Assange offered pardon if he co-operated over email leak, UK court hears
reuters.com
reuters.com
From wikipedia [1]:
On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators that the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded Russia conducted operations during the 2016 U.S. election to prevent Hillary Clinton[11] from winning the presidency.[12] Multiple U.S intelligence agencies concluded people with direct ties to the Kremlin gave WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee.[12] WikiLeaks did not reveal its source. Later Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, claimed that the source of the emails was not Russia.[13]
Can we get a transcript from what was said in court?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi...
Is it really that hard to believe?
Somehow;
"tell us who did this" is being reported as;
"tell us the Russians did this"
This is why the old-media cannot be trusted.
It makes zero sense otherwise for that lawyer to jeopardize Assange's "guaranteed" pardon.
Is everyone in America to be considered a suspected Russian agent now?
Because there is a scenario: Assange got the DNC leaks directly from someone in authority in the DNC, itself, knows the person, and knows they don't work for Russia (because the person already has high-level clearances/was rigorously vetted/etc.)
That sounds like something a foreign agent would want me to think.
Only Assange knows where he got the data. Why is it so easy for you to trust entities that were not involved in the leak so easily, yet disregard Assange's own agency over knowing/understanding where he got the data?
Is it because you maybe just don't like Assange as a person?
I mean, not vetting documents is one thing. But, actively engaging in election interference all over the world is another thing. Assange did the former - your beloved intelligence agency, are currently doing the latter. Its reasonable to assume that US Intelligence agencies are lying, utterly, to give themselves yet more budget for nefarious deeds - i.e. the "Ma' Russkies" narrative, which serves only to foment more hatred...
I think Assange isn't particularly careful or picky about what he releases and by extension particular inclined to thoroughly examine who's giving him that info. Additionally from all appearances he scheduled and coordinated (at the very least indicated he had something) to affect the US election.
As for my feelings about the various TLAs in the US they're mixed but I definitely think they're more likely to be able to tell who was actually involved than Assange.
[0] Wikileaks isn't a huge organization with massive investigatory prowess and resources, it wouldn't be terribly hard to believably fake non-association for a nation state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03...
But I can't find anything about physical destruction, CrowdStrike claims to only have ever had images of the systems.
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
In 2018, the DNC said “The FBI was given images of servers, forensic copies, as well as a host of other forensic information we collected from our systems.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-missing-dnc-server-is-n...
The same agencies that said, with certainty, that there were WMD's in Iraq .. and then, after a few million innocent people have been murdered, can't find them?
I think Americans put too much faith in their TLA's. These organisations are as corruptible as any other, and - as we have learned - could just as easily be controlled by Russia as anyone else.
I can certainly imagine situation s where Assange would know this, but Assange hasn't claimed that Russia wasn't involved, by his own claims even when a pardon that would erase the risk he has been fleeing desperately from for years was dangled in front of him as an incentive, so I think it's pretty clear that either that situation does not exist or he has an undisclosed reason to preserve the image that Russia may have been involved. The former seems to be the simplest explanation.
> knows they don't work for Russia (because the person already has high-level clearances/was rigorously vetted/etc.)
World powers have had highly placed agents in foreign governments and political parties, etc., with high-level clearances that require rigorous vetting numerous times in the past. So, no, the person being in such a position does not establish that they are not a Russian agent or that Russia was not involved in their actions.
2. Suppose it had been a "cut-out" (though I'm incredulous of that). Do you believe they should have refused to publish in that case?
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180802/07182740351/as-dn...
(Not with you but with the likes of Seth Rich-conspiracy-theory spreading idiots).
You’re getting this data from a third party. One that may well have used a USB stick to copy the data AFTER exfiltrating it using some other method, but BEFORE handing it to wiki leaks.
Some shoddy timestamp correlations don’t mean that the data was stolen via USB in any way. They are inherently mutable and could well have been modified by an adversary to spread FUD.
But the evidence certainly seems to indicate a local copy done by somebody who wasn't trying to cover their tracks:
https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-met...
The only evidence pointing to Russians is the CIA says so. The NSA gave it about a 50% chance before joining the other agencies to parrot what the CIA said.
Or, you know, this data was copied to a USB by Wikileaks at some point before publishing.
What does it make sense is the evil DNC murdering one of their own employees on US soil after a very public data breach.
If only we could think of a country that would profit from promoting this conspiracy theory! Then we might get closer to the truth.
Here we have an email recently obtained via FOIA, from Peter Strzok, showing he "squashed" the investigation:
That adds to the pile of suspicion. Seth had the means and the motive. Random killings are not so likely, even in DC. The attacker didn't take anything of value.
Podesta's emails also have very chilling comments about dealing with leakers.
I personally helped steal it, by casting one of the 3.7 million votes Hillary had over Bernie.
Also, I sent John Podesta that risotto recipe.
BernieBro conspiracies haven't changed much in the last few years, I guess.
There's also some wonky stuff in the original dispute from Assange and Craig Murray:
> Assange said: "We’re unhappy that we felt that we needed to even say that it wasn’t a state party. Normally, we say nothing at all.
So ... why did they do it then? Seems like there would be an explanation.
> “If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.
They did eventually indict Russians, of course, and Roger Stone's involvement has been a separate news item this week.
edit: It is really interesting to see the downvoted comments here, many of which seem to be reasonable.
Or it might be total bullshit. But given the events of recent days, it's hard to argue that it's not at least consistent.
Combine that with Bill Binney's analysis that proves the data couldn't have possibly been downloaded over the internet but rather shipped on a USB: https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/becdyc/nsa_whist...
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=593&v=mwUoE8UecC...
Trump telling Assange "okay, so .. come out and tell the world that the DNC leaks weren't Russia-sourced and if you can provide evidence that this is true, I will pardon you" is not the same as Trump saying "cover up Russia's involvement in the DNC leak, and I'll pardon you" - but yet, the positioning in mainstream media so far (its only been a few hours) is definitely making it seem like the former.
Until we can refer to the sources (you know, "avoid fake news by going to the source"), this should be treated as fake news either way. The hearing hasn't even ramped up yet and we are already knee-deep in Russiagate nonsense already.
We should surely go after Trump and not the perpetrators of the underlying crimes! More misdirection to hide their crimes a la Biden & Ukraine, Hillary & China.
Corruption isn't limited to one side or the other. Party line votes in both past impeachments prove the US does not yet have a working judicial process for sitting presidents. (Except perhaps from those few jurors who crossed over such as Romney.)
And yes, some people “should be pardoned”. I wouldn’t say a guy convicted of war crimes or a corrupt governor falls into that category though.
Further, there is no muh quid pro quo threat of prison time as it predates this.
Of course it also helps that none of this even happened and is Fake News and misinformation, but again muh “extortion”.
>Upon my return, I spoke briefly with Gen. Kelly. I told him that Julian Assange would provide information about the purloined DNC emails in exchange for a pardon. No one followed up with me including Gen. Kelly and that was the last discussion I had on this subject with anyone representing Trump or in his Administration.
https://www.rohrabacher.com/news/my-meeting-with-julian-assa...
In English courts transcriptions are prepared by a private company and you have no right to see them. You can ask but if you're not involved in the case they will probably refuse.
That's wrong, and is spreading misinformation:
- Julian Assange said that his source was not Russian Intelligence.
- Julian Assange did not say that the hacks were not Russian.
It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU.
Julian Assange has also never stated that a "hack" took place to obtain this data.
If you have evidence - especially evidence that Assange himself doesn't have - by all means, share it. I am sure this would really help a lot of people understand an issue, about which the cyber-security industry has apparently reached a consensus.
>The U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that some of the genuine leaks from "Guccifer 2.0" were part of a series of cyberattacks on the DNC committed by two Russian military intelligence groups, and that "Guccifer 2.0" is actually a persona created by Russian intelligence services to cover for their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This conclusion is based on analyses conducted by various private sector cybersecurity individuals and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, FireEye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, Trend Micro, and the security editor for Ars Technica.
Some of these are not like the others.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/gucci...
"We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0—the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it—left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era."
"Conculded"? It's nice that they concluded. If they want _us_ to conclude, then let them bring evidence.
I remember when the US concluded Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction". That did not turn out to be quite accurate.
There is overwhelming evidence with the DNC hack from the cybersecurity industry and intelligence communities.
If I am mistaken - please provide a link to such evidence.
I also remember that there was a report by many US intelligence agencies "confirming" the assessment - but they were all basing their opinion on the opinions by other agencies and/or CrowdStrike, the DNC-associated cyber-security firm which had actual access to the servers.
Why use the wording "DNC-associated firm" instead of "firm hired by DNC"?
They're working with the GOP too https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-cyb...
It really sounds like you're accusing CrowdStrike of lying with zero evidence to back that up.
The era when an authority could simply issue a conclusion, and expect the great unwashed public to just believe it without question, are long gone.
We all have access to much more information than in the past and if we wish, can perform our own analysis and reach our own conclusions, independent of old media, private sector experts, assorted propaganda sources etc.
Here, start with Fidelis:
https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-...
That's your best? Really? How gullible do you think we are? Colin Powell had satellite photos of trains! That was something, not evidence he said it was, sure, but something at least. This is nothing.
That said, I am also seeking out this "evidence," of which you write. The Fidelis article you linked to did nothing but show some similarity in naming schemes, binary packaging conventions, and code style. And, it's building a case upon the precedent of prior "evidence," which we cannot see for ourselves either.
We all know that the FBI could put all of its evidence in a GitHub repo, along with a README.md that explains how to run the code that offers the substantiated proof of their claims. The problem is, they don't have any.
It is an unsubstantiated claim on the internet from a very dubiuos source with clear ulterior motvie.
The bias comes in when one is determined to believe something it can be confusing as to whether some item or other in support of it is evidence or not. This isn't. When there's evidence I may change my mind but it's kind of idiotic to believe this stuff when we've been so roundly lied to before and by Colin Powell with so much more credibility, with so much more to lose. Anyway he did lose it all and on behalf of all such "trust me" claims and this kind of unsubstantiated claim can only work once when it turned out to be lies. Bet your life that this is not just another lie? The last one cost into 6 figures of deaths just spell out the stakes. (But obviously also a huge funding boost to the military industrial complex. Rising tides lift all ships and most probably believed the lie that incidentally was good for their careers etc.)
Demand evidence for incendiary claims. For me, I owe it my own self-respect. I owe it out of support for this "democracy experiment". We can't rule this out as a total and utter lie. We really can't. Maybe it isn't but damn. That kind of lie worked so well before. Colin took me in totally, I believed the hell out of that guy.
Mostly posts on "hot button" political topics that can wielded as wedge issues, aka chelsea manning, iranian airstrikes, and DHS. I'm guessing this is someone's alt account.
Also, "including possibly through Wikileaks" means nothing. "Including possibly through my second cousin's DIY basement mail server."
I don’t know if there was further evidence not made public to protect sources and methods.
A judge famously said you could indict a ham sandwich. In practice, grand juries say whatever a prosecutor wants them to say.
And as Russian nationals, it's also unlikely they'll ever have to actually stand trial, which is when evidence would be required to enter the public record to convict them.
Either you "protect sources and methods", and not make strong public accusations, or you make accusations and disclose evidence.
Doing one but not the other is indistinguishable from just making false claims - which the US is known to have done repeatedly in the past (another example - Gulf of Tonkin).
But it seems not an unreasonable guess in this case that there was possible use of "WikiLeaks's private communication system" based on a Twitter DM that was quoted in the Mueller report:
On September 15, 2016, @dcleaks wrote to @WikiLeaks, “hi there! I'm from DC Leaks. How could we discuss some submission-related issues? Am trying to reach out to you via your secured chat but getting no response. I’ve got something that might interest you. You won't be disappointed, I promise.”
That piece of disinformation was thoroughly debunked: http://www.g-2.space/
You mean, it is repeatedly claimed without solid (or any?) evidence.
He also did not say that the hacks were not leaks. There are many things he also did not say. Are all of these things therefore true, or only the things you believe to be "well known" ?
> It's well known [...] were Russian GRU
Any Russian state or GRU involvement is completely unsubstantiated.
This Russia link is stated so often without a shred of evidence on the authority of known liars I think we're safe to say it's less likely than 50:50 at this point. I'll change my mind for credible evidence of which nobody has that they can share.
Evidence. Put up or shut up. The motive for spreading that lie, if it is a lie as seems more than plausible is as as big as the WMD lie are obvious.
Or at least be honest enough to say you still believe WMD as i did before evidence.
There's evidence released by private firms, including ThreatConnect, FireEye, CrowdStrike, Fidelis, and Dell SecureWorks, who have been tracking Russian intelligence groups, including the ones that they allege hacked the DNC, for many years prior:
* https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recen...
* https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28...
* https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
* https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-...
* https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe...
(There are varying degrees of technical details in each report, but I recommend reading them all to get a full picture.)
Dutch intelligence says they hacked GRU computers and cameras and observed the hacks as they were happening: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch.... They contacted NSA, and this may have been the first time US intelligence became aware of this.
The evidence is so comprehensive, Mueller was able to name 12 of the GRU officers who conducted the breaches: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download. This indictment gets extremely specific, to the point of what software they were running and when, what they were searching for, how they got the funding to buy the VPN access they used to register the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account, exactly what they said and sent to Wikileaks, etc. This goes into very granular detail. Here's an excerpt:
>Between on or about May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees. During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell commands related to accessing and managing the Microsoft Exchange Server. 30.
>On or about May 30, 2016, MALYSHEV accessed the AMS panel in order to upgrade custom AMS software on the server. That day, the AMS panel received updates from approximately thirteen different X-Agent malware implants on DCCC and DNC computers.
There is essentially a global consensus among intelligence and security organizations, governmental and private, that Russian intelligence was behind the DNC hack and the Guccifer 2.0 persona. By contrast, not a single entity other than the US government backed the Iraq WMD claims, and there wasn't any sort of specific public claims made beyond "they have WMDs". Here, Mueller's reports make hundreds of very specific, narrow claims.
If you like, I could write a 30+ page summary of all of the credible evidence in all of these documents, in addition to hints at what sort of classified evidence US intelligence may have (likely through compromised GRU and Russian government systems, and perhaps also moles, in combination with what the Dutch gave them).
As for whether Assange was aware of any of this or suspected it; who knows. It's very likely "Guccifer 2.0" / GRU would have maintained their cover while sending him information. Doesn't really make sense for them to be like "hey, Russia here, here's some stuff you might want". He's smart, though, and surely was (or at least is now) aware of the possibility.
If you're offering... yes please.
I've seen some good RAND Corp write ups, and others on security blogs, to include one of those you listed, but a reasonably concise omnibus would be nice.
And just an aside unrelated to your post: I know the WMD error/lie/both depending on who was saying it has severely tarnished the credibility of the US intelligence community, as it should have, but it'd also be unempirical to disregard everything they ever say afterwards no matter how many decades later, especially when there seems to be near-universal independent agreement.
Purely speculatively, I suspect this was all very intentional of Russian intelligence, and perhaps Putin himself (if reports of his personal involvement are accurate; given his past field experience in intelligence, it seems plausible).
For example, that's one reason they began sending phishing emails the same day Trump gave his "Russia, if you're listening" comment/joke. They knew what kind of look that would create. They knew that whatever they did would be vehemently denied by Trump and his supporters and aggressively pounced on by his detractors and drive a huge wedge through the country and create wild disagreement about the integrity of this and future elections. The "metagame" (interpretation, backlash, and other butterfly effects) may have been much more of the goal than the game itself (releasing the compromised emails, which really weren't that juicy beyond things we already knew like bias against Bernie, the only exception being the Donna Brazile thing; though the perception and theories may have done much more damage than the actual facts). The mere appearance of Russian manipulation and the debates over whether it's ruining us or is a conspiracy theory achieves a significant objective without having to do hardly anything at all.
Maybe I'll write a big blog post about this whole thing, since I've ranted about this kind of meta-manipulation idea at length before (not that it's a novel proposition, or anything) in addition to debates about the evidence. First I'd need to make a blog, though.
Pages 36 to 51 of volume one of the Mueller report concern the hacking and dissemination of DNC emails. It has many detailed claims and conclusions, but what's notably missing:
The actual evidence on which Mueller bases his conclusion that both DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 are cutouts for the GRU. He doesn't even indirectly allude to specific evidence, let alone include it in the report. It just isn't there.
Funny thing: on page 46 it cites a 9/15/16 Twitter DM, @guccifer_2 to @dcleaks. If they're both false identities for the GRU, it seems odd for Russian state coworkers to be communicating with each other over cleartext DMs on Twitter, an American company. (Unless that's just to deviously throw us off their trail.)
This seems fairly probable.
But, yes, those are all valid points. The Mueller report does not contain the actual hard evidence of the attribution. It contains the full names of the people who registered the account and a lot of the things they did, but it doesn't state the proof of this. I suspect if we all had Top Secret clearances we would probably all be satisfied with the evidence they have, but that's blind speculation of course. A large percentage of it may be Dutch intelligence's findings, which have been widely reported on, but of course you still have to take Dutch intelligence's word for it that they really did compromise GRU computers and observe them.
There is some real evidence (especially released by private security firms) of GRU and SVR hacking the DNC et al., and Guccifer 2.0 is the only one who ever claimed to have the documents discovered during the hack. There's probably a lot of other circumstantial evidence, too. If I get around to writing a long post about all of this, I'll cover everything I can find.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach...
My understanding here is that "Russians" here means Russian government intelligence, it does not necessarily exclude Russian citizens.
Which is a blatantly false statement.
"Julian Assange court appearance today- His lawyer mentioned a statement, that alleges former US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher visited Assange, saying he was there on behalf of the President, offering a pardon if JA would say Russia had nothing to do with DNC leaks."
https://twitter.com/benlewismedia/status/1230172453185429505
"There is more the Australian government can do, and I think when we hear some of the stuff that's going to come to light next week, there's more that will be done," Mr Christensen said.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/leave-our-bloke-alone-australian...
What would make sense is that in August 2017, Rohrabacher wanted to strike a deal for actual, solid evidence that would debunk the idea that the Russian government hacked the DNC (and with it, the idea that Trump worked with Russia), rather than just take Assange's word on who the source was and wasn't. Since his goal is to save Trump's reputation, Assange's word isn't enough.
https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/video/3731570-rohrabacher-ma...
Of course Trump likely wasn't aware that Rohrabacher was trying to make this kind of deal at the time. Rohrabacher only spoke to Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, who could have easily mentally filed their phone conversation directly in the trash, because the Trump administration was already busy secretly drafting up charges against Julian Assange at the time.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/politics/julian-assange-wikil...
Our democracy is crumbling.
Channeling the site operators a bit for you. Remember that politics is things like "who should win or lose in society?" and "who is even human and deserves civil rights, or the right to vote?"
Honestly it always seemed obvious to me that any hacker would see that "civil rights should belong to everyone" and "we should all strive to everyone can win" as not only tautologies but basic moral prerogatives. But I am so so sad to learn here on HN that may not be so. Either that or there is a ton of non-hackers here.
Absolutely not - current events have shown quite clearly how many people want the system to be rigged, corrupt and brutal provided it does so in their favour. Or even just to promote their own side in the culture war. Breaking the law "to own the libs".
Trump enjoys lockstep support in everything he does. The senate republicans support the lawbreaking, and their voters support them.
Possibly more to the point, Nixon attacked the traditional media and they were our sole source of news. So when he pissed them off he had no way of getting an alternative view point out there.
Trump has also pissed off the media of course, but now they no longer have a monopoly over what the the public gets to hear. He famously bypassed them with his tweats to get his own narrative out there.
That was enough to get him through the impeachment, because he it's allowed him to keep most of his base. Had he lost his base like Nixon did the republicans would have turned on him to put as much distance between him and their next election as possible, just as they did with Nixon.
But I suspect it may not be enough to get him past 2020. He has pissed off a lot of people. Pissed them off enough to make them want to vote. Using advertising targeted via the email leaks was enough get his voters to the ballot box while at the same time the other side of politics was asleep at the wheel, secure in the knowledge they would win, so they didn't bother putting a matching effort in. That ain't going to happen this time around. Trump has done all the hard work required to get the democrat voters to the ballot box.
I am starting to come to the conclusion that the anomaly is the Nixon case. It is one of the rare cases where those responsible did get some punishment.
https://www.rohrabacher.com/news/my-meeting-with-julian-assa...
At no time did I talk to President Trump about Julian Assange. Likewise, I was not directed by Trump or anyone else connected with him to meet with Julian Assange. I was on my own fact finding mission at personal expense to find out information I thought was important to our country. I was shocked to find out that no other member of Congress had taken the time in their official or unofficial capacity to interview Julian Assange. At no time did I offer Julian Assange anything from the President because I had not spoken with the President about this issue at all.
Torture, err, solitary confinement.
Interrogate, err, coerce statement, err, offer a pardon in exchange for the statement they want to hear, err, for a truthful and honest statement.
Imply that the torture, err, solitary confinement will continue if the honest statement is not made.
Yup, all perfectly reasonable. /s
Assange wasn't placed in solitary confinement, a form of torture, until 2019, after he was arrested by UK authorities.
Of course in 2017, he was being arbitrarily detained, [2] which while not torture, was a violation of his human rights, and had been ongoing since the Obama administration with no end in sight.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach...
[2] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
That old chestnut, again.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10593174266539335...
> The pardon would come on the condition that Assange complied with the U.S. by saying that the Russians were not involved in the email leak which hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, Rohrabacher’s statement said.
Rohrabacher's witness statement says that he made this offer on Trump's behalf with a condition attached. Rohrabacher's own statement in August 2017 says that Assange met that condition in that same 3 hour meeting:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach...
> Assange, said Rohrabacher, “emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.” Rohrabacher, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, is the only U.S. congressman to have visited the controversial figure.
> The conversation ranged over many topics, said Rohrabacher, including the status of Wikileaks, which Assange maintains is vital to keeping Americans informed on matters hidden by their traditional media. The congressman plans to divulge more of what he found directly to President Trump.
https://www.rohrabacher.com/news/my-meeting-with-julian-assa... https://web.archive.org/web/20200220001758/https://www.rohra...
This world is more rotten than you can ever imagine.
Nope, those charges were dropped.
Also AFAIK Swedish prosecutors wanted to drop these charges in 2013, but the UK prosecutors dissuaded them from doing do.
Besides, not all of the Swedish charges hit statute of limitations.
It wouldn’t. It’s quite common to have a statute of limitations that requires the prosecutors to serve an indictment, in this case that wouldn’t even have been particularly difficult to achieve.
AFAIK most (all?) Nordic legal systems are like this.