Sex, Lies and Julian Assange
abc.net.au
abc.net.au
The TL;DR summary is that everything points to Sweden having being coerced at every juncture (by the US), and the Swedish police failing constantly.
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I'd never actually been clear on what the "sexual assault/rape/molestation" charges were with Assange, but from the transcript, these charges were filed after two women Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen went to the police to seek advice if they could compel Assange to take a STD test since they did not use a condom during sex.
It's unclear from the transcript, but from what I have read, these two women knew that he was sleeping with both of them. Both of the women went to the Klara police station in central Stockholm, however, it is mentioned that Ardin had gone along primarily to support Wilen.
Ardin had been frequently in the company of Assange. She had previously described him as such a "cool man" (Twitter). They also arrived and left together at a Crayfish party (equivalent of a cocktail party). Ardin was sharing accomodation with Assange and had refused an offer from someone else for temporary accomodation.
The day after the accusation of rape and molesation Ardin sent a SMS saying : "I've just spent some time with the coolest people in the world".
SMS text messages were also exchanged between Sofia and Ardin, which showed that the two of them knew of the relationship between each other and Assange.
Ardin responded to 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?"
The Swedish police, totally railroaded the investigation. Interviews have been leaked with Assange, and Wilen commented initially "that she became so distraught she refused to give any more testimony and refused to sign what had been taken down.".
Assange went freely for interview to the police station and was released without immediate charge, and was free to travel. Almost immediately there after, another warrant was issued for his arrest.
Eventually, it was also upgraded to a "Red Notice". To put it into context, a red notice for such a trivial charge with a previously willful and responsive person is unusual.
> The president of Syria does not have a Red Notice alert. Gaddafi in Libya, at the same time Julian's arrest warrant was issued, was not subject to a Red Notice but an Orange Notice. It was an incredibly... it was incredibly unusual that a red notice would be sought for an allegation of this kind.
It's alleged (from the transcripts), that Sweden has frankly always been the United States' lap dog and it's not a matter we are particularly proud of. The Swedish Government has... essentially, whenever a US official says, "Jump", the Sweden Government asks, "How high?"
Assange's legal team are clearly trying to point out that US is coercing all of this behind the scenes so that he can then be extradited from Sweden and face trial for conspiracy to commit espionage.
> The burden should be on the United States Government to say, "We are not planning to prosecute Julian Assange". If they just gave that assurance, I can guarantee you that Julian Assange would go to Sweden tomorrow.
A "Red Notice" is just an Interpol request for a member country to issue an arrest warrant for a person wanted in another member country, with the expectation that the person will be extradited to the country seeking the arrest. (Interpol does not have the power to issue arrest warrants on its own.)
And the allegation is accusation of sexually assault of the lowest degree. The lowest. Accusations. If Anders Breivik fled out of jail from Norway, he would be unlikely to receive the same high international legal attention that Assange got. It things like that this that causes people to loose trust in the legal system, especially the Swedish legal system.
The Wikipedia page says that red notices are: Requests (provisional) arrest of wanted persons, with a view to extradition.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol_notice
From the page, I can't work out what other notice would have been appropriate in its place. I do, however, have a massive headcold today, so please let me know if I've missed something obvious :)
It somewhat like bringing in tanks, bombers, and a nuclear missile in handling a shop lifter running away from the store. It might work, but appropriate action it is not. Equal to the law it is clearly not.
Syria is not a member of Interpol, nor is he currently detained by any member of Interpol. The same was true of Gaddafi. Consequently, no Red Notice would be issued for either of them.
Note also that Julian Assange's crime is not just sexual assault. His crime also consists of attempting to flee to avoid arrest. Flight will trigger an interpol notice regardless of the underlying crime.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/07/15/wikilea...
Thus the only thing I wonder about this case is how can anyone pretend like this is a legitimate warrant?
Everyone consented, there was no crime. Forget about who Assange is, or that this came up after he became very famous, or that the US might be trying to extradite him. None of that matters- there isn't even an alleged crime here[1].
[1] I'm using the word "crime" here in the moral sense. There are lots of things that are not crimes but that are against the law. Since governments are not beholden to morality, laws that cause the violation of rights are themselves crimes. So, something simply being illegal doesn't make it a crime.
I can't be assed to properly asses the situation so let me give you my uneducated opinion. Fix'd
I have no idea whether this program is good or not, but there is a key point about the situation, and I made it.
I find it interesting that you assume that because I didn't watch this particular program I'm "uneducated".... yet you have no problem giving me that derogatory characterization without actually showing where I was in error on anything I said.
This isn't reddit. Yet.
Look how intellectually superior I am to everyone else. Fix'd
Effectively, you're just calling me names. In this example, you're claiming that I'm saying I'm "intellectually superior" as a way of implying that I don't have any argument other than being smug.
In doing so, you cut out my actual explanations and have ignored my arguments.
If you're going to disagree with me, I have no chance to even understand why, unless you explain your position.
You have not done so.
EDIT: The parent comment has now been edited to remove the original starting sentence: "I don't have 46 minutes to spare on a strong headline, but I will say this...".
Your comment doesn't provide me any understanding of your disagreement with my position.
You have since edited that out. So you appear to have read the article after writing your comment.
On your last sentence: I didn't comment on your position one way or the other.
From what I've read it's pretty hard to convict people using the existing rape laws in Sweden, since you need a lot of evidence and stuff.
I'm not saying trials are unnecessary, I'm pointing out there isn't any dispute on the basic facts of the case. In almost every trial there is- the prosecution says he did it, the defendant says he didn't.
Here both sides say the same thing about what happened. IT is the law that is the crime, but the law will not be put on trial if there is a trial. (They don't even do that in the USA anymore, even though that was the foundation of our system.)
Similarly, here the trial isn't what he did, it's if what he did was unlawful. Obviously someone thinks it was, and someone doesn't.
There is a reason we have criminal trials: it is to allow for the exposition of all of the facts of the case, not just the ones selectively released by the prosecution or defense.
And, based on my reading of the facts currently available, it sounds like Assange may have been guilty of rape by fraud, if he misled either of the women about why he was not using protection.
As to your final, comment: even a cursory glance at the news will suggest how ridiculously untrue it is. Laws, even those that have been on the books without issue for decades, are regularly challenged by defendants in the U.S. The trial court then holds a hearing on the law itself. Only after the challenge to the law has been resolved does the case proceed to trial on the substantive issues.
Assange thinks he will be convicted of a crime. He thinks he will end up being imprisoned for the rest of his life in the United States for releasing secrets.
The issue is not Swedish rape laws, it is Swedish extradition laws.
Agreed. And that's what we should be discussing, not the rape laws.
An example of this might be pretending to be someone's wife to sleep with him. While this might appear consensual to you, this is sexual assault because the victim may have chosen not to consent if he had been given the truth at the time of the assault.
Assange is alleged to have had sex with one of the women whilst she was sleeping[1]. That is very much considered rape in the UK.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-q...