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No he wasn't, he was interviewed by Ecuadorians. Swedish officers were just "present".

> The Swedish assistant prosecutor, Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren, and a Swedish police investigator have been allowed to be present at the interview. They will report the findings to Sweden.

Edit: For people wondering what the problem is, Ecuador asked the questions and "[the Swedish prosecutor] is allowed to ask Assange to clarify his answers, but not to put additional questions, and will receive a written transcript of the exchanges from Ecuador after the interview has concluded." - https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange...

Are you suggesting the Swedish prosecution agreed to fly over to London just to sit and watch Ecuador interview Assange? I think we'd have heard more from Sweden about that if that were the case. :p

Yes, because that's what happened. "The questions were prepared by prosecutors in Sweden, where an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange was issued in 2010, but were posed by a prosecutor from Ecuador under an agreement the two countries made in August." - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/world/europe/assange-wiki...

I think a key part of a police interview is asking new questions based on responses and having an actual conversation, which the Swedish prosecutors couldn't do.

Your original comment made it sound like they had no input in the questions being put to Assange. Merely "present" to observe Ecuador. This article suggests Sweden was involved and I don't see anything suggesting the procedure (under "an agreement the two countries made") was problematic. Who asks the questions seems to just be a technicality here.

"Isgren is allowed to ask Assange to clarify his answers, but not to put additional questions, and will receive a written transcript of the exchanges from Ecuador after the interview has concluded." - https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange...

This is problematic.

Problematic for whom? You seem more concerned about this than the Swedish prosecutors. It seems this was the procedure they agreed to. Whether it's normal or not I don't know. But they haven't made a fuss about it. And I think they would have if it was a big concern.

They could ask for a second interview and present follow up questions.

But this raise a primary question. Is the distinction of being able to instantly make follow up questions of such importance that it will swing the binary choice of charging Assange of a crime or dropping the case?

The primary cause for a guilty and not guilty verdict should not be the quality of the environment for a police interview. Not for a such serious allegation like this.

>Reading the comments, many people seem unaware that Assange was indeed interviewed by Swedish prosecutors in London [1].

This is simply not true. The questions was asked by Ecuadorians and had to be approved beforehand. Swedish prosecutors where allowed in the room but could not talk to Assange. IE no follow up questions etc

To be fair, he was interviewed by the police in Stockholm, whereupon the investigation was terminated and he was told he could go home.

After a while, a senior prosecutor reopened the case for unexplained reasons, and asked him to fly back to Sweden on his own expenses so he could be interviewed a second time. When he offered to meat in London, but rejected coming to Sweden, she issued an European arrest warrant. I believe he was then interviewed by the British police and was held under custody, until he made the not so brilliant decision to seek asylum in the Embassy.

I've read the police investigation and while I don't want to diminish the alleged victims, I can understand why the (female) police told him to go home in the first place.

Simply put, and I'm basing this not on Assange's statement which was anyway consistent with everyone else's stories - behaving like a total wanker is not a crime, even if you happen to do that towards a politically active left wing feminist.

Everything else than the ass-hat bit in this story is a failure of the legal system in Sweden and it's a consequence of the government's self-image as infallible and that it's relatively unprotected from civil servants with personal agendas.

Do you have any sources for how the interview took place? And any indication that it was unfair? (I'm pretty sure Sweden would have refused to do it if they were unhappy with the process.)

I don't know who asked the questions, or what the procedure was, but I read the Swedish prosecutor's statement issued today and they do not mention the London interview being an issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...

>It was established that the interview would be conducted by an Ecuadorian prosecutor, with Isgren and a police officer present.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/14/date-set-quest...

>According to Assange's lawyer, the "shape" of the questions was still being discussed a week before the scheduled interview.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/07/julian-assange...

Thanks. Your original comment took issue with the statement that Assange was indeed interviewed in London by Swedish prosecutors. You said "This is simply not true." The issue for you seems to be that that the questions being put to Assange weren't actually put to him by Swedish prosecutors directly. Even though they were the Swedish prosecutors' questions being put to him. That doesn't sound like a huge issue to me, and I don't see why it should discount the interview. Especially as the Swedish prosecutors themselves have not taken issue with this aspect of the interview. It seems this was procedure they agreed to.

It seems to me that the real question is: is that the normal procedure for this kind of questioning in Ecuador territory?

I suspect that this is the case.

Source?

Lol. Pretty standard to tell courts and investigators: "Hey, how about we meet at my place instead?" (on top of that at a place where the investigators don't have jurisdiction)

It actually is pretty standard. Sweden has done it in many other cases. As Wikileaks highlighted when this was made into an issue.

IANAL but it seems that Sweden has agreements with certain countries to enable questioning of someone who's not in the country. When it comes to EU states it's pretty straight forward.

One thing that would complicate this matter is that there doesn't seem to be an agreement between Ecuador and Sweden regarding this. Given that JA was under Ecuadorian jurisdiction it's entirely possible that this was one of the reasons why the prosecutor didn't go down that route initially.

Sources (sorry, can only find them in Swedish):

http://www.regeringen.se/sveriges-regering/justitiedeparteme...

It's pretty standard to go to the police for questioning when they can't/won't come to you. In the US you can assert your 5th amendment rights not to answer questions, but as far as I know Assange hasn't said he won't answer questions.

For America Yes, for Europe no

As the confinement in the Embassy is confinement. And he's been unjustly confined for a longer period than the maximum penalty for rape in Sweden.

That's valid if Sweden locked him in the Ecuador Embassy. He went there to shield himself.

Personally I think (my opinion, anyway) that the rape charges were work of the CIA, but that's another story.

It's nice of him to offer to answer their questions where he chooses, everyone should have that choice. It wasn't Assange that refused to go back to Sweden, it was Sweden to refused to come to Assange.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not.

His refusal to cooperate with the investigation on Sweden's terms wasn't about the alleged crime itself. His concern was that because he was involved in a criminal investigation, he could be taken into custody by either British or Swedish authorities at which point he could be extradited to the US.

Actually, his 'conditions' for meeting with the Swedish government were absurd. Basically guaranteeing his freedom no matter what. That's not how criminal investigates are done.

He is supposedly in fear of being extradited to the US and then stuck in a hole to rot. On paper Guantanamo is 'not how criminal investigations are done' either.

> He is supposedly in fear of being extradited to the US and then stuck in a hole to rot.

If the US wanted him from Britain for national security reasons (or political reasons masquerading as national security reasons), they wouldn't try to get him extradited to Sweden to do it; the US has closer security cooperation with the UK than Sweden.

You're overthinking it. Assange only has to be afraid of being arrested, for fear of being extradited somehow. The specifics of the UK/Sweden situation really don't matter.

That was his stated concern. I don't think it makes any sense because he could have been arrested by Swedish or British authorities long before the alleged rapes occurred.

Well let's assume he was scared of a random arrest before the allegations. He'd be extra scared when they emerged.

Not sure what's to doubt.

The fact that he was in Sweden already? And the fact that he fled to the UK, the closest ally of the US in Europe as well as a NATO country, unlike Sweden? And perhaps the fact that he now plans to seek asylum in France, another NATO country?

It's very convenient how this conspiracy theory of the US snatching Assange from Sweden cropped up just as he was accused of a crime in Sweden I would say.

None of this requires a conspiracy theory or 'snatching'. Assange is scared of being arrested, and once he is in custody, being extradited to the US somehow. The Sweden/UK details are irrelevant.

The conspiracy theory is the one that he will be extradited to the US on "secret charges" as soon as he is arrested in Sweden. Some others in this thread compared it to other CIA grabs, for example one in Italy.

Plus prison in Sweden is like staying at a Best Western.

"You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners". F. Dostoyevsky

Weren't the charges politically motivated? The story was too hard to believe. Does anybody have more details?

That was Assange's claim, but there are two women in Sweden who say that he sexually victimized them. The details of their claims have been out for a while: IIRC they had consensual sex with him, and later that night he had nonconsensual sex with them. It seems Sweden (rightly) takes sexual assault much more seriously than some other jurisdictions.

The two women say they were not raped, and were railroaded by Swedish police.

> "On a point of law, the Swedish Supreme Court has decided Ny can continue to obstruct on the vital issue of the SMS messages. This will now go to the European Court of Human Rights. What Ny fears is that the SMS messages will destroy her case against Assange. One of the messages makes clear that one of the women did not want any charges brought against Assange, "but the police were keen on getting a hold on him". She was "shocked" when they arrested him because she only "wanted him to take [an HIV] test". She "did not want to accuse JA of anything" and "it was the police who made up the charges". (In a witness statement, she is quoted as saying that she had been "railroaded by police and others around her".)

> Neither woman claimed she had been raped. Indeed, both have denied they were raped and one of them has since tweeted, "I have not been raped."

-from http://johnpilger.com/articles/assange-the-untold-story-of-a...

I linked the NY Times story above, but at least one of the women remains adamant that she was raped, and is shocked by the decision to drop the case. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/world/europe/julian-assan...

'Elisabeth Massi Fritz, who represents the woman who accused Mr. Assange of rape, issued a scathing response after the prosecutors abandoned the case. “A legal examination is very important for someone who has been raped, as is the possibility for redress,” she said. “In this case, there have been many turns and the wait has been very long. My client is shocked and no decision to shut the case down can get her to change her position that Assange raped her.”'

After you have brought charges it becomes up to the prosecutor. You can't take them back. If it was possible for someone to take back charges, it would be trivial for the suspect to have the charges dropped by threatening the victim.

He had consensual sex with them. The sex only became nonconsensual retroactively when they learned about one another. Which is frankly, bullshit.

My understanding is that he had consensual sex with them, they went to sleep, then he had nonconsensual sex with them while they were sleeping. They were individually disturbed by these events, but did not decide to file charges until they compared stories.

That's very different from "the sex became nonconsensual retroactively". And I don't think it's uncommon for women brave the consequences of speaking out about sexual assault when they believe there's a pattern of behavior they can protect other women from.

> My understanding is that he had consensual sex with them, they went to sleep, then he had nonconsensual sex with them while they were sleeping.

Source? Seems to differ from: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange...

Thanks. I must have been thinking of Miss W's story there. Miss A's account is even more serious: clear sexual assault.

You're just speculating. But sure, in case the accusations are fabricated that's a much more plausible explanation than that there's a big conspiracy going on.

No, one of the charges is that he started having sex with someone who was asleep.

I was unjustly confined in my bedroom this morning because I also refused to leave. In my case, it was fear of making my brats breakfast, not prosecution, but same thing.