Why I am Convinced that Anna Ardin is a Liar 2008


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.

Anna tweets at 14.00:

‘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.

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2,008 thoughts on “Why I am Convinced that Anna Ardin is a Liar

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  • Arbed

    Hi Axel,

    Hmm, maybe – but I doubt Marianne Ny is on as firm ground as having a SW text message saying Assange ripped a condom on her too, otherwise Ny would have put that allegation and her “condom fragment” evidence in the EAW.

    Remember that nowhere else other than Mats Gehlin’s note, the mysterious presence of a condom fragment as physical evidence of unprotected sex (!) and hints in Bostrum’s statement that Anna relayed that story to him too, there is no mention in Wilen’s testimony or her friends’ of such an incident.

    Notice too that in her submitted opinion Ny uses the formulation “the SMS and Julian Assange’s interpretation of them”. So she’s referring specifically to those which have already become public via Assange’s affidavit. Maybe this is just obfuscation – to divert attention from the specific SMS requested by the defence, the “awake” one, and the phone traffic between the women, of course. And to divert attention from the fact that she claims SW’s texts are the basis of her shift from “reasonable suspicion” (the level on which she based her HAPM to the Swedish and British courts) to “probable cause” now. Reading further down in Ny’s submission we come across this:

    “The SMS messages constitute a part of the preliminary investigation for which Julian Assange has not yet been interrogated.”

    – meaning that Sweden doesn’t feel the need to ask a man any questions when investigating “rape” before deciding that a woman’s texts constitute “probable cause”-level evidence.

    Marianne Ny has a problem. She knows the Assange team has copies of 22 SMS, but she doesn’t know which ones. She is utterly desperate to keep all the remaining 96 SMS secret, which I suggest means she knows they clearly exonerate Assange.

  • axel

    Point taken. Do you say that there are 96+22= 118 text messages? Olsson and Samuelsson have also requested information about mobile telephone traffic. Metadata, I suppose. Who called who at what time?

  • Arbed

    Hi Axel,

    No, no – I mean we’ve seen 4, leaving 96 to make up the full 100 – and out of that 1000 the Assange team has 22, therefore another 18 are not public yet.

    I can think of a couple of those latter ones (which have been being quietly passed around, though not by the Assange people AFAIK) that could be interpreted negatively towards Assange – but as soon as one works out from the timestamps where they fit into the sequence of events/general context they speak in the opposite direction. Oh, and then AA went and ruined Ny’s chances of using the most obvious one by being so indiscreet on Twitter…

  • axel

    Arbed: “Oh, and then AA went and ruined Ny’s chances of using the most obvious one by being so indiscreet on Twitter…”

    Remind me, please.

  • Arbed

    Hi Osa at Flashback forum!

    https://dngranskar.dn.se/

    Let’s all help the DN to find something to review and write about.

    Good to see DN.se soliciting anonymous submissions for investigative reporting on bias and corruption. You asked people to find something from the Flashback Assange thread to drop in DN’s submission portal. How about the pages from the HAPM concerning the forensic report [English translation: http://assangeinswedenbook.com/2013/07/01/the-lab-results/%5D, with the following ideas/questions for DN to follow up?

    1. Why is a fragment of used condom considered to be ‘evidence’ in respect of an allegation about non-use of a condom in a consensual sexual encounter, when none of the parties deny that the sex took place?

    2. Where is the seizure protocol authorising the acquisition of this condom fragment as evidence? [A seizure protocol exists for the other, full-sized condom analysed in the forensic report, but not for the fragment.] When, where and by whom was the condom fragment passed to police?

    3. What is the relevance of the forensic report finding that the condom fragment was torn by the same method as the “used” condom with no DNA traces on it?

    4. Has a follow-up forensic report been requested for analysis/opinion as to *how* a condom can be torn without leaving any traces of DNA? Exactly what methods/precautions would need to be taken to avoid DNA transference from hands, nails or male/female genitals to the condom?

    5. Is the prosecutor Marianne Ny thinking of bringing charges of evidence-tampering and/or submission of fake evidence in light of the forensic report findings? Would these apply to one woman, or both? Or is there a third-party suspect for these potential charges?

  • Arbed

    The Assange defence team’s response to the Swedish prosecutor’s arguments against the latest appeal to drop the arrest warrant (and hence the EAW) has gone in. The prosecutor now has until 27 October to respond to this document and then the SVEA court will announce what it plans to do next.

    http://www.swedenversusassange.com/IMG/pdf/p.pdf

    If you are interested in the Assange extradition case, this document is really worth reading in full. It’s 11 pages plus two short appendices, all in English and the legal arguments contained in it are crystal-clear.

    TL:DR? The document covers:

    1. European case law regarding the arbitrary deprivation of liberty that the Swedish prosecutor is breaking and that, contrary to prosecutor arguments, Assange’s time in the embassy counts towards the length of time he’s been detained. (This will affect the cost of compensation due further down the line.)

    2. Matters pertaining to the principle of proportionality in the prosecutor’s attempt to pressure Assange to give up his political asylum.

    3. That the prosecutor’s claim that she needs to interrogate Assange in custody in Sweden is incoherent, especially as regards taking a DNA swab – she has already agreed in the UK Supreme Court Agreed Facts that one was taken when Assange was first arrested in December 2010.

    4. A motion that the SVEA court rules the prosecutor must hand over the women’s phone and text traffic to the court. Alternatively, a motion that SVEA applies to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling in the matter. (A new Swedish law that suspects have a legal right to know the evidentiary basis of their arrest is derived directly from an ECHR Directive in 2012. The prosecutor has tried to argue against this.)

    5. Discussion of UK law on precedence and how rival extradition requests from the US and Sweden would normally be treated, backed by an affidavit from a UK extradition law expert.

  • Arbed

    Many thanks to Mary for posting MP Philip Davies question in the House of Commons regarding how much money had been collected from Julian Assange’s bail sureties:

    http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2014-09-08/208512

    I’m trying to find out what prompted him to submit this question to the Justice Minister, and why now (question dated early September)? It’s a few days before the latest appeal to the SVEA court was submitted, but well after the original appeal to Stockholm District Court back in June.

  • Arbed

    Swedish prosecutor got her response to Julian Assange’s appeal into the SVEA court last night on deadline, but what a dog’s dinner her legal argument is:

    http://assangeinswedenbook.com/2014/10/28/assange-appeal-prosecutor-response-27-oct/

    The SVEA court, clearly embarrassed at the thought of ruling against Assange on the basis of said dog’s dinner, have thrown the ball back to the defence team to buy some more time – until 3 November:

    http://www.svea.se/Avgoranden-och-pagaende-mal/Pagaende-langmal/Information-om-overklagandet-av-Julian-Assange-betraffande-haktning/ [includes English translation]

    This appeal started in June and all the back-n-forth-ing since then is like watching a match at Wimbledon (though it’s clear who’s delivering all the aces, I still suspect the match may be fixed…)

  • Arbed

    And here’s another one – especially intriguing for those who like sluething around in the Assange case. Any chance one of our Swedish visitors could re-post this to the Flashback forum?

    Anyway, to the intrigue…

    Rixstep (the translator into English of the leaked Swedish police protocol & best source for news on the Assange case) has written a rather excellent article:

    The Curious Case of Assange in Sweden:
    http://rixstep.com/2/20141028,00.shtml

    It’s quite long but covers all the bases. In the middle, though, there’s this:

    “One very well known journalist in Stockholm has reportedly told others in confidence that the second girl [Sofia Wilen] is one of the best honeypots in town. A spook group from a foreign country has reportedly had information to offer on the same girl. Neither lead has ever been followed up.”

    Which well-known Swedish MSM journalist? Which foreign intel agency? Which “others” gossip about Wilen as the best local honeypot? Who did the foreign intel agency offer info on Sofia Wilen too? Time for some serious sleuthing…

  • Arbed

    Good link here discussing Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny’s tactics as regards the women’s SMS/phone traffic – and why she is withholding all but one or two of the 100 texts known to exist (these 1 or 2 she interprets as providing “probable cause” evidence of rape) from being viewed and analysed by either Assange’s defence team or by the courts themselves:

    Assange Case: Something Sick About the SMS
    http://rixstep.com/2/20141028,01.shtml

    and this article discusses a ruling by Sweden’s SVEA Court of Appeal earlier this year giving Swedish police permission to destroy any evidence a prosecutor elects not to use in court proceedings [known as an investigation’s ‘slops bucket’ – something which must be immediately handed over to a defence team as soon as charges are brought, though this generally gives defence lawyers approx. 10-14 days to analyse whatever’s in those ‘slops’, at least that WAS the case until this SVEA ruling, I believe]. If Assange’s arrest is rescinded and the case dropped – or even if it continues in its current frozen deadlock until the statute of limitations runs out – this would potentially have the effect of putting the women’s SMS forever beyond the reach of any Freedom of Information request or public view.

    https://archive.today/DtAwl

    Comments, anyone?

  • Arbed

    The UK is to hold an important Parlimentary debate/vote on whether Britain should continue to use the European Arrest Warrant, or opt-out of the EAW entirely and there’s a campaign and template letter to email to MPs ahead of Monday to get Julian Assange’s case raised in the debate.

    http://wiseupaction.info/2014/11/06/open-letter-to-uk-mps-julian-assange-and-the-parliamentary-debate-on-the-european-arrest-warrant-monday-10th-november-2014/

    Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx MP,

    Parliamentary debate on the European Arrest Warrant, 10th Nov 2014 – Julian Assange

    I am writing to ask you to raise the case of Julian Assange during the upcoming Parliamentary vote on whether the UK should opt out of the EAW entirely. The cost issue sets Julian Assange’s case apart from other extradition cases and shows how badly wrong things can go when the EAW system is abused. See this website for details: govwaste.co.uk

    The government is trying to hide behind the recent EAW reforms, but they don’t deal with the fundamental problems of the European Arrest Warrant, which leaves British judges little alternative but to rubber-stamp extraditions without any prima facie evidence being presented. Adding that a ‘decision’ to charge has to have been taken does little to prevent misuse when the person issuing the EAW is an official (investigator/prosecutor) rather than a judicial figure (judge/magistrate), as in Sweden’s system. EAWs issued by non-judicial authorities cannot be blindly trusted to be independent and impartial, especially when the issuing authority also has the role of Chief Investigator, as is the case with Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor demanding Mr Assange’s extradition for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct.

    The rushed introduction of the EAW into British law has led to the UK having to aid unjust proceedings in other parts of Europe, often at enormous cost. The Assange arrest warrant is a case in point: it has cost UK taxpayers nearly £8 million in just over two years. Since 2012, the UK has spent 20% of its entire EU extradition budget against Assange, the equivalent of 600 extraditions when calculated on the average £13,000 cost per extradition.

    Britain has also borne the cost of facilitating Sweden’s misguided use of the EAW to extradite Julian Assange through the UK legal system, when Mutual Legal Assistance protocols could have been used to question him all along. The Assange embassy situation is an absurd consequence of enforcing an arrest warrant where there is no formal accusation. Not only has he not been charged – the Swedish prosecutor won’t even come here to interview him.

    The case of Julian Assange provides ample illustration that there are insufficient safeguards in the judicial systems of other European countries and the EAW basically extraterritorialises these, imports them wholesale, makes the UK bear the costs, and obliges it to execute the orders. That is unsatisfactory and should be unacceptable for any parliamentarian concerned about their constituents’ rights as UK citizens or residents.

    Yours sincerely,
    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Your name

  • Arbed

    A recent UK Supreme Court judgment is relevant to the issue currently being appealed through Sweden’s SVEA Court that phone & SMS traffic between the women and some witnesses should be released by Marianne Ny to the court and/or Assange’s defence team.

    Here’s a UK Supreme Court tweet about it:

    UKSC dismisses VB’s appeal v Westminster Mags’ Ct: evidence in extradition case must be disclosed to both parties http://ow.ly/DQBRt
    https://twitter.com/UKSupremeCourt/status/529939379155136512

    The link contains a further link to a press summary of the judgment:

    https://www.supremecourt.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2014_0103_PressSummary.pdf

    “the relevance, truthfulness & persuasiveness of evidence cannot be tested in a closed hearing”

  • sandy harris

    Thanks – very interesting.
    Sandy Harris
    Palo Alto, CA

    re: Citizenfour
    I was shocked at how fabulous Snowden looks on film–it’s as if each person in this documentary was cast with the utmost care.
    They all look good and speak as if the words are from a screenplay.
    “Remember, it’s better to look good than feel good.” paraphrasing Billy Chrystle (sp?) SNL

    *did I flunk the math part?

  • Arbed

    John Pilger has just written an excellent summary of the Assange extradition situation.

    The siege of Julian Assange is a farce – a special investigation:
    http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-siege-of-julian-assange-is-a-farce-a-special-investigation

    The most interesting part, in terms of the Parliament’s debate about the EAW, is this:

    The Assange case finally reached the UK Supreme Court in May 2012. In a judgement that upheld the EAW – whose rigid demands had left the courts almost no room for manoeuvre – the judges found that European prosecutors could issue extradition warrants in the UK without any judicial oversight, even though Parliament intended otherwise. They made clear that Parliament had been “misled” by the Blair government. The court was split, 5-2, and consequently found against Assange.

    However, the Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, made one mistake. He applied the Vienna Convention on treaty interpretation, allowing for state practice to override the letter of the law. As Assange’s barrister, Dinah Rose QC, pointed out, this did not apply to the EAW.

    The Supreme Court only recognised this crucial error when it dealt with another appeal against the EAW in November last year. The Assange decision had been wrong, but it was too late to go back.

    and this:

    The injustice meted out to Assange is one of the reasons Parliament will eventually vote on a reformed EAW. The draconian catch-all used against him could not happen now; charges would have to be brought and “questioning” would be insufficient grounds for extradition. “His case has been won lock, stock and barrel,” Gareth Peirce told me, “these changes in the law mean that the UK now recognises as correct everything that was argued in his case. Yet he does not benefit. And the genuineness of Ecuador’s offer of sanctuary is not questioned by the UK or Sweden.”

  • Arbed

    Prompted by some revealing comments about Andrew O’Hagan’s Ghosting tell-all in his last blog post on the Assange EAW, Dr Bernard Porter has written a rather good follow-up.

    Julian Assange and the European Arrest Warrant:
    http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster69/lob69-julian-assange.pdf

    Meanwhile, Swedish leaks site UnderMattan has revealed that an IP address registered to the European Court of Justice was taking a look at UnderMattan’s page dedicated to the Assange case (including virtually all the original documents that have been leaked or otherwise become public) on the day after the SVEA court handed down its verdict that the arrest in absentia had to stay in place (while criticising Marianne Ny for breaching her obligation to progress the investigation):

    http://undermattans.blogspot.se/2014/11/4-ar-till-assange-fortsatt-haktad-i-sin.html

  • Arbed

    Following some revealing readers’ comments on his last blog post about the Assange EAW (http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/11/11/bernard-porter/assange-and-the-european-arrest-warrant/), Dr Bernard Porter has written a rather good follow-up.

    Julian Assange and the European Arrest Warrant:
    http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster69/lob69-julian-assange.pdf

    Meanwhile, Swedish leak site UnderMattan has revealed that an IP address registered to the European Court of Justice visited UnderMattan’s page dedicated to Assange (inc. all leaked, FOI’d and otherwise public original documents) on 21 Nov, the day after the SVEA court ruled the arrest in absentia should continue and criticised Ny for breaching her obligations to progress the investigation:

    http://undermattans.blogspot.se/2014/11/4-ar-till-assange-fortsatt-haktad-i-sin.html

  • Arbed

    Test

    Moderators – I’ve tried several times and a post I want to make is failing to appear. It has three links in it: one to an London Review of Books article, a tweet, and a link to Swedish leaks site UnderMattan. The weird thing is, I’ve tried to post it to Squonk’s blog too and it won’t post there either. Can you advise, please?

  • Arbed

    It appears that Marianne Ny’s Sex Crimes Development Unit spent all day on 24 August 2010 (the day after, we think, Claes Borgstrom first contacted his old friend about re-opening the Assange case) creating a new document called “Compilation – of law of Sexual Offences”:

    https://www.flashback.org/sp51698344

    The document itself is linked within that link, but here it is if anyone wants to analysis it further or use it as a handy reference of Swedish sex offences legislation:

    http://www.aklagare.se/PageFiles/4049/2010-04%20sexualbrott%20sammanst%C3%A4llning.pdf

  • Arbed

    In Sweden’s recent Universal Periodic Review of its human rights record by the UNHRC, it came under fire from Latin America (as a bloc – Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Cuba and Nicaragua; Slovakia joined in too) for its behaviour in the Assange case:

    http://www.andes.info.ec/en/news/ecuador-recommends-sweden-advance-human-rights-assange-case.html

    In its interim response, Sweden “admitted the possibility to explore some measures to unlock the stalled legal process” (owtte) and that it would take on board some of the recommendations of the above countries. It has until mid-June to finalise its full report-back to UNHRC on what actions it will take. The one disappointment was that Sweden still refuses to recognise the concept of diplomatic asylum.

    http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/180806/there%E2%80%99s-a-glimmer-of-hope-for-assange

  • Arbed

    On the topic of “Wow”… (hard to be off-topic on this thread, haha)

    On 1st January Sweden rewrote its constitution – and its previously exemplary Press Freedom laws – to create two new offences involving “foreign espionage” and publishing information that “affect[s] any matter of a secret nature” in military operations in which Sweden is participating (eg, Afghanistan).

    Here’s the law reform. Proposed Feb 2013, effective Jul 2014 and constitution changed 1 January 2015:

    Enhanced criminal law protection against espionage
    http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.advokatsamfundet.se%2FNyhetsarkiv%2F2013%2FFebruari%2FForstarkt-straffrattsligt-skydd-mot-spioneri%2F

    Background:

    War Journalism needs to be free
    http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.expressen.se/debatt/krigsjournalistik-maste-fa-vara-fri/&prev=search

    It’s not mentioned explicitly here but the new law also covers “harm” to any of Sweden’s military partners, therefore enabling it to be used to extradite publishers of info on US war crimes in countries in which Sweden has a military presence – for example, war crimes detailed in Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diaries.

    No cigar for guessing who this legislation is aimed at.

  • Arbed

    Hi John,

    Very sad, RIP Rafik. Brilliant article you both wrote there.

    Since the time of that article, Sweden is still at the ol’ renditions game. Just last week Sweden’s spy service SAPO chartered a private plane to rendition an asylum seeker tortured at the behest of the FBI back to the land of his torturers [USA]

    Aftonbladet 13/2/15: Alleged tortured by FBI, sent off by SAPO:
    http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article20314783.ab

    Translated into English: https://archive.today/clGLI

  • Arbed

    It seems Julian Assange and legal team made a submission to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention – apparently about six months ago (the 2nd paragraph dates it to 816 days in the Ecuador embassy – he’s now been there 983 days):

    https://justice4assange.com/IMG/pdf/assange-wgad.pdf

    It’s 42 pages and well worth reading in full, if you have the time. If not, here’s some highlights:

    Para 75 – The UK promised to produce a ‘legal text’ to secure Assange’s human rights protection. They dropped the idea when he helped Edward Snowden to escape the US’s clutches.

    Para 65-71 – The UK’s & Sweden’s assertions that they “don’t recognise diplomatic asylum” are without merit. Both are already full Parties to the 1951 Geneva Convention “without reservations”.

    Para 86-90 – The “rich history” of Western nations’ use of diplomatic asylum, including the US in 2012, the UK, Sweden…

    Para 98 – is a corker! In a July 2014 press conference, the Swedish prosecutor herself sets out 4 ways in which she’s broken Swedish law in the Assange case.

    Para 100-104 – summary of gross abuse of Swedish & international law in prosecutor’s refusal to interview Assange abroad.

    Para 105-109 – summary of points of law relevant to Assange being denied any opportunity over four years to defend himself against allegations & “to dispel long shadow of suspicion” first cast by Sweden illegally leaking his name to the press.

    Release of the complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention about Sweden and the UK has coincided with the filing of an appeal to Sweden’s Supreme Court:

    https://justice4assange.com/IMG/pdf/250215_Swedish_Supreme_Court_Assange.pdf

    Fair Trials International has submitted an amicus brief in support of the latter:

    https://justice4assange.com/IMG/pdf/20150224_JA_Fair_Trials_International_Legal_Opinion_BILAGA_2.pdf

  • John Goss

    Hi Arbed, thanks for keeping this important thread going, and thanks for the latest link in Julian Assange’s forced incarceration appeal. I will try to get time to read it when I have attended to a lot of other pressing issues.

    The SAPO rendition is disturbing. There are good people in Sweden but I do not know what has happened to change it into a best buddy of the USA. I suspect Sweden, like many other countries, is the victim of US ‘financial aid’, that is , aid with ties. We need to ditch the dollar.

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/1578650025714348/

  • Kempe

    He’s not under forced incarceration he’s free to leave and defend himself against those allegations any time he wishes.

    I don’t think anybody cares anymore.

  • Arbed

    Thanks Kempe, for proving that you stick with your blind ol’ prejudices and wouldn’t let a little bit of informed reading get in your way.

    Or are you claiming to have fully digested the legal arguments in the three documents I linked already?

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