent in remand is usually subtracted from the sentence if the prisoner is found guilty. Presumably, a similar argument should apply in Assange’s case. At some point, his confinement in the Ecuadorian Embassy will exceed the maximum sentence that could have been passed upon him. Can there be any legal justification in denying freedom to Assange beyond that time?
I think that the case for dropping all action against Julian Assange becomes stronger by the day. I don’t know much about law, English or Swedish, but isn’t there a stipulation that a trial must be fair? That articles in the newspapers or on television etc. can have such a prejudicial effect upon judges or juries that a fair trial becomes impossible?
What about the papers that published the original “Double Rape” accusations? Has there been legal action against them for that, and could there be? Was it even looked into by the Swedish authorities?
Hi Clark,
“When a prisoner has been held on remand pending trial, the time spent in remand is usually subtracted from the sentence if the prisoner is found guilty. Presumably, a similar argument should apply in Assange’s case.”
It is already way past that point in his case; he has already been detained for longer than the maximum-possible sentence for all four of the allegations on the EAW warrant, and yes, under Swedish law all pre-trial detention is offset against sentences. So, even if there were to be formal charges laid, even if the case actually went to trial, even if he was somehow found guilty of these allegations that, on closer inspection, appear to be pure hokum, he would walk.
Regarding your several questions about fairness in Assange’s case, the answer in each instance is “No”. Honestly, it makes me so angry – there have been so many miscarriages of justice in this case I’ve lost count.
Hi Villager,
Well, no actually, I did mean to say, “succeeded in getting the Swedish mainstream press to print some pointed questions for Marianne Ny”. Here they are, from the bottom of the DN.se article I linked:
The article ran on the front page of DN’s “Debatt” section – that’s mainstream in Sweden. There are signs – particularly now Snowden’s revelations are focused on Sweden – of the beginnings of a thaw towards Assange in the Swedish media.
Villager, 11 Dec, 7:27 pm; on the page that Arbed linked to:
http://mobil.dn.se/debatt/risken-ar-stor-att-sverige-utlamnar-assange-till-usa/
the word “Annons:” which translates to “Advertisement” has gone.
This apparently happened at almost exactly 14:30, Thursday 12 December. I saw it there. I was running Iceweasel (Firefox without the branding) with AdBlock Edge, and I thought that “Annons” might refer to an advertisement that I couldn’t see because of my adblocker. So I shut down and booted an Ubuntu 12.04 LiveCD, which doesn’t have an advertisement blocker. There it was, “Annons:”, near the top of the page above the photo of Assange.
I shut down and restarted my usual system, and opened that page again to copy and paste the word into an e-mail. But it had gone! In the space of two to four minutes. The photo of Assange has gone, too.
?
“Annons:” is back, and so is the photo of Assange. I’m back in an Ubuntu Live session again now. I tried it before and after installing Adblock Edge with Easylist. I did try opening the page at least twice while running Knoppix, and “Annons:” and the photo were absent.
OK, I just looked at the page source, and I think it’s a banner for an advertisement that isn’t there. Here’s the source, with the HTML tag markers replaced with round brackets (or WordPress will edit the tags out and not display them). You can see that the word “Annons:” appears within the start and end of “ads slot 2”, whereas the article starts below. I added the bold markings so you can see. Sorry, this is likely to come out rather messed-up, as a lot of the blank space will be removed by the WordPress blog software:
Gosh Clark, I hadn’t realised you were so naive, not just about law but also about how the forces of power work and are working in Assange’s case.
I’ll let someone else, should they consider your questions serious, answer them.
Hello Clark,
First, i posted my last comment without having refreshed the page (a bit unwell and dizzy today, which might also explain my tone, apologies but nothing ‘personal’ if you see what i mean). And am glad to see that Arbed has answered them, though i disagree with her. There is no law which says that you can choose the locale of your jail.
So, thank you for your latter comments and research. However, it remains obvious that the Assange piece is not a journalistic piece, but some sort of an op-ed piece definitely written by Assange’s lawyers and therefore by definition not independent.
Did some further research which clarifies that ‘Debatt’ means debate–here i think it applies as ‘opinion’. See:
translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.dn.se/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Ddagens%2Bnyheter%26safe%3Doff%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D587
I’ll try the link again. Anyway got to it (Debatt page) via google translate and thru the main DN website.
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.dn.se/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Ddagens%2Bnyheter%26safe%3Doff%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D587
have a feeling its not going to work, God knows why…
For non-techies like me, click that link, then click Debatt and find the Assange article dated y’day 11 Dec and you should come to an English google translate version.
Else cutn paste following into google search and don’t forget to click the ‘translate this page option in the results:
http://www.dn.se/debatt/risken-ar-stor-att-sverige-utlamnar-assange-till-usa/
Hi Villager,
I’m confused by your comment, sorry, maybe I’m just being dense. Where did I state anything about the rights and/or wrongs of “There is no law which says that you can choose the locale of your jail”? Sorry if I’ve misunderstood what you are getting at here, but I’m just confused that you attribute that argument to what I posted.
My post was merely to point out that a questioning of Marianne Ny’s actions in the Assange case has entered the mainstream media in Sweden, where previously such questioning simply did not exist. The questions I quote from the bottom of the “Debatt” article are directed at her, and for DN to run such an article – particularly in “Debatt” – is quite something.
Granted the article is written by Assange’s lawyers, but the very fact that their article was printed in DN’s “Debatt” section AT ALL is in and of itself significant of a change in the political climate over there towards Julian Assange. To understand that, though, I guess you’d need also need to be aware of how central to the Swedish political and cultural space DN’s “Debatt” section is – it is THE pre-eminent Swedish arena for “public debate”, widely read and highly thought of. It would also help, I guess, to know how much Assange’s Swedish defence lawyers have previously struggled to get any media airing of their views at all – they have been well and truly shut out until now.
Hi Arbed lets try to clear this up.
Thanks for highlighting the Debatt/Op-ed piece. Especially after reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagens_Nyheter
I agree with you the expose is a very positive development. It wasn’t clear from your original comment that this was written by JA’s lawyers and was indeed an Op-ed piece de facto and not a paid advertorial. Nor that DEBATT means DEBATE.
Now i am questioning your response to Clark as in :
” It is already way past that point in his case; he has already been detained for longer than the maximum-possible sentence for all four of the allegations on the EAW warrant, and yes, under Swedish law all pre-trial detention is offset against sentences. So, even if there were to be formal charges laid, even if the case actually went to trial, even if he was somehow found guilty of these allegations that, on closer inspection, appear to be pure hokum, he would walk.”
My point is that this statement could easily be turned into an argument for him to now present himself in Sweden, putting aside the risk of extradition. And can you please demonstrate your calculations of maximum sentences and time spent in pre-trial detention? Does the latter include his asylum at the embassy as Clark was suggesting? I simply cannot see the Swedes giving him credit for this period nor do i believe that to be a worthy legal argument.
Re: extradition, the UK then is also not ‘respecting’ his political asylum so why should Sweden. Fact is Assange cannot step out of the embassy. I’m befuddled about what his options are in practice. Can you recommend a good legal-analysis piece? I disagree with Clark that “the case for dropping all action against Julian Assange becomes stronger by the day.” On what basis? Further that ” that a fair trial becomes impossible?” Also with his corollary questions re fairness. Are you going along with him? It appeared that way to me but i could be wrong.
And if anyone is to sue Expressen its Assange not the Swedish authorities surely?
While on the subject of DEBATT, why don’t we have a debate here about what sort of moderation policy would be appropriate and maybe even carry wide agreement. Jon has singularly FAILED to initiate and/or foster such a dialogue, instead muzzling the blog. Enough is enough. I propose we re-congregate here and start such a conversation.
Personally i don’t get all these thanks to Jon comments. I find them to be superficial and disingenuous. Can Jon escape his role and responsibility in the comments being in near shut-down status and regular contributors being muzzled?
There has been some allusion elsewhere that a regular commenter here threatened to report racist remarks to the police. Further, that that could’ve been Resident Dissident. I’d like to nip-that-in-the-bud immediately and say i refuse to believe that. He was one of the more patient and polite commenters here.
Jon i note that you haven’t responded to Macky on the other open thread instead making remarks on another blog. Why is that?
As usual i see that you Jon, don’t care to respond/engage even when YOU ARE CLEARLY NOT UNDER PRESSURE and two, that you do things erratically without warning. You somehow come across not just as a moderator but someone superior although that doesn’t sit well with the impression you give of being a confused man. And from confusion comes more confusion. That is why we are where we are as i see it imho.
If anyone were to sue Expressen, yes, that would presumably be Assange. But there may be laws, similar to contempt of court or anonymity of defendants prior to trial, whereby the Swedish state could prosecute Expressen.
Villager, your 12 Dec, 10:15 pm comment could start an off-topic row on this important thread, so this is the only response it will get from me.
Hi Villager,
Ah, thanks for clearing up that I’d got my wired crossed. Thought I must have.
Yes, I can’t remember the exact timings but the Swedish forum Flashback (among whom are several Swedish legal experts, a judge, etc) has calculated the total possible sentence Assange could get if he were convicted, and the various Swedish laws about what is and what is not discounted from sentences and he would indeed still walk straight out the courtroom (USA willing…) on the basis that he had already served it. Flashback quite often visit this thread, so perhaps someone from there can fill you in with the actual calculations.
The reason I can’t remember the details is that these Flashback discussions were at least a year ago and largely covered the amount of time Assange had already been under curfew before he even went into the embassy (so, from 7 December 2010 to 19 June 2012). The reason that this time would count towards any Swedish sentence is quite simply because he is detained under an arrest warrant issued by Sweden, and it was Sweden who tried hard back in December 2010 to have him refused bail and who eventually, reluctantly agreed to the onerous terms (TWICE-daily sign-ins at a police station, electronic cuff, nearly half a million pounds’ ‘bail’) of his detainment.
This particular thread has been allowed to remain open on the basis that it is solely devoted to research on the Assange Swedish case/Wikileaks, so I don’t think it’s the right venue for your idea to have a general debate on moderation.
I’m in agreement with Villager. Assange would get no credit on sentencing having failed to present himself to the (discreditable) judicial process that seeks to lock him up. His asylum within the Ecuadorean embassy is not incarceration in any sense that a court will consider.
Furthermore, the Swedish trap is only one tactic which, when it eventually fails, will be replaced with another. Assange has no fear of being charged in the US for publishing state secrets, rather, he is probably in fear of being charged with espionage.