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 Blue,
Again, I agree totally with everything you say. This bit especially:
Back in January 2013 someone at Flashback noticed that the Svea Appeal Court had made a ruling that compensation must be paid for violations of the presumption of innocence, even when there is no formal acquittal because the case never reaches a court (Svea Court of Appeal T 692-12 – Compensation Act (1998:714) ):
https://www.flashback.org/sp41743430
And here’s that law: https://lagen.nu/1998:714
Using the idea that the women could be compensated as a way to move things forward is good, I suppose, but if the Swedish authorities make any serious moves to pay Sofia Wilen a penny I intend to kick up an unholy stink about it (I have a little more sympathy for Anna Ardin, as I believe she was manipulated and lied to by Wilen in the very beginning) – to personally kick up a stink, as best I can, as loudly as I can – and I would be, to put it in Rixstep’s kind words, “indefatigable” about it, believe you me.
And I will kick up an equally unholy stink if Julian Assange is not massively compensated under the above Swedish law. Spread the word about it, please Blue.
Blue,
To further illustrate what I mean by having a little more sympathy with Anna Ardin, and your point about the way the case has been run by Borgstrom, Ny and now Massi-Fritz seeming to be entirely acceptable to Sofia Wilen (ie. that she has been the driving force behind all this from Day 1), you only have to compare how the two women responded to being told about the financial compensation available for rape victims:
Sofia Wilen, despite appearing to be too “distressed” to finish explaining her actions to police, likely spent a full 10 minutes at the end of her interrogation asking specific detailed questions about being kept informed at all stages of the case and the possibility of financial compensation:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-9/#comment-437569
whereas Anna Ardin was not only not around when a formal complaint was lodged on her behalf [caveat: some Flashbackers keep referring to a timing of 16.31 re AA’s formal complaint – what document are you referring to here, please? – the document below has a timestamp of 17.46, when she had already left Klara station]:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-9/#comment-437570
but there is also this telling statement in Anna Ardin’s formal witness statement the following day, obviously in response to the same police procedure of 13b S Preliminary Investigation Edict (1947:948) FUK:
http://rixstep.com/1/20110204,02.shtml
That’s two very different responses to the notion of being a ‘victim’, isn’t it? Which I think lends weight to the idea that Wilen set out from the start to bring false allegations against Assange, whereas Ardin got tricked into supporting her and reluctantly dragged into it. From that point onward, when Ardin suddenly found herself the subject of a formal complaint, I think all her actions can be interpreted as (admittedly batshit-crazy) ways of trying to limit the damage to herself.
The blue at 2.28:..I think there should be some deduction for handing in a fake condom as evidence!
Well spoken. Compensating the women is OK if it is stated that this is because of the Swedish state’s bad handling of the legal process. Therefore it is totally wrong to link the sum to what would have happened if Assange was found guilty.
Closing the case would let Anna of the hook also: she would avoid a discussion in court of the torn condom with no DNA. In other words, I find it likely that Anna would agree to a solution a la Hillegren.
If the women are given compensation for publicity damage and for being mishandled by the Swedish state the implication must be that Assange has got the same right.
Thanks to John Goss for this excellent op-ed article:
Will Sweden Drop the Charges Against Assange?
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/01/15/will-sweden-drop-the-charges-against-assange/
Cool balloons 😉
Hi Arbed,
About the time 16.31, it appears on page 5 of “Häktningspromemorian”. The page appears to be a record of the complaint being entered into the system. At the top right there is a time stamp 2010-08-20 18.02, in the next section the time 2010-08-20 16.31 appears. Not sure how to interpret it, but I assume the document was initiated for entering the complaint at 16.31.
Corresponding times for Wilén, on page 2 of HäPM, are 2010-08-21 12.00 and 2010-08-20 16.11. So it looks as if her complaint was entered first, but then it took 20 hours before it was, I don’t know, completed? While Ardin’s was entered second, 20 minutes after Wilén’s, and completed within 91 minutes.
I supposed that means Wilén was interviewed first by Wassgren. Under “Bilagor” (attachments) it says “Målsägandeförhör i DurTvå” so it looks as if teh document wasn’t completed until the first version of her second interview could be attached.
There must have been a time interval of about 90 minutes when Wassgren was working on documenting Ardin’s complaint, between 16.11 and 18.02. Part of that documenting should have been the 17.46 document you’re referring to, I guess.
At the end of the document, p 6 HäPM, there is the time 16.30 for a decision (beslut), apparently about making Assange the suspect of the alleged crime (to the lesser degree “skäligen”). It looks as if right after that decision, the documentation of Ardin’s complaint begun, at 16.11. (Let me make clear that I’m just an amateur in reading these documents, and far from sure about the corresponding English terms.)
The same decision is listed on page 95 of HäPM, with all the other allegations added by Ny and Lejnefors. But on that page it is classified as “sexuellt ofredande” (crime code 0638), while in the original document on page 6 of HäPM it was about “ofredande” (crime code 0408). So who took the decision to change the classification to “sexuellt ofredande” rather than “ofredande”, and when?
Page 4 of HäPM (“Brottsanmälan”) must have been written much later than pages 5-6. It has no time stamp or signature. Same for the corresponding document for Wilén, on page 1. Pages 2-3 and 5-6 (“Anmälan”) are the ones showing the original documentation of the complaints from 20-21 august 2010, and so is the 17.46 document you mentioned.
Oops, should have been “between 16.31 and 18.02″ in the 4th paragraph above.
Hi Blue,
Can you post me a link to the “Häktningspromemorian” please? Thanks for trying to explain it to me, but I’m a bit confused now. You say:
but two paragraphs above you already gave that 16.11 timing as to do with the filing of Wilen’s complaint, not Anna’s. Similarly, I’m also thrown by your saying:
How can an action taken at 16.11 (which refers to Wilen anyway) be the result of a decision taken at 16.30 related to Ardin?
The two documents from which I have taken timestamps for the formal registration of each complaint – 18.30 (for Wilen, by Krans) and 17.46 (for Ardin, by Wassgren), both on 20 August, are pages 14 and 15 of the Assange-UC-Kompress document (download here: https://www.divshare.com/download/23689914-fad ). Please note that Wassgren says specifically that Ardin was not on the station premises when her formal complaint was registered.
Is it therefore not likely that the top timestamp in the “Häktningspromemorian” – 2010-08-20 18.02 – is the relevant one, following some 15 minutes after the formal registering of the complaint, and the 16.31 timestamp refers to something else?
Would be grateful for a link, if you can provide it, so I can take a look at it myself.
Oops, we’ve cross-posted. Thanks for clearing up some of my confusion. I still think though that the 16.30 / 16.31 stamps about a “decision” are more likely just Wassgren’s way of recording when exactly it was that she finally spoke to Anna Ardin alone – either started the 15-minute chat or ended it at that precise time – separately from Sofia Wilen (who had just been taken off to make her formal statement, starting 16.21 – that would make a “finished conversation with Wilen” timing of 16.11 make sense. It was Krans who formally registered Wilen’s complaint in Durtva). Anna has claimed elsewhere that she only spoke to Wassgren on her own for around 15 minutes, then left.
Yes, sorry about the confusion. Here’s the link to HäPM, Häktningspromemorian:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48110314/Facsimile-from-Forsvarsadvokaterna-23-11-10Sokbar
It’s all in Swedish. The interviews included are the ones translated by Rixstep, but I’m not sure if the rest of the documents have been translated in their entirety.
There is quite a long time interval between the arrival at the station around 2 PM and the 15-minute talk Ardin supposedly had with Wassgren around 4 PM. Did Wassgren speak to Wilén for a much longer time, perhaps?
Oh, sorry Blue, I didn’t realise you meant the main HAPM document.
Ok, that page 5 about Anna Ardin’s allegations gives the timestamp of 16.31 against the words “Anmälningsdatum” and “inkscriven” – “registration DATE” and what I would translate as “written down [ie. on paper]” by Linda Wassgren at that time. To me, this seems more like a description of a policewoman taking notes by hand as she sits listening to someone’s story, and the 16.30/1 timestamp is therefore the estimate she’s given of when she first “took down” or heard Ardin’s story.
If that’s so then the timestamp for 16.30 for a “decision (beslut)” could be either Linda Wassgren deciding to hear Anna’s story separately from Sofia’s (remember Anna told Donald Bostrum she’d only chipped in “one statement” when sitting alongside Sofia), or possibly refers to a decision made by one of the colleagues she phoned for advice, as a result of which she speaks to Anna separately about her own experiences – which would leave a very big question mark over whether Linda Wassgren shared with Anna that police were thinking of treating her story as a complaint. Perhaps she did, or equally perhaps Linda didn’t do that, but just jotted down some notes when interviewing Anna for 15 minutes, then went to liaise with the duty prosecutor about the arrest warrant – issued at 5pm precisely, for “double rape” according to Expressen – then, once Anna had left the building, Wassgren sat down to start doing the paperwork and registering the complaint formally into the computer at 17.46 – noting on it that she had NOT had the customary chat with Anna about complainant’s rights/compensation under 13b S Preliminary Investigation Edict (1947:948) FUK because AA was no longer in the building – finishing up 15 minutes later at 18.02, the timestamp on the top of the document.
How does that sound to you? Plausible? Let me know if there’s other info which contradicts it, would you please?
PS. That timeline leaves a couple of intriguing points, doesn’t it?
1. If Anna really did leave the station straightaway after her 15-minute chat at 16.30 with Linda it’s possible Anna left Klara without knowing that an arrest warrant would be issued. (And why would she hang around if she’d only come along to support Sofia and she knew Sofia had been taken for a formal interview? Her experience as a Gender Officer at Uppsala would tell her that interview would likely take hours – although, in the event, Sofia’s interrogation was ubruptly curtailed much sooner than usual due to “distress” just as the interview was reaching the “and what did you do after?” bit.)
2. An arrest warrant was issued concerning both women before a formal complaint had even been registered for either, let alone proper witness statements taken from them.
I think the document with the time 17.46 is a special document about information given to the complainant. It too has the time 18.02 at the upper right corner, so it must have been submitted at the same time as the “anmälan”.
Could it be that Wilén “lost concentration” shortly after 17.00, and the rest of the time was all about gaining information about procedures and compensation etc.?
To read Wiléns corresponding document about “Information och underrättelser” to the letter, at 18.30 she has been informed about everything listed below on page 14/41. It could have taken some time, and for that she didn’t lack concentration, it seems.
I think Ardin might have left by 16.30, and at that point Wassgren sits down to register her complaint. (Perhaps she took notes by pen and paper while talking to her.) It takes a while, possibly because she’s busy on the phone as well. By 17.46 she has come to the part about informing/documenting what the complainant has been informed about, and notes down that she isn’t at the station. “While the complaint was (being) registered” could refer to the whole interval 16.30-18.00.
The time at the upper right corner for Wiléns document is 2012-08-20 19.28, which I suppose is when Irmeli hit enter for that document.
I imagine keeping track of what information has been given to concerned parties is considered important, so the exact time for that is documented, as well as the content of the information.
I think “lämnad av” (Linda Wassgren) refers to “lämna information” i.e. “give information” (to complainant).
It’s all very confusing. Wassgren states that Ardin came to the station to file a complaint about ofredande/molestation, making it sound as if that was Ardin’s intent, but when Ardin talks to Boström over the phone, it sounds as if she hadn’t expected a complaint to be filed, but that could be Wilén’s case she’s talking about, or she plays innocent. Perhaps it was confusing to Ardin as well.
The decision at 16.30 is, I think, related to the “suspicion of crime” (brottsmisstanke) and more specifically the choice of classification and degree of suspicion. Linda should have talked to Anna before that, in order to be able to make that decision. Which is why I think she talked to Ardin before 16.30, then made the classification the suspected crime and chose the degree of suspicion, and then started entering data into the system, filling out the form, so to speak. At 17.46 she documents information given to (or rather not given to) the complainant as that is a separate document in the total documentation.
So far, so good. Then afterwards someone changes the classification of the crime but that second decision isn’t recorded in any known documents.
On page 95 of HäPM Irmeli is listed as “decision maker” on 2010-08-20 of the “crime suspicion” rape, but we know from her own notes that the decision wasn’t really hers. She decided to “obey the instruction” to classify it as rape, that was the decision she made on that day.
All in all it is as if it is made to look like both Linda and Irmeli were responsible for decisions they didn’t really make themselves.
Can anything be deduced from the “brottsmisstankenr” (crime suspicion number) on pages 95-96? Those by Lejnefors are consecutive and starts differently. The three first, by three different decision makers, all start with 020110. I haven’t got a clue, but why is Ny’s number more similar to Wassgren’s and Krans’s than to Lejnefors’s? And despite the five week time interval, Krans’s and Ny’s are closer than Wassgren’s and Krans’s which were made on the same afternoon.
Arbed, perhaps you’re right that Linda started interviewing Anna aroud 16.30. My idea was that a decision how to classify the event would require some interviewing first. But if Anna herself presented it as a ofredande/molestation, and Linda cautiously chose the lesser degree of suspicion (skäligen/reasonable) rather than the higher degree (sannolik/probable), I suppose it makes sense. I don’t know if the police turns on the computer immediately or starts with pen and paper. Boström is the person who might be able to deduce the time line from all the phone calls and messages he got from Anna, but it may not be that important, and he’d probably better keep the information to himself. I wonder what Anna did all the time between 2 pm and 4 pm though. The initial talk with all three can’t have taken long. Perhaps she was on the phone most of the time, with Petra and other friends.
The Blue at 4.30 am 17 Jan:
“Arbed, perhaps you’re right that Linda started interviewing Anna aroud 16.30.”
Hmmmm. The two women arrived at 1400 and she was interviewed at 16.30…? What happened before that then? It sounds unlikely to me.
Maria Sveland has interviewed Anna for her book. She writes:
“At the police station her/Anna’s/ witness statement was taken down in a quarter of an hour. After that she left, believing that she had finished. But the police had a different view on Anna’s story and named the event as sexual molestation, illegally using force and trying to rape” (sexuellt ofredande, olaga tvång och försk till våldtäkt).
It seems to me as if Anna arrived at 1400 and was interviewed, briefly for 15 minutes, quite soon after that.
Hi Axel,
Thanks for that quote – I’ve been looking for it for a while. Got a link for it, please?
Regarding the timing of Anna’s chat with Linda Wassgren, there are a few more pointers that give clues as to when exactly it was:
1. It’s in Donald Bostrum’s witness statement that Anna told him that she first sat alongside Sofia Wilen as Sofia “told her story” to Linda Wassgren, and that Anna interjected with the remark: “I believe that Sofia is telling the truth because I experienced something similar, and that’s why I think it is true”. We don’t know how long listening to Sofia’s story took.
2. Linda Wassgren confirmed that she also spoke to both women separately. I think from point 1. that the logical order would be Sofia first, then Anna. Also, there are several sources in the police protocol and in press interviews given by Ardin where she insists she only went to Klara station with Sofia Wilen in a supportive role to the younger woman’s complaint. This too implies that police officers would deal with Wilen first, Ardin second.
3. Sofia Wilen’s first text message sent from Klara station on 20 August 2010 is timestamped 14.26:
It is possible, I suppose, that, like Sofia’s text precisely six minutes after the duty prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange – she was “chocked [sic: shocked] when they arrested JA because she only wanted him to take a test (17:06)” – Sofia is again busy texting to her friends while she is in the middle of formal interviews with police officers (that or she has some kind of bladder problem requiring frequent visits to the loo 😉 – I can’t imagine many police officers would tolerate this level of distraction and rude behaviour in their interviewees…), but I think it’s more likely the 14.26 text came before Sofia Wilen started her informal and unrecorded interview with Wassgren. Perhaps she dropped the magic words “Julian Assange, rape” to the desk sargeant when the ladies first walked in at 14.00 – with the entire station pricking up their ears immediately – then sent her text as she watched the melee from the waiting area whilst a room to speak to her properly was being found? Or perhaps that 14.26 text is completely made up and is sent as part of the cloud cover/alibi re false allegations charges that Sofia Wilen was creating to disguise her true motives for visiting the station for “advice”? Either way, I think it’s likely it was sent before the conversation between Sofia and Wassgren that Anna describes listening to to Bostrum.
So, where does that leave us for the timing of Anna’s 15-minute interview with Wassgren? It would seem the earliest Sofia’s story can start is around 14.30. It takes, say, 30-40 minutes, so that would take us to maybe 15.10? Then maybe a similar-length chat by Wassgren alone with Sofia, bringing us to 15.40-ish. You’d need to allow 5 or 10 minutes at some stages for room changes, or Anna being sent back to the waiting area, etc, so maybe add in another 15 minutes to the timings. All in all, I think it’s likely that Anna’s separate interview with Linda Wassgren didn’t start until after 16.00 (so possibly an interview time of 16.31 is correct?), then Anna would have left the station sometime between 16.15 and 16.45, possibly unaware that police would register her visit as a formal complaint at 17.46 and without being given the usual complainant’s rights information as noted by Linda on the form at that time.
PS. I’m not for one minute saying that the suggested timings I’ve given above are correct – I just think they seem plausible. The really striking thing about them, though, is that if Anna Ardin did leave Klara station as early as sometime between 16.15 and 16.45, there is a possibility that she was unaware, not only that her visit would be registered by police as a formal complaint, but also she have been unaware that an arrest warrant would be issued for Julian Assange at 17.00. The quote from Sveland’s book – After that she left, believing that she had finished. But the police had a different view on Anna’s story and named the event as sexual molestation, illegally using force and trying to rape – does seem to give that impression.
PPS. With regard to the respective timings of Wilen’s and Ardin’s first informal and unrecorded interviews with Wassgren, you also need to bear in mind what Wassgren wrote in her memo to Eva Finne on 22 August: “Initially the crime of rape was mentioned and that both women were victims…”, and that Bostrum’s and Petra Ornstein’s statement both have Ardin telling them that Sofia Wilen was determined to report Assange for rape on the Friday morning. These statements record that Ardin was speaking to them directly after Sofia Wilen had contacted and spoken to Anna for the first time at 9.30 that morning. A secondary source for this is Julian Assange himself, who in his autobiography mentions that – as he heard it on the morning of Friday 20 August via Donald Bostrum – Anna Ardin was trying to protect him from Sofia Wilen’s intentions.
The reason I am confident in these timings is that I know from my own experience that when a woman walks into a police station with a story, particularly one of date rape (I don’t know what happens if you wander in clearly physically injured and brutalised), it can take several hours before you sit down to give a formal statement and there is usually two previous interviews before this stage: you outline your story to a first officer briefly so they hear your story, then you tell it again in what can seem to be quite a grilling as the police try to screen out malicious or delusional complaints. Then you give your formal statement.
That’s for a woman saying “I want to report a rape”. I don’t know how a friend who showed up with you saying she only wanted to support you would be dealt with – it’s unlikely that if you stated “I’m a rape victim of the same man too” right at the start you’d be allowed to sit in on any of your friend’s interviews; you’d be split up straightaway and interviewed separately from the outset – but if your friend said right at the start “I want to report a rape, Julian Assange sabotaged a condom, I’m worried I’ll have HIV” and you said “I want to support her please” and didn’t mention until halfway through your friend’s first interview where she explains all about hearing Assange making “pulling balloon sounds” in the night – “I think Sofia is telling the truth. Something similar happened to me, that’s why I think it’s true” – then maybe that is the point in the initial screening process where the police officer says “ok, she’s not crazy, it’s two women victims of the same bizarre form of … er, what in hell do I call this? She says ‘rape’, must phone colleagues for their advice in a bit, meanwhile should split these two up right now…”?
I see that I’m not alone in being very upset about the idea put forward by ex-prosecutor Rolf Hillegren that the women be paid off: “The state should therefore ex gratia pay damages which they would have been awarded if Assange were tried and convicted”, and the inevitable effect this would have on public opinion given that it presumes Julian Assange’s guilt.
It’s just occurred to me that it could be argued that to pay damages to the women on this basis would therefore be illegal under Swedish law, specifically the precedent set by the Svea Court of Appeal T 692-12 – Compensation Act (1998:714) ruling in 2012 about the “violation of the presumption of innocence” should a suspect have incurred reputational injury and damage although an investigation has never reached a court and there is no formal acquittal.
Here’s what I linked above about this particular court ruling:
I know that there are a few Swedish legal professionals in the Flashback forum. Can anyone repost this there, and ask those professionals to look at this ruling in light of this proposal that the women be paid as if Assange had been convicted? Tell me if the ruling would prohibit payment being made to the women on this basis, please.
Surely to award damages to complainants for unproven allegations as if they have been proven in a court of law is the epitome of “violation of the presumption of innocence”?
Linda Wassgren’s PM from 2010-08-22 describing the events on 2010-08-20 between 2-5 PM is strangely lacking in time information. The story starts around 2 PM, and ends with the issuing of the arrest warrant which we know from other sources took place at exactly 5 PM, but not a word inbetween of how long, approxiamately, the various interviews were, or when or in which order within the three hour time interval they took place. Was she deliberately evasive, or did she not think it important? “Around 2 PM” (vid 14-tiden) and “at/near the beginning” (inledningsvis) are the only time indicators, the latter quite vague.
These three hours are the foundation for the arrest warrant issued by Maria Häljebo-Kjellstrand at 5 PM. Because of that you’d think they should have been better recorded. Much of what Marianne Ny later did was probably aslo based on these initial, unrecorded three hours.
Arbed at 17 jan 5:02 pm
“Thanks for that quote – I’ve been looking for it for a while. Got a link for it, please?”
response:
The quote is from page 70 in Sveland’s book (in Swedish). I have not found the text freely available on the net. But you can get the book here.
http://www.bokus.com/bok/9789173434669/hatet-en-bok-om-antifeminism/?gclid=CNSb87LNh7wCFQld3godz00AqQ
Arbed wrote:
“All in all, I think it’s likely that Anna’s separate interview with Linda Wassgren didn’t start until after 16.00 (so possibly an interview time of 16.31 is correct?), then Anna would have left the station sometime between 16.15 and 16.45, possibly unaware that police would register her visit as a formal complaint at 17.46”
The Blue wrote:
“Linda Wassgren’s PM from 2010-08-22 describing the events on 2010-08-20 between 2-5 PM is strangely lacking in time information.”
Yes. The sloppiness in giving proper information in Linda Wassgren’s memo is perhaps a way of concealing some aspect of the process?
I agree with Arbed that the SMS which Sofia sent 14.26 could have been sent immediately after the first talk, when Anna and Sofia sat together and Anna filled in with one sentence. That point in time is when the rape allegations convinced Linda (and any other person who might have been present). Within the first half hour in other words.
I assume that the two separate interviews took place immediately after that. First Sofia then Anna. It was only after those, I assume, that Linda made a number of phone calls, to the station officer, to Mats Gehlin and to others. Others could include Södersjukhuset and intelligence units. It is quite likely that the station officer, Johan Hallberg, made his own phone call upwards in the system, when he realized who was being accused. All these phone calls must have taken some time. They may also have been formative for the decision to immediately issue an arrest warrant. And this should have happened before the formalities with reporting accusations into the system took place. To me, this is a likely explanation of why two and a half hour passes before registration of the complaints and the start of the formal interview with Sofia.
The question is: did Linda’s series of phone calls come after she had taken separate interviews with Anna and Sofia. Or before those? My guess is that the phone calls came afterwards. There could have been several talks to Sofia also between phone calls. But if there was only one talk to Anna on that Friday I believe that happened before Linda’s series of phone calls.
We know that Sofia left at 18.40 or so. In my view Anna could have left long before her complaint was registered in the system. She went to a party in the evening and enjoyed herself. Did she find out immediately, later in the evening or the next morning about the arrest order? Who can tell? Someone should ask her.
Axel, thanks for the link. Much obliged.
I think your 12.05pm post is an excellent summary of the likely order of events at Klara station that Friday afternoon, and, yes, someone should ask AA exactly when she first heard about the 5pm arrest order for Assange, and that her own involvement had now been turned into a formal complaint.
Arbed,
I get the impression from Kajsa’s interview (on 8th September) that Anna knew, on the evening of the 20th, about the formal complaints being made on her behalf, but there isn’t a word about an arrest warrant. Any chance Anna thought an arrest warrant was such a natural consequence of the complaints made that she didn’t think it had to be pointed out? It was obvious that the police would want to get hold of him somehow. Well, to her it was obvious, to Sofia it was text-message-worthy.
Unfortunately Kajsa isn’t the most reliable witness. She was later caught stealing books at an academic bookstore, and tried to excuse herself by saying she had so little to live on as a student. When she had to state her income, on which the fine was calculated, it turned out to be a lot more than she had first implied.
Hi Blue,
Yes, I personally think Anna found out that her visit had become a formal complaint only once she was already at the party with Kajsa, and that is why they spend so much time discussing Anna’s feelings about how her behaviour towards Assange after the events that police were now saying Anna alleged as a formal complaint would look in a courtroom:
and
Sounds like she received some news that really ruined the party for her. Perhaps a phone call from Niklaus Svensson of Expressen, who knew by as early as 19.52 that evening that Assange had been arrested in absentia and that it involved two women? After all, Expressen had been publishing Assange’s itinerary in minute detail on 15 August, so the ‘jackal’ tabloid journalists there certainly knew which woman in Stockholm Assange was staying with: http://rixstep.com/2/1/20101018,00.shtml [3rd paragraph].
Eight o’clock in the evening is a bit early for a Friday night party in England, but I don’t know how things are in the darker northern climes of Sweden. It’s not a significant point anyway whether she was already at the party or still getting ready to go there, it’s possible either way that she only found out via a phone call from journalists that her own visit to Klara was being treated in a way she had never intended some three hours after she left the station thinking she had “finished” after a 15-minute chat with Wassgren. No doubt an ex-Gender Officer would know reporting a rape involves a lot more time input than that.
There’s a consistency to Anna’s story across different sources and in both her own statement and what other witnesses say she said to them at various points, isn’t there? But the same consistency just isn’t there across the various sources for Sofia Wilen.
Note, too, the same heavy emphasis on the sound of “snapping” “pulling balloon” noises of condoms ‘deliberately ripped’ during sex – heard, but not actually seen – that we see in Mats Gehlin’s note on the forensics file about Sofia Wilen’s story, and the same emphasis on this ‘sound’ aspect from Gehlin in the only chance he will get to interrogate Assange (Sofia Wilen’s case having already been closed by this point).
Doesn’t the way Kasja describes it in her statement sound as if this is the first time Anna has told her about these allegations, with a particular focus on the sound of the condom she thought may have been deliberately ripped? It really seems that – from the morning of Friday 20 August onwards – this sound becomes the crucial factor; the bit at the heart of all that follows: Anna deciding – days after it supposedly happened – that whatever happened to her uniquely qualifies her to lend support to another woman’s police complaint against Assange; Anna interjecting with one statement – “that bit about the condom”, as Bostrum describes it “word for word”; Mats Gehlin sending two deliberately torn condoms/fragments to the forensics lab under the same case file number, with specific instructions – test the tears, DNA tests not required – against the instructions of the prosecutor to “do nothing on Wilen’s allegations, her case is being closed”; Marianne Ny’s determination to prosecute (and misdescription on the EAW) of that crucial third allegation, the UK High Court’s extraordinary conclusion that what they say the forensic report calls “tearing through wear and tear” (which, of course, it doesn’t; it says the opposite) constitutes “rape by deception”…etc.
My, my, whatever can it be that Sofia Wilen told Anna Ardin at 9.30am on Friday 20 August had happened to her that set this whole train of events into motion…?
Arbed wrote: Doesn’t the way Kasja describes it in her statement sound as if this is the first time Anna has told her about these allegations, with a particular focus on the sound of the condom she thought may have been deliberately ripped? It really seems that – from the morning of Friday 20 August onwards – this sound becomes the crucial factor; the bit at the heart of all that follows….”
Good thinking. Question: At what point in time does the story abount the sound of a torn condom first appear? Friday morning? Friday at around 14.15 when Linda talks to both women? Any other time?
I should point out, of course, that Kasja Borgnas’ statement was not taken until 8 September and was done by Ewa Olofsson, so Mats Gehlin is not picking up his focus on this ‘sound’ in his interrogation of Assange on 30 August from Kasja’s police statement. Nor, I would propose, does he get it from Anna’s own statement on 21 August, which only says:
“Anna notices after a while that Assange withdraws from her to fix the condom. Judging from the sound, it sounded to Anna like Assange took the condom off”
http://rixstep.com/1/20110204,02.shtml
That, to me, doesn’t stand out as a particular, peculiar “snapping” sound like the one Gehlin seems intent on in his discussion with Assange:
So, where did Mats Gehlin get this odd fixation on the ‘sound’ of ripping condoms? The one he also makes a special file note of after he first hears from the lab that one of the condoms has no DNA on it:
He must have heard this story of a broken condom accompanied by peculiar “pulling on a balloon” sounds experienced by Sofia Wilen prior to 25 August, otherwise why would he specify in his instructions to the forensics lab that the edges of the fragment be tested to discover how it got broken?
Of course, what makes this ‘sound’ so intriguing to Mats Gehlin is that he has heard it described by two women. As we know, Anna Ardin only accompanied Sofia Wilen to Klara station to support the younger woman, chipping in with ONE statement as she sat beside her while Wilen told her story to Linda Wassgren:
Axel,
My theory is that the story of Sofia Wilen’s “noise as if he were pulling on a balloon” first occurs when Sofia Wilen speaks to Anna Ardin for the first time early on Friday 20 August. We know that conversation had already taken place by 9.30am exactly.
If this is the very first time that Sofia has spoken to Ardin subsequent to her own night with Assange – and there’s plenty in the public record to indicate that it is – it is also the first moment that Sofia has her suspicions that Assange might also be sleeping with Ardin confirmed (she had already quizzed Assange about that when she saw him off on the train to Stockholm before midday on Tuesday 17 August – and then washed her sheets, got a morning-after pill from the pharmacy and headed off to Dandryd and then Soder hospitals).
If, during that conversation, Ardin let slip her own idea that a condom had broken because she felt very wet… she didn’t actually see the condom get broken… it sounded like he took it off, but was still there, she checked – well, it wouldn’t take much for Wilen – grumpy that Assange hadn’t returned her calls, angry with herself about allowing unprotected sex, jealous maybe that she did after all have a rival – to ad-lib “oh, that happened to me too. It was dark in the room, I didn’t see but I heard a noise like he was pulling on a balloon, but the base of the condom was still there. Then in the morning he went ahead without a condom despite my protest “no, stop, don’t go on”, then when I did the sheets I found the top of the condom under the bed on his side… ” [take a look at that forensic lab photo again]
Of course Anna is going to feel that she should start phoning Assange via Bostrum to demand an explanation and HIV tests from Assange if her and Sofia’s discussions over the Friday morning were along those lines (I’m assuming that Sofia Wilen did NOT share with Anna that she herself had already received had a rape kit done and received PEP treatment at Soder hospital on Tuesday evening), and of course she is going to be amenable to supporting Sofia wants to go to the police. Then all Sofia has to do is sabotage a souvenir condom she’s kept and Bob’s your uncle…
Maybe that’s why Wilen returns to Soder on Friday morning after this phone call for no real valid reason as she’s already received treatment – to hand in a sabotaged condom as “evidence”? We don’t know. The evidence only tells us that Sofia’s deliberately torn condom fragment was “produced”. Maybe Anna, having heard nothing about the Tuesday hospital visits from Sofia, advised the younger woman to go to a hospital to get a HIV test and Sofia’s third visit to hospital was just for “show”, to convince Anna? Maybe Anna advised her that it wasn’t really the province of the police to force someone to get a HIV test and she got the same cock-‘n-bull story that Sofia gave Hanna Rosquist: “Sofia took a test but it takes a lot longer to get the results. Things would go faster if Assange took a test.” http://rixstep.com/1/20110202,01.shtml
We really won’t know for certain until we see the SMS text traffic between the two women, or Anna lets us all know what she was told by Sofia that morning.
So the balloon sound story might first have appeared on Friday mornin textg 9.30, when Sofia talks to Anna over the phone. This prepares for their joint story to Linda 5 hours later. Linda then becomes convinced of rape.
The strange thing is that Sofia does not mention this at all when she is formally interview by Irmeli Krans. But she does send a text (again) saying that she does not want to accuse Julian of anything. It sounds to me as if she know that she has just set something in motion and that she might have second thoughts. Or at least that she is desperate to conceal her deeds.
The big question then is: was she pushed by someone to deliver this story? – in which case Klara police might have been prepared or alerted in some way. I believe that Linda did not usually do that reception job at Klara.