Thomas Quick: The serial killer who wasn't
telegraph.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6ran_Lambertz
He fervently maintains that Quick is indeed guilty, and that there was nothing at all wrong with the proceedings of the justice system. In fact he claims, to this day as far as I know, that the evidence against Quick is "extraordinarily convincing."
While a supreme court judge, this spring he released a 502-page book "Quickologi" which he presents as a thorough debunking of the notions of Quick's innocence and any suggestion of a scandal.
That's all a bunch of politics, but around here what should be more interesting is Lambertz's interpretation of probability.
In chapter 15 of his book, he performs a calculation of the evidence that Quick is guilty—and arrives at a probability of 183%. He concludes this from a chain of reasoning that involves adding contingent probabilities in a wildly spurious way.
After a professor of mathematics described exactly how ludicrous this is in a blog post...
http://haggstrom.blogspot.se/2015/05/quickologisk-sannolikhe...
...Lambertz replied on his own blog saying that he was eagerly awaiting such a rebuttal, since his aim was to "provoke a discussion."
In other words, the chancellor of justice responsible at the time of this case, this current supreme court judge, is a blog troll who uses fraudulent statistics to intentionally misrepresent the relevant evidence.
So, yeah. I hope I don't ever have to go to court. It's like a mashup of Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Stephen Colbert.
Upvoted for that one line alone. Brilliant.
I also believe that the government very likely has been influenced by American lobbying in the Assange case. The U.S. Is Sweden's largest export outside the EU, and obviously a large importer as well, therefore highly susceptible to pressure.
http://www.thelocal.se/20151108/un-swedish-drug-policy-viola...
> Sweden has one of the EU's most restrictive drug policies, with zero tolerance for drug use and possession. At the same time, the rate of drug-induced deaths is among the highest in the union, and they are on the rise.
> [...] Only six out of Sweden's 290 municipalities offer needle exchange [...]
> "We always look at Sweden as a very advanced country with the most progressive policies, and I was surprised to see that it lags behind a number of other countries in terms of its policies on drugs," deputy high commissioner for human rights Flavia Pansieri told SVT.
Sweden and Norway were the undisputed leaders in lobotomies per capita up to the 1970s so not long ago.
Way too many people ignore doctors orders and stop taking their prescription drugs once they "feel well" and then they keep it around in case they or someone they know "feels ill".
From what was described to me, when you vote you ask for a sheet of paper. You can ask for several but you'll get weird looks from people. The end result is that anyone that votes in fringe options is effectively identified because no one else asks for those options.
The person that told me this was competely oblivious to any problem with it. When I mentioned that this makes voting "de facto" not secret he mentioned that next time he would ask for all options.
I just don't get it.
For comparison, in Sweden's neighbouring country of Norway, the voting booth where you pick and fill out the ballot is covered with a curtain. You fill out the ballot (they're all printed on the same type of paper), which you fill out and fold so that it hides the contents. You then go over to an election worker, who confirms your identity and gives you an envelope to put the ballot in, which you then seal and put in the drop box.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Voting
> or you can take a blank ballot and write it manually
I've been told that in small places in the countryside doing this is tremendously deviant and carries serious covert social consequences.
Parties will often also send voting blankets in the mail so you can somewhat secretly bring your own papers from home. The only issue there is that some places sets up the voting stands in such a poor way that people almost can see what you're doing anyway.
Another issue that has occurred during the past couple of elections is that the RF/AFA frat boys decided to stand guard at the entrance of some voting places, trying to stop people who intended to vote for SD.
It's so outlandish when I first heard it I though people were just joking.
Timeline: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11949341 Note that between March and August of this year, Swedish prosecutors couldn't be bothered to come to London to question him, allowing most of the charges against him to expire. This in spite of them finally compromising on that, precisely beause the cases would soon expire.
I won't pretend it's a clear-cut case in either direction, but the supicion that he's being unjustly targeted certainly has merit. The victims go to the police, days later, to try to foce him to take an STD test(?) -- the police can't do that, but here have a rape case as a consolation (which of course instantly leaks to the press. And the discussion between the two women about selling their story to the press was just a joke, naturally.) Then the Swedish prosecutors close and re-open the case, the UK spends millions guarding the man, Sweden won't come and question him in the UK (which could be a valid position on sovereignty, but they had finally said they would come to the UK!), and the UK stops guarding him. Yeah, there's definitely nothing fishy here! All the resources spent here have nothing to do with the man in question being an enemy to the United States and their allies. /s
Some of this may be a case of international bureaucratic bumbling being indistuingishable from malicious conspiracy.
I'm open to hearing the other side if I'm missing things. Assange doesn't sound like a very pleasant person, he was probably at the least stupid to get himself ensnared in this, is now by definition an outlaw, and this narrative would be a convenient way to re-cast himself as the victim if he's not. But that's orthogonal to whether he is a rapist.
I don't see anything wrong with the math. It simply means that Quick is certainly guilty, with an 83% chance of being double-guilty, which is an obscure legal term I don't expect the technocrat audience of HN to be familiar with.
If you can be double guilty of something then does that mean you get to serve two sentences for the same crime too?
I highly recommend going to a courtroom and just observe a trial.
The level of dishonesty, stupidity and incompetence is tremendous.
At the jurisdiction where I did that trials have all audio recorded. I saw the judge asking to stop the recording, basically saying out loud that the defendant was guilty because he felt it (basically he was creepy), resume the recording and then make some bullshit excuse to validate what he already had decided on a hunch.
I never had much respect for people involved with the law. I lost whatever little respect I had left that day.
I was actually recording audio (probably illegal and criminal) so at home I confirmed it just in case I was under some kind of delusion.
I would be in serious trouble.
That laptop's disk went kaput so eventually I lost it (this might have been 6 years ago).
I did come back but never heard anything that outrageous.
When the judge says "stop recording" my heart sank because I realized that recordings were not an accurate description of what happened there.
Recently I read about a case where a judge convicted a witness, just like that.
Eventually it was overturned but now that judge is at the European Court of Human Rights.
Convicting the witness without an extra trial is far more serious and nothing came out of it...
Edit: Court name was wrong.
Swedish physicians are quite restrictive with prescribing benzodiazepines in general - unless you have some serious issues you're not going to get them. This is in contrast to my (very possibly flawed) image of benzodiazepine use in the United States. Going by pop culture and brief discussions with a few Americans, that country pops heavy duty benzos such as Xanax like candy, with their doctors' blessings. I don't have any insight into which approach is more guided by rationality and the well-being of patients, so I'm not making any judgements.
My point is that the Swedish journalist might have made a much bigger deal of their role in this mess than an American or possibly a Brit would.
Benzos work very, very well in the short term however they are usually counterproductive in the long term.
They are still used in acute medical settings. For things like drug withdraw in a medical facility and for medical procedures such as colonoscopies. They are a component in twilight anesthesia. For example, I was prescribed a benzodiazepine in an emergency room to get me to sleep because I was staying overnight in that ER however they are very rarely prescribed for insomnia at home (anymore).[1]
I'm sure Sweden uses them in acute medical settings as well because they are very effective in that role.
[1] Nonbenzodiazepine medicines known as "Z drugs" are now the widely prescribed insomnia medicines despite their downfalls and risk of dependence.
I see, so perhaps my notions are just outdated then. Thanks for setting me straight. I still believe it's possible though that the average American may be more familiar and comfortable with the thought of using benzodiazepines than the average Swede.
>I'm sure Sweden uses them in acute medical settings as well because they are very effective in that role.
That's certainly true, I know from personal experience that you are right about that.
Of course, America went through a culture of benzo use whereas Sweden did not.
But not only that, having read a lot about benzos and have previously been prescribed a few different ones for insomnia, their effects are to quote Wikipedia "sedative, hypnotic (sleep-inducing), anxiolytic (anti-anxiety), anticonvulsant, and muscle relaxant"
Unless mixed with another drug - but I'm guessing he wasn't drinking in there - I don't see how their effects would be relevant.
Edit: 'When a new doctor took Bergwall off the heavy doses of benzodiazepine, his confessions abruptly stopped. "He sobered up and thought, 'What the hell have I done?' " Hill says.' But he didn't tell anyone until a journalist visited? Really feels like the author of the article heard "psychiatric" and "drugs" and jumped on the assumption that they were the cause. Interesting none the less.
Anecdotal: I was having reservations about a relationship and wasn't sure if I was willing to stay involved. In a relaxed state from pain medications related to a standard medical procedure, I finally said that I wanted out. I wouldn't have said it (at that moment) if I hadn't been sedated to the point of an above average sense of wellbeing. After the effects diminished, I realized that I was not as ready to live with the outcome and wished I had taken more time to think it over.
If Quick was already on the edge of making a false confession for the purpose of gaining attention or fame, this scenario would make sense. Whether that was the situation, I have no idea.
"The long-term effects of benzodiazepine use can include cognitive impairment as well as affective and behavioural problems. Feelings of turmoil, difficulty in thinking constructively, loss of sex-drive, agoraphobia and social phobia, increasing anxiety and depression, loss of interest in leisure pursuits and interests, and an inability to experience or express feelings can also occur. Not everyone, however, experiences problems with long-term use.[10][78] Additionally an altered perception of self, environment and relationships may occur.[77]"
"This, incidentally, is what Bergwall says was his daily intake, with extra top-ups when requested: six 5 mg. Valium, four 1 mg. Xanax, one 10 mg. prefill Valium, 1.5 mg. Halcion, two Rohypnol, six Treo comp, six Panocod."
http://www.gq.com/story/thomas-quick-serial-killer-august-20...
Didn't they also manage to pull in some medium somehow?
I think he's guilty of _some_ of what he's accused off, but lies about others.