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.
@sterling Archer.
Depressing to read your analysis which I fear may be correct.
Question: is there any way that the Swedish legal process could influence his chances positively? Dropping of the case in Sweden, were it to happen, would probably be motivated by his refusal to go to Sweden for questionning. That would not help him much. But if the case was dropped because it was revealed that evidence was fabricated and the judicial process in Sweden was influenced by political pressures, that might perhaps change the situation? It seems very unlikely that any of the accusers should step forward and speak the truth.
Hi Axel,
Scenario : Sweden drops the sex case and cancels EAW due to fabricated evidence and political interference.
Result : Assange walks out of the Ecuadorean Embassy and is immediately arrested and charged for absconding. He is kept in custody because he is a proven flight risk. He is unable to communicate with anyone other than his lawyer. He pleads not guilty and a trial date is set for many months away. He cannot work and has limited means of communication with others – all his telephone calls are monitored as per standard practice.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks is frozen while Assange is quagmired in his legal fight.
Assange has a dilemma – he wants to get the matter dealt with as soon as possible but does not want to compromise his defence. The prosecution are happy to protract the trial with legal tricks and accomodate Assange’s defence requests for more time to obtain evidence and prepare his defence because this gives his political enemies time to manage responses to the Snowden leaks and arrange another fix up for Assange.
The court hears that the sex allegations were malicious and invalid, and that there was political interference in the Swedish judicial process giving Assange just cause to abscond. He is acquitted and released but then immediately arrested for [insert crime] that had been meticulously prepared. He is detained without bail because HE IS A PROVEN FLIGHT RISK.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks is frozen while Assange is quagmired in his legal fight.
Are there any legal loopholes where Assange could act as an Ecuadorian diplomatic courier, for example? Or where he could be appointed an Ecuadorian diplomat to a UN mission? That is, diplomatic appointments which don’t require the UK Government’s approval of his credentials. Of course these would be last resort tactics. Question is, is Ecuador holding any trump cards?
Of course the UK may still physically detain him and make it a legal controversy, compounded with a US extradition request arriving in tandem.
Separately, what about any recourse to the European Courts that might uphold the validity of Assange’s human right to asylum?
Are there any articles out there by legal eagles, however contentious, of what the possibilities are, if any?
Are you all crazy? Do you not realise that asylum law trumps extradition law every time in all international treaties and laws? If the Swedish case is dropped/EAW, then the UK has lost its last prop against following the ditates of international law that mandate safe passage for those granted political asylum. Of course, the UK is already acting illegally in refusing safe passage right now, but at least they can dissemble and argue whilst the EAW is current. That will be gone soon, though.
But Assange has already confirmed that – even if the Swedish case is dropped soon, as expected – he will NOT leave the Ecuador embassy until there is official confirmation from the US that they are closing their three-year Grand Jury investigation of Wikileaks and will not try to extradite him there. The real danger if he steps out of the embassy is not having to answer for skipping bail, which matter will simply disappear (other than potentially a case for the sureties to be reimbursed) as it is not really an important factor – he did not “jump bail”, he sought asylum; the difference is more than just a matter of interpretation – the real danger is that the US will immediately submit an extradition request to the UK. Why do you think that he got “lost in traffic” and didn’t appear at all for the final Supreme Court verdict? That was because of the danger for him that, should the Supreme Court decide in his favour, US agents would appear from nowhere to serve a US extradition warrant on him on the steps of the court.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is being hauled before the country’s Constitutional Sub-Committee for repeatedly refusing to comply with FOI requests, or at least making the requested material available in a timely manner:
Carl Bildt summoned by Sub-committee
http://rixstep.com/1/20131226,00.shtml
I wonder if this would be a good time for someone to put in an FOI request concerning the missing documentation for the mysterious deliberately torn fragment of condom from Sofia Wilen? If the terms of the FOI request were suitably broad – “for the seizure protocol relating to the fragment of condom case no. K246314, and all other documentation related to this item” – it should get something back. Even a response confirming that a seizure protocol for it doesn’t exist would be significant. And some other document relating to it might show up, who knows?
Villager, all diplomatic posts and functions are required to be approved by host nations. Assange will not be approved for a diplomatic role in an obvious attempt at circumventing the legal fight he is embroiled in, and Ecuadore would not embarrass itself by such a tactic anyway.
Arbed, I don’t understand why you think international law takes precedence over national laws. Israel ignores international laws all the time. Nations only act on such matters when it suits them. Given a choice between breaching international law and solving a very sore problem, which do you think the UK-US are likely to choose?
Hi Sterling,
Yes, I think you are quite right to expect the dirtiest behaviour from embarrassed governments – I don’t think your cynicism is misplaced at all, and I’m not naive about how frequently the US and UK ignore international law – but I believe there comes a point where they no longer have the political cover to do exactly what they want. Public opinion still counts (hence the enormous efforts to manipulate it through a tame MSM), and if the Swedish case is dropped the UK in particular loses that political cover. Just how will the UK government explain to the media and public its continued refusal to allow safe passage to a political refugee if the Swedish authorities have publicly announced they no longer wish to ask him anything? UK government and UK MSM have been unanimous from the start that Assange was “only hiding from the Swedish allegations” and “Britain has a legal obligation to send him to Sweden” and that’s the only reason that they’re refusing safe passage. It’s enough to set their PR managers spinning to an early grave…
Hi Nickelodion, thanks for reposting me!
Yes, remember how Hillary Clinton’s surprise visit to Sweden was announced the day after the announcement that the Supreme Court verdict would be handed down in five days’ time? Since Edward Snowden’s relevations this summer we’ve all learned how the NSA operates, but Julian Assange has been aware of all that since his cypherpunk days. It wouldn’t take much for him to work out that the Supreme Court’s security had been breached and the US government already knew what the verdict was four days before it was given. As he’s an intelligent and cautious man it’s obvious that he would take precautions whichever way it would go. And if he knew that they knew four days ahead that meant they’d have time to rustle up an extradition request and have it at the ready on the day.
Arbed,
correct me if I am wrong. My memory is not perfect and I have no access to the documents for the moment. The verdict from the Supreme Court was negative for Assange except on one point where he was given time to add substantive arguments. Was that the case? And his request for two weeks time to consider going to the European Court was firmly denied by Marianne Ny. How does that square with American efforts to prepare an extradition request from Britain?
Hi Axel,
I was there on the day and it was quite funny. From where I was sitting, it looked like the Supreme Court judges were taken wholly by surprise when Assange’s quick-witted barrister Dinah Rose – who had received the verdict the previous evening but was forbidden for revealing what it says before the court hearing actually began (even to her own client) – had obviously stayed up all night reading it and announced that, as it was based on an obscure clause of the Vienna Convention that hadn’t been discussed in court, she would like to submit a written application to have the case re-opened so the merits of that point could be properly debated. I think, in shock, the judges had to agree the two-week delay so she could prepare that submission.
So, that meant two weeks hence from that moment, the case would either be re-opened if Dinah Rose’s written submission won the argument, or the normal 10-day period for the extradition to be organised (and for Assange to submit an application to the ECHR) would start. The application to the ECHR, however, would probably NOT stop the extradition from going ahead, making it a fairly pointless exercise and waste of resources for Assange to do, frankly.
Obviously, although Hillary Clinton’s sudden desire to visit Sweden within the week and Carl Bildt’s gloating about it on Twitter certainly made it look like the verdict was against Assange, as I said, he’s an intelligent and cautious man and he’d need to allow for other eventualities (perhaps US govt incompetence in misreading whatever their surveillance accessed, perhaps Bildt not being fully aware of the exact purpose of Clinton’s visit, etc), hence the ‘no-show’ from him on the day.
If you ever read the Supreme Court’s response to Dinah Rose’s submission, which was excellent – a superb, water-tight legal argument – it is a disgrace. The judges were reduced to arguing that a side remark by one of the seven judges during the original hearing – “doesn’t that come under the Vienna Convention?” – literally, that one throwaway sentence – had given the defence ample opportunity to raise issues about an obscure clause of the Convention that they had no idea the Court would base its decision on months later. That blatant refusal to re-open the case made me so angry I literally couldn’t sleep at all that night – I was so burned up. To me, it revealed more than any other single thing that the whole UK court fandango had been a public relations farce all along. The UK decision to extradite Assange to Sweden had always been political from the very start; they just dressed it up and legitimated it through the courts.
Anyway, that’s all a side issue to your question Axel. On the day that the UKSC refused to re-open the case, the 10-day period for the execution of the actual extradition by the UK police Extradition Unit/10-day window for application to the ECHR started and, on that day, Marianne Ny asked the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service to apply to the court to reduce that 10-day period to ZERO days, which would mean Assange being taken into UK custody immediately and to be transferred to Sweden straight from a UK jail. Assange got to hear of this a day or so later and also Serco arrived unannounced at his address the following day, supposedly to make adjustments to his electronic tagging. I guess at that point he knew he’d have to seek political asylum somehow, and he arrived at the Ecuadorian embassy three days after those two events.
The one good thing about the UK court system is that it is largely open to the public (though the UK has recently introduced secret courts for cases which might be embarrassing for its intelligence services, so that’s changing) and being able to attend all of Assange’s UK court hearings was exceptionally educational for me. During breaks in the court sessions those of us who were just ordinary members of the public who supported Wikileaks and Assange’s work got to rub shoulders with his more high-profile friends in the court’s cafe. I had some great conversations with people like John Pilger, Gavin MacFayden, Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Muller-Mughan, Prof Ferrada de Noli, Jen Robinson, Gareth Pierce and a few of the Wikileaks staffers like Joseph Farrell and Kristinn Hrafnsson. I learnt SO much about this case that way.
Arbed, thanks a lot for the story above. Very telling.
You wrote:
“…on that day, Marianne Ny asked the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service to apply to the court to reduce that 10-day period to ZERO days, which would mean Assange being taken into UK custody immediately and to be transferred to Sweden straight from a UK jail.”
Did Marianne Ny give any vaild reason for this demand? Is her request to the Supreme Court in the public domain? I remeber that there was a certain degree of despair when the Swedish Prosecution service found out, later, that Assange had walked into the Ecuadorian embassy asking for asylum.
Hi Axel,
I’m not 100% sure if Ny’s request to the CPS has come out in FOI releases – it may have, but I’d have to hunt it down for you – but it was referenced in a few reputable news articles at the time. And, yes, I remember the SPA’s surprise at the time, which WAS included in FOI’d emails from them. “Mon Dieu!”, I think the immortal phrase was. That one reduced me to fits of giggles for days…
Meanwhile, Jacob Applebaum’s third talk at 30c3. This one is horrifying.
The NSA’s elite hackers can hijack your Wi-Fi from 8 miles away:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/30/5256636/nsa-tailored-access-jacob-appelbaum-speech-30c3
Full video at bottom of article, which also contains story of how GCHQ messed up their bugging of the Ecuadorian embassy in London (also quite amusing).
Hello Flashbackers!
Can I join in on the conversation about what happened on 27 September, and whether Marianne Ny would have been aware that Assange planned to leave Sweden that day/where he was travelling despite his precautions about buying a ticket at the last minute. Well, I don’t know about Ny herself knowing the exact details but the Swedish intel services most certainly did. I refer you to paragraph 128 of Assange’s September 2013 affidavit, which states:
Therefore the Swedish authorities knew exactly when and to where Assange was flying from Sweden over a month before, in fact – surprise, surprise – on the very day that 1) Eva Finne formally closed the SW case, 2) Mats Gehlin sent TWO deliberately torn condoms/fragment to the national police forensics lab, and 3) Daniel Domscheit-Berg took it into his head to sabotage the Wikileaks mail server and change the passwords locking Assange out of Wikileaks’ systems.
Verrrry busy day, eh?…
PS. Does the above fact – that Swedish intel (and hence NSA) knew on 25 August that Assange would be leaving Sweden on 27 September – help explain 1) why Marianne Ny was completely unconcerned about “flight risk” between the day she took over the case (29 August) and 27 September, the day he was scheduled to leave, and 2) why she selected 28 September for her proposed interview date when she texted Bjorn Hurtig numerous times on 22 September, but only on that date?
Fascinating detective work here.
Just a reminder that many of the regulars here are over at my own little blog – http://squonk.tk/blog/ , for discussions outside this specific topic and pending further posts from Craig. All welcome.
Latest post http://squonk.tk/blog/2013/12/30/harry-fear-who-will-save-israel-from-itself/
Thanks AlcA! I’ll remember to cross-post to Squonk occasionally to update the community there if/when we come up with significant new stuff. Or, please feel free to do so yourself.
Warning. SD cards, USB memory sticks and the like have processors in them; the program can be altered and, for instance, used for surveillance:
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554
AlcAnon’s blog Squonk stopped working at its original location squonk.tk due to DNS problems.
Squonk Blog is now at the following link:
http://squonk.no-ip.biz/blog/
Squonk’s IP address is 54.229.224.252 for those who know how to manually add squonk.tk into hostname table
Rolf Hillegren, respected legal professional and previously prosecutor, writes in a leading Swedish Daily today: “Time for Sweden to close the case Assange”. He suggests that the Head Prosecutor (ex officio) should close the investigation and cancel the arrest order. The case is weak and would be closed if it had been properly handled, he writes. Such an action would also save Britain from its embarrasment of having “lost him”, according to Hillegren.
In order to compensate the women for not having had their cases properly handled by the state, Hillgren suggests that the Swedish state “ex gratio” (out of mercy) pays a sum of money to them, corresponding to what they would have got if their case was succesful in court. This should be paid by the state since the swedish state has mishandled the legal process. And more in that interesting article…which however misss the point of compensating Assange for his suffering due to the Swedish state mishandling the issue.
http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/dags-for-sverige-att-avsluta-fallet-assange_8887418.svd
Thanks Axel,
Hey guys, can I make a plea for all hands on deck please? Or at least to all of you who are on Twitter, or know someone on Twitter you can contact very quickly.
The article by a former Swedish prosecutor is quite a break-through – especially as they are opening a debate column for the Swedish public tomorrow, I think at 10am. So it would be great if everyone can please retweet these four WL tweets that have all the good links to evidence in them. Point them at Swedish twitterers, if you can – perhaps highlighting some points from the article: it confirms JA didn’t flee Sweden; it states there’s no point in even questioning him; it says the women’s disputes with JA are even normally dealt with by the courts.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/422473789415251969
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/422474073004720128
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/422475826915864576
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/422480758725308416
*aren’t* even normally dealt with by the courts.
The easiest way to find Swedish people to tweet at is to search for them using the hashtag #svpol
Axel said
Well, the headline says that Sweden should close (avsluta) the case, but in the text it is specified as “cancelling the decision to reopen the investigation”. I don’t know if there is a significant difference here, but I wonder what will happen to all the material collected during the years if the case isn’t just closed, but the decision to reopen it is cancelled. Will it be as if it had never been reopened in the first place? Except that the women are financially compensated as if they had been victims of the alleged sex crimes.
That Assange gets his long overdue freedom is the main importance, but I’m afraid that the suggested compensation to the women will make it look as if he were guilty, especially if he isn’t offered some compensation for being unnecessarily denied his freedom all these years.
Reading through the comments in the debate column in connection to Hillegren’s article, I get the impression that those in favour of dropping the case have better founded arguments, and that’s not just because I agree. Quite a few suggest he should be interviewed first though, in London, so that the case can be dropped according to normal procedure and not the unusual way Hillegren suggests (i.e. by cancelling the over three year old decision to reopen the case). Not surprisingly, those against dropping the case rely mostly on superficial “guilt by accusation” clichés delivered by Swedish main stream media over the years.
This post on a Flashback forum dedicated to Anna Ardin (not the main one on JA’s case) says that she has withdrawn her complaint. It’s dated 5th January.
https://www.flashback.org/sp46889563
I’ll try to investigate whether this is true. If she has, then this may also factor in to yesterday’s stage-managed “debate” in SvD about closing down the investigation, a good summary write-up of which appears here:
http://assangeinswedenbook.com/2014/01/14/swedish-prosector-asks-for-assange-case-to-be-closed-2/
I agree with you, Blue. The idea of compensating the women annoys the hell out of me too, for precisely the reasons you give. However, isn’t it likely that closing the investigation will encourage a lot more people to investigate and write about what went wrong, because the “case is still in progress” aspect will have been removed? Also, can you tell me what would be the position regarding accessing more of the prosecution documents via FOI requests if the investigation is officially closed?
Hello Arbed, read again:
you wrote at 7.02:
“This post on a Flashback forum dedicated to Anna Ardin (not the main one on JA’s case) says that she has withdrawn her complaint. It’s dated 5th January.”
The text you refer to:
“Någon som kan förstå/förklara varför Anna Ardin inte drar tillbaka sin anmälan. Tycker hon inte det är ett tillräckligt straff att sitta instängd 1 år? på en ambassad för en “våldtäkt”?
My approximate translation: Can anyone understand/explain why Anna A does not withdraw her complaint? Does she not find it sufficient that he has been caught in an Embassy for a “rape”.
So, no indication of a withdrawal. One note of caution: if Anna did withdraw her complaint I wonder when we would find out? Quite possibly it would be done as quitely as possible.
Ahh, thank you Axel. I was relying on Google translate, which often misses out the word “not” for some reason. I also gave it some credence because I’d just heard the news that AA has been pregnant with some new guy who’s “5 years older” (I guess that means older than her, rather than older than her last ex, who I believe was quite a bit younger than her) and has just had her baby. Also – possibly – that a lot of the comment from this blog thread about how she might have been tricked by Sofia Wilen, and about how her formal complaint being filed after she had already left Klara station – might have reached her. 😉
@Arbed
I hope so, but I don’t know how available the documents will become.
Perhaps it’s only the prosecutor herself who can close the investigation the normal way, and the proposed idea to rescind the decision to reopen it is something that a superior of hers could do. That’d focus on the original decision to reopen the case, rather than how the case has been handled after it was reopened. I suppose it’s a desperate suggestion to do something about the passivity prosecutor Ny.
The idea to compensate the women could be that the case was after all reopened, and once they had been granted the right to have it further investigated, it can’t just be taken away from them lightly by denouncing that desicion, not without some form of comensation.
Hillegren made some rather clumsy statements about less serious forms of sexual misconduct in 2009, so he must be careful. He can’t appear too callous to the women’s desire to have the case reopened, or his suggestion would backfire big time. Perhaps simply the fact that he made the suggestion to compensate them will ease the way towards a solution. He is after all suggesting that the descision to reopen the case is rescinded. He’s only dealing with the women’s interests. Could it be just as well that someone else takes it upon them to speak for Assange’s obvious right to compensation?
Hillegrens article is critical of prosecutor Ny’s handling of the case, and this might be the first time someone voices some serious criticism of her in main stream media. And it’s done by a former prosecutor (now retired) in a respectable morning paper. That in itself is a step forward. Perhaps it’s because he’s retired that it’s possible for him to say what others merely think.
His suggestion would remove her and the roadblock she constitutes from the equation. Giving the women more than they’re likely to get if the investigation continues, they too are in effect dealt with. Quite generously, but hopefully leaving no hard feelings. The chance of the case going to trial was small anyway, the chance of a conviction even smaller. It’d be surprising, and telling, if they weren’t satisfied.
As long as it is made clear that compensating the women does not imply guilt of the suspect, but is solely for rescinding the decision to reopen a case unlikely to lead to conviction or even a trial, it shouldn’t be too damaging, even though there will always be those trying to read more into it.
Perhaps that is the only way Sweden can do anything about Marianne Ny’s refusal to either move on with or drop the case. It’s a solution focusing on prosecutor Ny as the problem that has to be worked around. And why not.
It could of course be turned against the women if they are too generously compensated for something they were unlikely to get any compensation for in the first place, especially if evidence of deception (DNA-free condom etc.) become generally known. And why compensate them for Ny’s way of handling the case, when they seem to have approved all along of her demand that he be taken to Sweden? It’s in fact not that long ago that Wiléns new lawyer, on Wilén’s behalf, went public with such claims, asking Sweden to put pressure on Equador to hand over Assange to Sweden! The women may have suffered because of Ny’s way of handling the case, but they appear to have approved all along! Why should they be compensated for a conduct they have clearly approved of? No, I can see why Hillegren had to make that offer, and perhaps it’s a price that has to be paid to resolve the situation, but I think there should be some deduction for handing in a fake condom as evidence!