Are Liberals Too Eager to Believe Sex Charges Against Julian Assange?

[marmar]

via truthdig:


Are Liberals Too Eager to Believe Sex Charges Against Julian Assange?
Posted on Aug 31, 2012


What happens when the predatory interests of a national security state and those of women’s rights advocates seem to coincide, as in the case of WikiLeaks publisher and accused rapist Julian Assange? A murky witch hunt, in which some liberals forget that suspects are innocent until proven guilty, JoAnn Wypijewski writes in The Nation.

Wypijewski reminds us that Swedish police were unusually quick to initiate the process of arrest when one of the women now involved in the charges against Assange asked authorities to require that he take an STD test after the two had unprotected sex. Upon seeing the authorities’ eagerness to arraign Assange, that woman refused to give further testimony. Not long after, the Swedish prosecutor’s office withdrew the arrest warrant for rape and molestation on the grounds that the charges were not appropriate to the women’s claims. For some reason, that decision was overturned a week later, after the Swedish authorities allowed Assange to leave the country. (A detailed account of this sequence of events, with statements from the women that seem to exonerate Assange, can be read here.)

The dubious circumstances surrounding Sweden’s sexual misconduct charges—taken with Assange’s status as public enemy No. 1 in the West—suggest that the public’s legitimate desire to see officials investigate suspects of rape and violence against women is being exploited by governments looking to protect their own interests—namely, their ability to continue committing illegal acts in secret worldwide. In their eagerness to defend the rights of women, Wypijewski argues, some writers and activists, however just their cause in general, may have become unwitting supporters of a government’s malicious attempt to silence one of its ablest critics.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly. Follow him on Twitter: @areedkelly.

JoAnn Wypijewski in The Nation:

If the Swedish claims against Assange had involved anything but sex, it’s unlikely that liberals, and even some self-described radicals, would be tiptoeing around this part of the story, either by asking “So I guess he’s a bad guy?” or by arguing “Of course he needs to answer for his crimes.” If it were anything but sex, we would insist on the presumption of innocence. We have instead gotten comfortable with presuming guilt and trusting in the dignified processes of law to guarantee fairness.

“Believe the victim” entered the lexicon decades ago for historically understandable reasons. Women had been denied their own due process, in a sense—their right to make a complaint and expect justice, not vilification or worse. They are still being denied and derided, as the idiot spewings of Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin illustrate. The mutation of basic rights into an imperative for belief, and of full citizens into victims, has not made women any safer, but its cultural manipulation—particularly in high-profile cases—has struck at the foundations of civil liberty in a way that may not have been anticipated.

So here is the spectacle of Assange, as yet unindicted, bearing the dual brand of Sex Offender and Terrorist, the subhuman beings of the twenty-first century. The fusing of abuse and terror in his case thus implies two victims who must be believed, the women and the state. But the women’s claims are murky, and the state is not credible.

Read more

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/are_liberals_too_eager_to_believe_sex_charges_a_j_assange_20120831/

[sendero]

1. Only the .

.... naive and gullible ones.

[Buzz Clik]

52. bullshit.

I know nothing of the case and have no opinion, but your post is bullshit. It is based on nothing but your own biases about the case. A naive and gullible bias? Maybe.

It's one thing about DU, these kinds of post are FAR too common.

[sendero]

65. I know plenty about it.

... and it is bullshit. As are your comments.

[Buzz Clik]

80. My comment has to do without you baseless judgment of other people.

I really don't give a damn how much you think you know about the case, you know very little or nothing about the people you judged. Rather than give your opinions about the case itself, you laid judgment about the people who disagree with you.

You'd be awesome on a jury.

[leveymg]

111. If you admittedly know nothing of the facts of the case, why are you judging the opinions of others?

It seems your point here is simply to be disruptive and present an adversarial presence on this topic. Who's the ?

[Buzz Clik]

160. Wrong. Completely wrong.

You have absolutely no idea what I said.

[DeSwiss]

162. +1000

[Swagman]

279. the sad truth is that allegations based on sex are destructive and are

also the hardest to prove or dis-prove.

In this case just the fact he is wanted for questioning has boosted the anti-Assangers who twist the facts out of recognition.

[xchrom]

2. du rec. Nt

[fredamae]

3. Nope. Not enough credible evidence

coupled with the politics behind it and the lengths we now Know they'll go to to make a case-ie: Bradley Manning comes to mind....

I'm not defending him, I'm just saying I don't believe the accusers at this juncture.

[ananda]

4. Not this liberal.

The whole rape accusation mess from Sweden stank
of a setup from the beginning.

[Bonobo]

5. Thank you. A well-written piece. nt

[whistler162]

151. What article did you read?

So many suffering from Spitzer-Weiner syndrome. Which is the unconditional belief that anything that appears to be bad about the god of the hour is a conspiracy!

[Matariki]

203. "god of the hour"???

gee, your bias isn't showing. not at all.

[woo me with science]

6. I don't see liberals here believing them.

There is a relentless attempt at perception management going on by the reliable defenders of the one percent...as is to be expected when the government is caught engaging in this type of authoritarian behavior. The longterm posters lining up to smear Asssange and defend the government here are also the predictable, reliable defenders of every other authoritarian or right-wing act coming out of this administration. We have seen the very same group lined up before many times to attack Occupy and defend brutal police crackdowns on Occupy, as well as to defend bank settlements, bailouts, austerity budgets and attacks on SS and Medicare, indefinite detention, drone wars and drone assassinations, surveillance infrastructure, TSA groping, and any other corporate, right-wing, neocon, or police state policies.

The most recent informal poll at DU showed pretty clearly that liberals here support Assange by a large margin.

[iemitsu]

58. you point out some important truths about DU and society in general.

that lots of effort and money has been and is being spent to muddy real information and to confuse and create conflict among those who pay any attention to what is going on around them.

[OnyxCollie]

69. From an article written by Cass Sunstein,

the administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs:

What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do,
what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1)
Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind
of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government
might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy
theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in
counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such
parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential
effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions.
However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration
of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).

"COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=281170&mesg_id=281170

"There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.'

Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'
If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

Technique #2 - 'CONSENSUS CRACKING'
A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com ) is 'consensus cracking.' To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made - but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger 'evidence' or disinformation in your favour is slowly 'seeded in.' Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then 'abort' the consensus cracking by initiating a 'forum slide.'

Technique #3 - 'TOPIC DILUTION'
Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a 'RESOURCE BURN.' By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a 'gossip mode.' In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to 'drive in the wedge.' By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.

Technique #4 - 'INFORMATION COLLECTION'
Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a 'show you mine so me yours' posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your 'favourite weapon' and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favourite 'technique of operation.' From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.

Technique #5 - 'ANGER TROLLING'
Statistically, there is always a percentage of the forum posters who are more inclined to violence. In order to determine who these individuals are, it is a requirement to present a image to the forum to deliberately incite a strong psychological reaction. From this the most violent in the group can be effectively singled out for reverse IP location and possibly local enforcement tracking. To accomplish this only requires posting a link to a video depicting a local police officer massively abusing his power against a very innocent individual. Statistically of the million or so police officers in America there is always one or two being caught abusing there powers and the taping of the activity can be then used for intelligence gathering purposes - without the requirement to 'stage' a fake abuse video. This method is extremely effective, and the more so the more abusive the video can be made to look. Sometimes it is useful to 'lead' the forum by replying to your own posting with your own statement of violent intent, and that you 'do not care what the authorities think!!' inflammation. By doing this and showing no fear it may be more effective in getting the more silent and self-disciplined violent intent members of the forum to slip and post their real intentions. This can be used later in a court of law during prosecution.

Technique #6 - 'GAINING FULL CONTROL'
It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings - and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the 'ultimate victory' as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the forum can be quickly killed. However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a 'honey pot' gathering center to collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes."

[iemitsu]

90. thank you for providing the evidence to support my claim.

from the mouth of "the ministry of truth" no less.
i have seen this before as i make a big deal about government propaganda when teaching US/Latin American history.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

96. Very important information. Thanks for posting it.

[leveymg]

117. Wonderful post, OnyxCollie. Really hit it dead-center.

Even if not centrally organized, the sort of RW troll activity we've seen on this subject subscribes to those operative principles. Everyone at DU should read and understand them.

[HiPointDem]

126. Conspiracy theories exist because the official explanations no longer make sense.

[OnyxCollie]

127. "When it can be established

that when a number of political acts work in concert to produce a certain result, the presumption is strong that the actors were aiming at the result in question. When it can be shown that the actors have an interest in producing these results, the presumptions become a fair certainty... no conspiracy theory is required."

Walter Karp, Indispensable Enemies

[backscatter712]

133. Oh, but didn't you know, that's conspiracy theory.

Our government and MIC would never astroturf on the Internet to sow discord or promote their authoritarianism.

Of course, when I posted that exact article, I was told to take it to Creative Speculation.

Because here on DU, we're just one big happy fucking family. Astroturfers, trolls and psy-ops don't exist here. Right?

[OnyxCollie]

138. Democratic Underground, LLC is impervious to such infiltration.

There's a magic amulet tied to one of the servers.

[1monster]

157. This needs a thread of its own to make sure more people see it.

[backscatter712]

169. I posted it in GD a couple weeks ago. Got locked and told to take it to Creative Speculation.

Because DU is one big happy fucking family.

There are no astroturfers on DU. There is no psy-ops on DU. We're all awesome progressives. No infiltrators, nosirree!

[woo me with science]

183. Thank you. nt

[HiPointDem]

125. +1

[backscatter712]

64. Exactly. But be careful calling the astroturfers astroturfers.

Or somebody, probably in the fortified installation of a government security contractor, will make a few mouse clicks and create a little electronic Brooks Brothers Riot on DU right here in this thread just for you.

[woo me with science]

186. They are here,

as predicted. They consider this case dangerous and spinning public response to it extremely important.

You can say almost anything here about corporate power and corruption all by itself. However, the threads that *really* elicit the swarm are those that threaten to reveal government's complicity in growing and protecting that power, and punishing those who would seek to reveal the ugly alliance.

This story is particularly explosive because it reveal to the masses the authoritarian tactics being used to punish those who tell the truth about our government...even under a Democratic President.

Of course the swarm can't let that go.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

98. Well said. And your observation is worth repeating. Please let me borrow a portion:

The longterm posters lining up to smear Asssange and defend the government here are also the predictable, reliable defenders of every other authoritarian or right-wing act coming out of this administration. We have seen the very same group lined up before many times to attack Occupy and defend brutal police crackdowns on Occupy, as well as to defend bank settlements, bailouts, austerity budgets and attacks on SS and Medicare, indefinite detention, drone wars and drone assassinations, surveillance infrastructure, TSA groping, and any other corporate, right-wing, neocon, or police state policies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=1247779

[iemitsu]

163. don't forget supporting the nuclear power industry.

[Spider Jerusalem]

129. No, sorry, that's a pretty stupid assertion, I'm afraid.

As far as "believing"; I find myself thinking that Assange has a case to answer in Sweden. I also think that "liberals" are by and large if anything too quick to DISMISS the allegations as part of a setup and grand conspiracy aimed at getting Assange into a US prison. I think that a lot of people are frankly overly emotionally invested in the issue and are incapable of separating support from Assange from support for Wikileaks and transparency, which is a false dichotomy.

[msanthrope]

148. An excellent post. Rape apologia requires a lot of explanation, though, which is why

Assange threads now mirror some classic Polanski ones.

[sabrina 1]

172. And it has not occurred to you that there is available evidence in this case which

Liberals, real Liberals, have taken the trouble to research and have some serious questions about it, BASED ON THE EVIDENCE, and NOT on anything else, are going to continue as they should, to ask pertinent questions?

Rather than, because of a hatred of Wikileaks and all it represents, freedom of information eg, sometimes not convenient to governments who want to keep secrets, as is the case with people like say, Sarah Palin and other Right Wing defenders of the Bush War Criminals, who are more than willing to convict Assange without a shred of evidence, because you must know there has not been a shred of evidence proving any of this so far.

My observations are that there are those who want to see the end of Wikileaks and any semblance of a real independent media, and it is they who are refusing to look at the evidence at all, and calling anyone who does in an effort to try to silence them, 'rape apologists' among other things.

I have news for them, you can call me anything you want, but it won't work. Only evidence of guilt will convince me this is not a political witch hunt.

So go ahead, call me a 'rape apologist' if you want, it will not have the slightest influence on my asking questions and reviewing the evidence which so far is not on the side of the prosecution.

[Spider Jerusalem]

187. That's nice, congratulations

But it's pretty fucking condescending to lump people who happen to be on the political left but who also think Assange should go to Sweden to answer the case against him in the political right. I've said it before, I'll say it again: I'm all for some degree of transparency and don't in principle disagree with the idea behind Wikileaks. However I also don't confuse that with supporting Julian Assange; the two are not the same thing at all.

Also you fail reading comprehension, nowhere in my post did I even use the words "rape apologist". Although at the same time there are a fuck of a lot of, frankly, morons who are making various stupid assertions that are belied by the actual facts, as well: "it's not rape!" "he's not charged with or wanted for rape!" "he hasn't been charged with anything!" All of which show that people are basically ignorant of the case, the grounds for the European Arrest Warrant, the laws regarding rape in Sweden, and the differences between Swedish and American legal process, among other things. And a lot of it does sound like "rape apology"; see the argument (made by a lot of people in this very forum), that penetrating a woman you've had consensual sex with the night before when she's sleeping can't possibly be rape even if her consent was conditional on wearing a condom and you weren't. Honestly it's not that straightforward, and it's frankly absurd to say that the only people who are saying Assange should be extradited are "right wing opponents of Wikileaks".

The evidence needs to be examined BEFORE A MAGISTRATE in Sweden. This is how the Swedish procedure works; the prosecutor thinks there are grounds for a trial. Only 10% of rape trials in Sweden result in convicions (which is a higher rate than in the US, but still not that impressive); Assange if tried stands a good chance of acquittal. If he is confident that he didn't commit the actions he's accused of, let him face trial.

[woo me with science]

194. Oh please.

The longterm posters here lining up to smear Assange are not "on the political left." They are for the most part very familiar, reliable defenders of every right-wing policy coming out of this administration. Anyone who has read here at DU for awhile is aware of the political leanings here and who persistently argues from the right.

We have seen these sides lined up many times before, and the alliances are predictable as rain.

[sabrina 1]

196. He is not charged with or wanted for rape. You still are not in possession of the facts

despite how many times they have posted here. The person responsible for the lack of charges is the Swedish Prosecutor. She is denying the women and Assange justice by the games she has played for two years.

It is now at a point where even those who originally agreed with her, are questioning her motives. Is this about a sex case? It's hard to believe because any prosecutor who cared about those women would have long ago filed her charges so all of us could see why she believes she has a case. Going on three years now, and she is still refusing to do what is necessary to move this case along.

And the answer to the question asked last week of her representative 'why will you not interview Julian Assange' was 'I don't know'.

Sorry, but if i am going to support imprisoning someone on any charge, I need some evidence something we have not seen, and maybe the reason why she does not want actually file charges, in this case so far.

[Spider Jerusalem]

207. No, I am in possession of the facts

you on the other hand are not. He is wanted for rape. Rape was specified in the European Arrest Warrant that forms the basis of his extradition. He appealed that extradition and lost.

The prosecutor has not charged him because the Swedish system is not like the American system. The accused is not formally charged until after a formal interview, with counsel, before a magistrate.

Your continued wilful ignorance of these basic facts makes your opinions a bit meaningless.

[sabrina 1]

209. Obviously you are not in possession of the facts. He is wanted for QUESTIONING.

There are no charges of rape. Because there is no evidence of rape.. And the women have denied there was rape.

There is a list of four, quickly cobbled together ALLEGATIONS, by whom we do not know, since the evidence itself does not allege rape, claiming he is wanted for questioning regarding these mysterious allegations which were written by whom, we do not know.

We know that one of the women stopped cooperating with the prosecution when she found out that they were alleging rape.

We know that much of the evidence, and it can't have changed since the initial interviews unless people decided to lie, is expulpatory.

We know that the forensic evidence was found to have no DNA meaning someone lied and tried to fabricate some forensic evidence but stupidly forgot about DNA testing.

We know that the women's attorney has admitted he has a 'very weak case'.

We know that all three people who were actually there have denied there was any rape.

But most of all we know that the prosecutor has failed to file charges with nothing standing in the way of her doing so, for two years. And the world wants to know why.

[Spider Jerusalem]

210. He is not "wanted for questioning"

he is wanted for what corresponds to indictment and arraignment in the common law system. Continuing to flaunt your ignorance of the Swedish legal process while claiming you have a clue what you're talking about is really most amusing.

[sabrina 1]

213. He is wanted for questioning.

There are no charges.. And if the prosecutor wanted to file those charges she has had two years, with nothing standing in her way to do so. So why won't she give him his day in court? What is she afraid of?

According to Swedish and International legal experts, there is no case and if it ever ends up in court, he will be vindicated. Makes you wonder then why she continues to delay the filing of charges.

All she has to do is talk to him. That is the last step which she has consistently refused to take, before filing charges. Then she will have to release all the evidence she has refused to hand over to the defense. And maybe that is why she is stalling.

[Spider Jerusalem]

216. No, he is not merely "wanted for questioning".

And in the Swedish system charges can only be formally preferred AFTER the accused has been interviewed before a magistrate, which can only happen in Sweden. Your utter ignorance pretty much disqualifies you from having an opinion here.

“The Swedes should interview Assange in London”

This is currently the most popular contention of Assange’s many vocal supporters. But this too is based on a misunderstanding.

Assange is not wanted merely for questioning.

He is wanted for arrest.

This arrest is for an alleged crime in Sweden as the procedural stage before charging (or “indictment”). Indeed, to those who complain that Assange has not yet been charged, the answer is simple: he cannot actually be charged until he is arrested.

It is not for any person accused of rape and sexual assault to dictate the terms on which he is investigated, whether it be Assange or otherwise. The question is whether the Swedish investigators can now, at this stage of the process, arrest Assange.

Here the best guide is the High Court judgment. In paragraph 140, the Court sets out the prosecutor’s position, and this should be read in full be anyone following this case:

140. Mr Assange contended prior to the hearing before the Senior District Judge that the warrant had been issued for the purpose of questioning Mr Assange rather than prosecuting him and that he was not accused of an offence. In response to that contention, shortly before that hearing, Mrs Ny provided a signed statement dated 11 February 2011 on behalf of the Prosecutor:

"6. A domestic warrant for [Julian Assange's] arrest was upheld [on] 24 November 2010 by the Court of Appeal, Sweden. An arrest warrant was issued on the basis that Julian Assange is accused with probable cause of the offences outlined on the EAW.

"7. According to Swedish law, a formal decision to indict may not be taken at the stage that the criminal process is currently at. Julian Assange's case is currently at the stage of "preliminary investigation". It will only be concluded when Julian Assange is surrendered to Sweden and has been interrogated.

"8. The purpose of a preliminary investigation is to investigate the crime, provide underlying material on which to base a decision concerning prosecution and prepare the case so that all evidence can be presented at trial. Once a decision to indict has been made, an indictment is filed with the court. In the case of a person in pre-trial detention, the trial must commence within 2 weeks. Once started, the trial may not be adjourned. It can, therefore be seen that the formal decision to indict is made at an advanced stage of the criminal proceedings. There is no easy analogy to be drawn with the English criminal procedure. I issued the EAW because I was satisfied that there was substantial and probable cause to accuse Julian Assange of the offences.

"9. It is submitted on Julian Assange's behalf that it would be possible for me to interview him by way of Mutual Legal Assistance. This is not an appropriate course in Assange's case. The preliminary investigation is at an advanced stage and I consider that is necessary to interrogate Assange, in person, regarding the evidence in respect of the serious allegations made against him.

"10. Once the interrogation is complete it may be that further questions need to be put to witnesses or the forensic scientists. Subject to any matters said by him, which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be lodged with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."

And in paragraph 160 of the same judgment, the High Court explains why such a requirement is not “disproportionate” as submitted by Assange’s lawyers:

160. We would add that although some criticism was made of Ms Ny in this case, it is difficult to say, irrespective of the decision of the Court of Appeal of Svea, that her failure to take up the offer of a video link for questioning was so unreasonable as to make it disproportionate to seek Mr Assange's surrender, given all the other matters raised by Mr Assange in the course of the proceedings before the Senior District Judge.

The Prosecutor must be entitled to seek to apply the provisions of Swedish law to the procedure once it has been determined that Mr Assange is an accused and is required for the purposes of prosecution.

Under the law of Sweden the final stage occurs shortly before trial. Those procedural provisions must be respected by us given the mutual recognition and confidence required by the Framework Decision; to do otherwise would be to undermine the effectiveness of the principles on which the Framework Decision is based. In any event, we were far from persuaded that other procedures suggested on behalf of Mr Assange would have proved practicable or would not have been the subject of lengthy dispute.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-myths-about-assange-extradition

[struggle4progress]

225. "... In the Swedish system formal indictment takes place at a very late stage in proceedings,

following a second and final interview with the suspect, and in the case of a person in pre-trial detention, trial must follow within two weeks. (As Assange is very unlikely to get bail again, for obvious reasons, it must be assumed that this would apply in his case).

However, the High Court has held that Assange does stand accused of the four offences (including rape) for which his extradition is sought. It is a requirement of the Extradition Act 2003 that the warrant contains a statement that the person in respect of whom extradition is sought stand "accused" of the offence(s) set out in the warrant. There is no doubt that the European Arrest Warrant issued in Sweden did contain such a statement.

Assange sought to argue, first in the Magistrates Court, then in the High Court, that it is not enough that the statement is made, but the statement must also be true; and that he has not in fact been accused of any offence in Sweden because he had not been formally charged and so criminal proceedings had not yet commenced. He lost that argument ..."

Why doesn't Sweden interview Assange in London?
http://storify.com/anyapalmer/why-doesn-t-sweden-interview-assange-in-london?utm_campaign=&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter&awesm=sfy.co_e56c&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_source=t.co

[sabrina 1]

229. Again he is wanted for questioning, that is all. There are no charges filed. I am well

aware of all the excuses made by the Prosecution. The law requires her to interview Assange, yet she has consistently for two years now, refused to do what the law requires both in Sweden and in London.

Here's a suggestion for her, go talk to Assange, then go file your case.

Simple, problem solved, all within the law and with not a single legal impediment to her doing so.

And before you post all about how 'she can't arrest him in London', yes she can. All she has to do is to get a guarantee from her government along with her own, that he will be given a fair trial and will not be extradited to any other country. Since no one is looking for him according to the anti-Wikileaks contingency there is simply no reason why that guarantee is not forth-coming.

See, the law is on her side, as far as both interviewing AND arresting Assange in London.

Thank you for weighing in yet again even though we already knew what you posted.

Our question is and will remain, why is she refusing to follow the law and file this case in court? What is stopping her? Why won't she give those women and Assange their day in court?

[struggle4progress]

244. ... In this matter, the prosecutor’s deliberations resulted in a request for the detention

Julian Assange for the crimes of which he was suspected. Pursuant to the court’s detention order the prosecutor issued a European arrest warrant.

The prosecutor’s assessment is that, for the purpose of the investigation, Mr Assange needs to be available in Sweden during the preliminary investigation. Without going into the details about the work of the investigation, it can be mentioned that there is a need, during interviews with Mr Assange, to be able to present, and question him about, the evidence that has emerged in the investigation to date. When continuing the investigation there is also a need to be able to carry out supplementary interviews, as required, with Mr Assange and the other persons involved.

Under Swedish law, the defendant must be present in person at the trial in cases involving this type of crime. If the preliminary investigation leads to a finding that there is sufficient evidence to prosecute Mr Assange, his personal presence is required in Sweden so that a trial can be held and any sentence enforced. The court’s detention order means that Mr Assange has been detained to ensure this.

Why is the prosecutor not able to question Mr Assange in the UK?
2012-08-24
http://www.aklagare.se/In-English/Media/News-in-English1/Why-is-the-prosecutor-not-able-to-question-Mr-Assange-in-the-UK-/

[struggle4progress]

223. "... The position with offence 4 is different. This is an allegation of rape. The framework list

is ticked for rape. The defence accepts that normally the ticking of a framework list offence box on an EAW would require very little analysis by the court. However they then developed a sophisticated argument that the conduct alleged here would not amount to rape in most European countries. However, what is alleged here is that Mr Assange “deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state”. In this country that would amount to rape ..."
City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[fascisthunter]

171. and yet they will relentlessly say otherwise

because, that is their "job".

[99Forever]

7. Not this Liberal either.

The timeline reads like a "how to smear the messenger when you get caught doing evil acts" instruction manual.

[SidDithers]

8. Just the opposite...

I think it's clear that many liberals are eager to ignore the sex charges against Assange.

Sid

[Enrique]

18. not ignoring them

just doubting them.

[fredamae]

29. I ignore nothing-but focus

on credibility of the accusers. One cannot assume guilt by accusations alone and IF credible evidence existed do you believe "headliners" all across the globe wouldn't be grinding said evidence in everyones faces?
They "tried it on" to see if it would fit-since Womens rights/issues were just beg to heat up and I believe they figured we'd get our exercise by "jumping to conclusions". Timing is everything, they seized, what they hoped to be an opportunity for a "public opinion conviction" based upon little to no facts.

That said, I remain open to the possibility of it's "truthiness" if any credible evidence surfaces, however even then after all this time---I would be very suspicious of all evidence. If they haven't been able to make "it" stick by now? They never had any "glue in the tube" to begin with.

[rhett o rick]

40. Pesky liberals and their support of whistle blowers.

Never happy with the "state of denial".

Maybe they should just sit down and shut up. Pres Obama doesnt need them to get reelected.

[sabrina 1]

79. There are no sex charges against Assange. That is why Liberals

don't believe them, because they do not exist.

[SidDithers]

115. Take it up with the OP...

That's the phrase used by the linked article.

Sid

[sabrina 1]

135. Then why did not correct it?

[struggle4progress]

265. "... The position with offence 4 is different. This is an allegation of rape. The framework list

s ticked for rape. The defence accepts that normally the ticking of a framework list offence box on an EAW would require very little analysis by the court. However they then developed a sophisticated argument that the conduct alleged here would not amount to rape in most European countries. However, what is alleged here is that Mr Assange “deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state”. In this country that would amount to rape ..."
City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[AnotherMcIntosh]

104. Is that your experience in Canada? Are liberals in Canada the same as liberals in the US?

[SidDithers]

109. ...

Sid

[sabrina 1]

200. There are no sex charges against Assange. How often do you need to be

told that? He is wanted only for questioning in a case described, should it ever actually make into court, by the women's own lawyer, as ' a very weak case'.

You can stop with the pretext that anyone supporting this mess cares about women, they do not and that is obvious by how willing they are to use these women for political purposes.

I care about women, I am one. And I will never support using women as political footballs which is despicable. The prosecutor clearly does not want to bring this case to court. Maybe because the women are not cooperating, which certainly was the case with one of them.

[struggle4progress]

266. "... The position with offence 4 is different. This is an allegation of rape. The framework list

is ticked for rape. The defence accepts that normally the ticking of a framework list offence box on an EAW would require very little analysis by the court. However they then developed a sophisticated argument that the conduct alleged here would not amount to rape in most European countries. However, what is alleged here is that Mr Assange “deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state”. In this country that would amount to rape ..."
City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[randome]

9. Hero worship gets in the way of a rational discussion of this.

Assange is a separate issue from Wikileaks. Scott Ritter is a separate issue from his criminal problems. Ray Bradbury, one of my most beloved writers, was a die-hard conservative. Clint Eastwood...need I go on?

Assange needs to stop hiding out and face the music in Sweden.

[marmar]

11. So does strident labeling of anyone who questions the charges as being afflicted by "hero worship"

N'est-ce pas?

[randome]

13. Not at all.

But I see hero worship as the root of some people's defense of Assange. It's always good to question motives, especially of the government.

I question myself. Maybe I'm wrong about Assange. But his actions seem to me to be those of a narcissist.

[Doctor_J]

23. If Assange "steps out" in Sweden, he could be "Siegelmann"'d

railroaded for political purposes.

[randome]

25. After two years of letting him play the appeals process for all it was worth...

...I really don't see that the U.S. wants to 'get' him simply for some notion of 'revenge'. Diplomats are embarrassed all the time. None of the documents that Assange stole proved anything earth-shattering. Only that diplomats cannot be trusted.

But we already knew that.

Nothing has changed because of Assange.

[Doctor_J]

30. Nothing has changed because of Assange??

:fail:

[treestar]

191. No nothing, and giving him credit for every single thing that happened

is buying into his aggrandizement of himself.

[sabrina 1]

234. There are a few countries in this world that would totally disagree with you on that.

Are you seriously saying that Wikileaks exposure of the corruption in Iceland's banking system did nothing to change how that country dealt with the financial meltdown?

Do you really believe that the revelations about 'vote buying' in India's special election did not nearly bring down a corrupt government and result in India's realization that their 'democracy' was being seriously threatened, by interference from Washington DC? That this exposure did not benefit the people of India?

How about the revelations of corruption in Nigeria?

Or do you think the new President of Tunisia was wrong to thank Julian Assange for Wikileaks exposure of the corruption in the Ben Ami regime, and by doing so, contributed together with other factors, to the overthrow of that regime? I kind of think considering the new President was part of that revolution, that he would disagree with you.

And how about the exposure of the Egyptian Torture chief who was being considered as an interim leader?

All those leaks and many, many more created huge changes and will have long-lastiing effects..

Then there were all those leaks on Latin American countries and how they were being destabilized, leading to the expulsion of many people who were only there to do harm to those democracies?

The list is so long, but I have to say, when Anonymous hacked the security firm, Stratfor and posted their emails online, one of the strategies being discussed to diminish Wikileaks' influence was to claim that 'they had no difference in the world'. They talked about different strategies and settled on trying to diminish the importance of a free press.

So you are, probably inadvertently, maybe having seen it so often as that was their method of getting that talking point around, doing what Stratfor intended.

The problem with that strategy is that everyone knows how much of an effect Wikileaks has had around the world, most of it good, if you think the bad guys need to be exposed.

[1monster]

45. Assange "stole"???

Please site your reference for this?

[randome]

83. I suppose the correct statement is that Manning stole the documents.

Assange merely received them. That's not whistle-blowing and it's not investigative journalism.

[1monster]

159. Oh, so now you are condemning him for NOT stealing.

Make up your mind, won't you?

[treestar]

192. Not at all. How could you interpret it that way?

Unless you are carried away by hero worship to the point where you can't think?

Manning stole the stuff and Julian dumped it, realized that didn't have any effect, so tried to work with real journalists to get the information out, all to find none of it was that dramatic or surprising or anything we didn't already know.

[JDPriestly]

53. "letting him play the appeals process for all it was worth"

That statement in post number 25 puts the problem in perspective.

Assange had the right to an appeals process.

Appeals are a normal part of the legal process. And that they take a long time is also perfectly normal.

But some have convicted Assange in advance. Even though not one of them can point to a bit of evidence other than one vague statement by one woman, they have decided that he really did rape someone. Therefore, they claim, he is not entitled to what we in the English-speaking world pretty unanimously consider due process.

That is why those of us who support the rule of law are so suspicious. That is why we are saying no dice to the extradition of Assange to Sweden. We may not be able to influence the outcome, but we have seen this kind of maneuvering far too often, especially in recent years and we are speaking our consciences.

The charge against Assange would be virtually impossible to prove, and there appears to be no evidence other than one person's "concern" to support it. It may be true, but the evidence that someone desperately wants to get Assange to Sweden for some strange, unknown purpose other than to face these dubious charges, seems much more likely to many of us.

Assange is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Many are not giving that to him.

[randome]

54. Is breaking the terms of his bail part of the process, too?

Assange has spent more than 2 years hand-wringing about what MIGHT happen to him.

And again, it is not up to us to decide what can be proven or not. It's up to Sweden and Assange. So far as I see, no one else was involved until Assange involved the U.K. and Ecuador.

[treestar]

190. Purely silly

As has been explained, the UK could do the same, so he's no safer there.

[1monster]

31. Narcissism isn't against the law in any country, as far as I'm aware. If the women themselves

deny there was a rape, then there was no rape.

The one woman who is alleging "sex by surprise" has serious crediblity problems herself.

The other woman who only wanted Assange to take an STD test, has refused to cooperate with the Swedish police.

This isn't a case of a woman who suffers from battered woman syndrome refusing to press charges against her abuser. It is the case of a government which has refused any and all reasonable and unreasonable compromises in their quest to "question" Assange. How would it have hurt them to question Assange in the UK? Had Assange refused to surrender to the Swedish authorites after the questioning (making the unlikely assumption that Assange would incriminate himself enough to justify actual charges), Sweden then had the option to issue an International Warrant for his arrest and Assange would have been in a far weaker position than he is now.

Now the world is watching.

[randome]

35. Exactly. The world is watching.

Makes it difficult to believe that President Obama will 'take out' Assange in full view of everyone, doesn't it?

And it's not up to us to decide this case. It's up to Assange and Sweden to work this out.

[1monster]

42. President Obama dosen't flinch at "taking out" actual and supposed enemies and

innocent bystanders overseas on what seems to be a regular basis. He has no real legal standing to do so, and violates the sovereignty of other nations when he does so.

And the whole world is watching there too.

But, no, I don't think the US will be so blatant about it. I think if Assange is to be "taken out" as you put it, or renditioned, or disappeared, it will be done in such as way as to make it look like Assange escaped and is in hiding some where, or that there was a terrible accident or that some third party was involved. (On edit: Or he will be suicided -- that happened to a lot of people during the Bush Administration...)

Or, they will simply extradite him and do to him what is/has been done to Bradley Manning. The wolrd has been singularly powerless in that case too. The only thing public opinion has been able to do was to slightly improve his living conditions.

Justice is ALWAYS up to us. If we fail to speak out against injustice, we are just as guilty as those who practice injustice.

[randome]

48. Yes, justice is always up to us.

But I think some of your scenarios sound too much like spy thriller movies.

Speaking out against what many see as a narcissistic man who takes advantage of women is something worth doing, as well.

[1monster]

63. You know what? I don't care what you think. Especially since you are using

blatant belittling tactics to draw attention away from the issues that have been raised.

Where do you think spy thrillers books/movies get their ideas? Do you honestly think that the authors make them up out of a whole cloth? Especially the more realistic ones. I stopped reading spy thrillers when Helen MacInnes stopped writing (and since she died in 1985 that was a looong time ago). Her husband served as an MI6 British intelligence agent -- which lent a certain amout of authenticity to her works.** (Even so, thirty years would be a long time for me to remember the details of those novels -- especially when I've probably read somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 15,000 books in the intervening years.)

As for spy thriller movies -- I can't remember when I last saw one -- or even if I've ever watched one.

** footnote:

MacInnes's third novel, Assignment in Brittany (1942), was required reading for Allied intelligence agents who were being sent to work with the French resistance against the Nazis.[7] Her 1944 book, The Unconquerables carries such an accurate portrayal of the Polish resistance that some thought she was using classified information given to her by her husband.[8][9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_MacInnes

[muriel_volestrangler]

108. Have you a link for "has refused to cooperate with the Swedish police", please?

Such a link really could change my perspective on the matter. I've asked others for it before, but not got an answer.

[1monster]

168. Its been a while since I read it, but will try to find it for you...

[1monster]

174. Opening Post, second paragraph

Wypijewski reminds us that Swedish police were unusually quick to initiate the process of arrest when one of the women now involved in the charges against Assange asked authorities to require that he take an STD test after the two had unprotected sex. Upon seeing the authorities’ eagerness to arraign Assange, that woman refused to give further testimony. Not long after, the Swedish prosecutor’s office withdrew the arrest warrant for rape and molestation on the grounds that the charges were not appropriate to the women’s claims. For some reason, that decision was overturned a week later, after the Swedish authorities allowed Assange to leave the country. (A detailed account of this sequence of events, with statements from the women that seem to exonerate Assange, can be read here.)

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/are_liberals_too_eager_to_believe_sex_charges_a_j_assange_20120831/#below

[muriel_volestrangler]

175. That's just an American writer claiming it, in an opinion piece

What I'm looking for is a proper media news report - Swedish might be good, since the woman, as far as we know, has not been outside Sweden to discuss this. Or at least some form of being able to attribute this to the woman. Since she still has a lawyer representing her in Sweden, who wants Assange to go back for the interview, the claim that she stopped cooperating needs some back-up.

[reorg]

176. You still haven't read the damned police interview protocols, have you n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

178. Yes, I did (nt)

[msanthrope]

180. Apparently, Sweden is a unique jurisdiction...a person reports acts, and then

gets to decide if a crime has taken place. Presumably, the prosecutors are then obligated to follow the wishes of the alleged victim, as opposed to the law.

[JDPriestly]

47. And being a narcissist means he is a rapist.

Is that what now passes for evidence?

[sabrina 1]

99. I asked you before but you have not answered: Where do you see this hero-worship, and who

ARE these hero worshippers you speak of? If you are going to make claims, you need something to back them up with.

I notice that none of your comments contain accurate facts about this case.

Those in possession of those available facts have repeatedly provided you with them, yet you continue to ignore the actual facts of the case itself, and resort to epithets against those who have taken the trouble to find out those facts.

I myself have presented you over and over again with some of those facts, yet you repeat the inaccuracies as if you never saw my responses correcting your inaccurate information. Why are you doing this?

[BlueMTexpat]

32. +1000! eom

[treestar]

189. How else to explain an utter inability to distinguish the

Swedish whatever-is-going-on and anything else? What about an unquestioning belief in Julian's paranoia?

[marmar]

198. What are you talking about? Repetez en anglais, s'il vous plait.

nt

[sabrina 1]

85. And who would be these 'hero worshippers' you speak of?

And what makes you think they are 'hero worshippers' rather than people who actually know some of the facts of this case?

[liberal_at_heart]

144. I agree

[Honeycombe8]

12. Nope. Unless of course you automatically believe that women lie about assault.

And you don't think it means anything that a man runs after assault charges are levied against him.

[ananda]

14. Red herring and diversion.

This is not the issue, whether we believe a woman or not.

The issue is what would happen to Assange if he were to
face "rape" charges in Sweden, charges that were conveniently
timed to prevent him and Wikileaks from operating.

If I thought justice would actually be served for Assange in
Sweden, I'd say that he should go back and face the courts.
But that most definitely would not happen because there is
a whole other agenda working in this case, and that agenda
is to disappear Assange and shut down Wikileaks.

[randome]

15. You're not denying the charges? You just think he should get a free pass?

And 'disappear' Assange after letting him roam through Europe for two years? I hardly think that theory holds merit.

[valerief]

60. TYFYC. nt

[randome]

67. You're welcome.

[sabrina 1]

82. Why, if they have a case, have they not filed it?

There was zero need to 'allow him to roam' anywhere IF they had a case. So explain that, if you can. Why would a prosecutor give someone against whom they have a case of sex crimes, a free pass?

You know we are NOT the ones who have given him a free pass, don't you. That would be the prosecutors. And you know what they said a couple of weeks ago when asked why they had not filed charges? 'I don't know'. Maybe you do?

[randome]

84. So you're saying that this grand conspiracy against Assange...

...is more full of holes than a rat-infested piece of Swiss cheese? I can't quite see the conspiracy of the rich and powerful if they can't even pull off 'getting' Assange in two years' time when they are clearly as incompetent as you paint them out to be.

You seem to be saying they are both conniving and powerful and, at the same time, stupid and incompetent. I don't get it.

Again, this entire sordid mess is up to Assange and Sweden. No one else should be involved. And absent evidence to the contrary, I don't see President Obama being involved in the Swiss allegations/charges/whatever.

[sabrina 1]

88. I stated a fact. There are still no charges against Assange after two, long years where it was

more than possible to file them, now going into the third year and I asked for you opinion why you think any prosecutor with a serious case might not file it after all this time?

Could you respond to the actual question so we can have an actual discussion rather than the usual non-productive 'you have a schoolgirl crush on Assange' type grade school replacement for discussion of the facts.

[randome]

93. You already know the answer to that.

Sweden does not file official charges until someone is arrested.

And for why this has taken so long is because of Assange and no one else. Do you think if someone obfuscates and delays long enough that a prosecutor should say, "Oh, well, never mind."?

[sabrina 1]

95. And you already know that this excuse has been debunked over and over again. Even they

are no longer using it. So my next question is, why do you ignore the information people have presented to you about the facts of this case?

So once again, and I hope this time it will sink in and you won't be wasting time repeating that inaccurate information.

The prosecutor first refused to interview Assange while he was in Sweden then told him he was free to leave.

She knew where he was. He remained in touch through his attorneys with her, and always available for an interview.

For two years now she has, for some inexplicable reason, refused to travel the two hours it would have taken to conduct that interview.

Most importantly, it has been well established by now, that there is nothing in Swedish law that ever prevented her from doing this after which she would have been free to file her case.

I don't know why you keep repeating this. Legal Law Professors, even the women's own attorney, International legal experts, all have made this very clear.

Sweden has done this before, for a murderer no less. But then they really wanted to file charges in that case.

So again, with those errors cleared up, what reason would a Prosecutor have for using every excuse she could not to do so, allow someone she claims, committed a crime, to 'roam free' when all it would have taken was a two hour trip to speak to him as has been done in the past??

Seriously I you drop this argument from now on, it has zero validity which you have been informed of over and over again.

[randome]

100. So the conspirators leave that big a hole in their plans?

Yeah, sounds like incompetence to me. They are incompetent AND devious.

You didn't clear up anything, you stated what you believe to be facts. Again, it is not up to us to second-guess and micro-manage what should have been a simple case in Sweden.

Assange is solely to blame for dragging this out as long as he has.

IIRC, Sweden would not be able to arrest Assange in the U.K.? I don't really know if that's correct or not.

Here are some remarks I found regarding that.
http://www.fmforums.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=151430

They won't refuse to extradite to America because there's no legal or compelling reason why they should. And Sweden won't interview him in the Embassy because it would be a fruitless exercise if Ecuador won't budge on extradition because if they interview him and decide they want to charge and arrest him we're all back to square one. Plus at this point he's just trying to game the system and I'm not sure anyone should be playing along with him.

Indeed. Indulging childish theatrics is never the right move, whether they are being engaged in by a three year old or by a middle aged australian trying to dodge rape allegations by inciting naive anti-americanism. Perhaps the most damning idictment yet of assange is that George Galloway has now stepped forward in his defence, so well done Julian, you're now up there with the courageous and indefatigable Saddam Hussein, on one criterion at least.

So, my contention is why promise anything to someone who is wanted for questioning? That is like granting immunity to someone you hope to arrest.

[sabrina 1]

105. Resorting again to personal attacks, but you still have not answered the question nearly

everyone now is asking: Why has the prosecutor refused, consistently, to interview Assange which would have made it possible for her to file her charges?

I would appreciate it if you could refrain from misogynistic and other types of personal attacks, from veering off the topic, and simply answer that very important and as yet, unanswered question.

My question was NOT about the US, it was about the Swedish Prosecutor's refusal to interview Assange for two years and attempting to use that as an excuse for not filing charges, an excuse that has been thoroughly debunked.

So again, why do YOU think, IF she cares about those women at all, she has refused to file those charges knowing as you now do, that nothing was standing the way of her doing so.

[randome]

113. I don't think I added 'personal attacks' to my arguments.

Unless you interpret one of the block quoted passages as directed at you.

Charges are not filed until an arrest is made so I'm not sure why you keep asking that.

And my point still stands -why does anyone wanted in connection with a potential crime in Sweden get to dictate the terms of his questioning and possible arrest? No one else gets that kind of treatment.

[sabrina 1]

110. It is not correct to say that Sweden could not arrest someone in London. They are a member

of the EU and as such have the right to issue a European Arrest Warrant, which they already did and under which, together with the ridiculous Red Alert from Interpol, they DID have him arrested and detained for ten days.

I am getting sick and tired of posting facts to the same people who appear to not want to know the facts.

To put it plainly, Sweden and every member of the EU can and have had suspects arrested in other member states, and successfully handed over to them under the EAW Iow, there was never any excuse for the prosecutor to refuse to interview Assange IF all she was interested in were sex allegations

[randome]

114. He was arrested for return to Sweden, though, isn't that it?

Until the questioning is complete, no charges are filed. Yes, I know he was questioned previously. But he knew his arrest was imminent when the second round of questioning was about to commence and that's why he vamoosed.

Admittedly, that's conjecture on my part.

[struggle4progress]

253. Um, a Swedish court has ordered his arrest: the Swedes want him back in Sweden to arrest him

[struggle4progress]

267. "... The position with offence 4 is different. This is an allegation of rape. The framework list Vi

is ticked for rape. The defence accepts that normally the ticking of a framework list offence box on an EAW would require very little analysis by the court. However they then developed a sophisticated argument that the conduct alleged here would not amount to rape in most European countries. However, what is alleged here is that Mr Assange “deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state”. In this country that would amount to rape ..."
City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[1monster]

34. Lies, lies and lies are all you are offering. Assange was cleared and allowed to leave

Sweden. Sometime after Assange left Sweden, a higher up prosecutor decided to reopen the case.

If the small group of Assange Revengers would only stick to the true facts in your arguments, the, maybe, could be a real debate about the allegations about Assange.

But when you repeatedly repeat distorted facts and outright lies, you defeat your own purpose. You might sway someone who is not au fait with the reality of the situation (for a while, until they check it out themselves), but you won't sway anyone who has followed this story.

[hack89]

240. Assange left Sweden the day before his scheduled interview with the prosecutor

his lawyer testified that on the 22nd and 23rd of September 2010 he was notified three separate times by the Swedish prosecutor that Assange would be interviewed on the 28th. He left Sweden on the 27th.

In cross-examination the Swedish lawyer confirmed that paragraph 13 of his proof of evidence is wrong. The last five lines of paragraph 13 of his proof read: “in the following days [after 15th September] I telephoned [Ms Ny] a number of times to ask whether we could arrange a time for Mr Assange’s interview but was never given an answer, leaving me with the impression that they may close the rape case without even bothering to interview him. On 27th September 2010, Mr Assange left Sweden.” He agreed that this was wrong. Ms Ny did contact him. A specific suggestion was put to him that on 22nd September he sent a text to the prosecutors saying “I have not talked to my client since I talked to you”. He checked his mobile phone and at first said he did not have the message as he does not keep them that far back. He was encouraged to check his inbox, and there was an adjournment for that purpose. He then confirmed that on 22nd September 2010 at 16.46 he has a message from Ms Ny saying: “Hello – it is possible to have an interview Tuesday”. Next there was a message saying: “Thanks for letting me know. We will pursue Tuesday 28th at 1700”. He then accepted that there must have been a text from him. “You can interpret these text messages as saying that we had a phone call, but I can’t say if it was on 21st or 22nd”. He conceded that it is possible that Ms Ny told him on the 21st that she wanted to interview his client. She requested a date as soon as possible. He agrees that the following day, 22nd, she contacted him at least twice.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20110224-Britain-Ruling-Assange-Extradition-to-Sweden.pdf

[sabrina 1]

286. Assange had no scheduled interview with the prosecutor.

That report shows that Assange's attorney had contacted the prosecutor on Sept. 15 again, to try to set up an appointment. She told him she could not conduct an interview because the cop she wanted was sick. Were there no other cops in Sweden?

She also told him on the 15th that his client was free to leave Sweden.

She finally got around to contacting the attorney on Sept 22. THREE WEEKS too late, as many legal experts have stated.

Assange's attorney did not get in touch with his client until Sept 29 after he had left Sweden.

So, there was no scheduled interview that Assange knew of when he left Sweden on the 27th after being told he was free to leave.



He was only two hours away. Like going from NYC to upstate NY after work. He didn't go to China.

Assange then offered to return to Sweden on Oct 9 for the interview.

The prosecutor refused.

And the games had begun.

The lawyer gave live evidence covering in some detail the attempts made to secure an interview with his client.

On 15th September Ms Ny told him there were no “force measures” preventing Julian leaving the country, i.e. he was allowed to leave. He asked when his client would be interrogated but was told the officer she needed for the investigation was sick. He phoned his client to say he was free to leave the country to continue his work. His
client was worried that he may be difficult to get hold of, so they agreed that when he had found a stable place he would contact his lawyer.

On 22nd September he received a text message from Marianne Ny saying that she
wanted to interrogate Julian Assange on 28th September. “I could not get hold of Julian, which I told Marianne on 27th September.”

So, Assange was never told of any scheduled appointment. sabrina

He was able to speak to his client on 29th September and Mr Assange offered to return on Saturday 9th October for interrogation. Eventually this proposal was not accepted as the dates were too far away.

As the well known Swedish legal expert, Sven-Eric Alhem, testified in that report, even if the prosecutor contacted the attorney on Sept 22, it was wrong for her to have waited so long and she should have interviewed him London immediately after that anyhow.

There was no scheduled appointment on Sept 28, because the attorney was unable to reach his client until the 29th.


The crossed wires between the Prosecutor and the Attorney are not the fault of the client. It happens, it was no big deal. It could have been rearranged, but the Prosecutor refused to do so.

You need to edit that incorrect post.

[hack89]

290. No - the lawyer admits under oath that he lied before

why is he believable now? He told Assange and Assange ran.

[sabrina 1]

293. I don't care what the lawyer did. You made the false claim that Assange had

a pre-scheduled appointment that he did not keep. Now you know that was a false claim. There was no scheduled appointment. So why did you say there was?

[hack89]

297. There was a scheduled appointment - the lawyer admits to it.

what you expect me to believe is that the lawyer did not text, email or call Assange immediately. Or that the lawyer did all that (as a good lawyer would do) but Assange had turned off his phone and computer so he did not see the text, email or listen to the voice mail.

You may believe such nonsense but I don't. He knew and he ran.

[struggle4progress]

251. "... In cross-examination the Swedish lawyer confirmed that paragraph 13 of his proof of evidence is

... is wrong. The last five lines of paragraph 13 of his proof read: “in the following days <after 15th September> I telephoned <Ms Ny> a number of times to ask whether we could arrange a time for Mr Assange’s interview but was never given an answer, leaving me with the impression that they may close the rape case without even bothering to interview him. On 27th September 2010, Mr Assange left Sweden.” He agreed that this was wrong. Ms Ny did contact him. A specific suggestion was put to him that on 22nd September he sent a text to the prosecutors saying “I have not talked to my client since I talked to you”. He checked his mobile phone and at first said he did not have the message as he does not keep them that far back. He was encouraged to check his inbox, and there was an adjournment for that purpose. He then confirmed that on 22nd September 2010 at 16.46 he has a message from Ms Ny saying: “Hello – it is possible to have an interview Tuesday”. Next there was a message saying: “Thanks for letting me know. We will pursue Tuesday 28th at 1700”. He then accepted that there must have been a text from him. “You can interpret these text messages as saying that we had a phone call, but I can’t say if it was on 21st or 22nd”. He conceded that it is possible that Ms Ny told him on the 21st that she wanted to interview his client. She requested a date as soon as possible. He agrees that the following day, 22nd, she contacted him at least twice.

Then he was then cross-examined about his attempts to contact his client. To have the full flavour it may be necessary to consider the transcript in full. In summary the lawyer was unable to tell me what attempts he made to contact his client, and whether he definitely left a message. It was put that he had a professional duty to tell his client of the risk of detention. He did not appear to accept that the risk was substantial or the need to contact his client was urgent. He said “I don’t think I left a message warning him” (about the possibility of arrest). He referred to receiving a text from Ms Ny at 09.11 on 27th September, the day his client left Sweden. He had earlier said he had seen a baggage ticket that Mr Assange had taken a plane that day, but was unable to help me with the time of the flight ...

Mr Hurtig was asked why he told Brita Sundberg-Wietman that Ms Ny had made no effort to interview his client. He denied saying that and said he has never met her. He agrees that he gave information to Mr Alhem. He agrees that where he had said in his statement (paragraph 51) that “I found it astonishing that Ms Ny, having allowed five weeks to elapse before she sought out interview”, then that is wrong ...

In re-examination he confirmed that he did not know Mr Assange was leaving Sweden on 27th September and first learned he was abroad on 29th. He agreed that the mistakes he had made in his proof were embarrassing and that shouldn’t have happened. He also agreed that it is important that what he says is right and important for his client that his evidence is credible.

The witness had to leave to catch a flight. Miss Montgomery said that there were further challenges she could make to his evidence, but thought it unnecessary in the circumstances. That was accepted by the court after no point was taken by Mr Robertson. The witness was clearly uncomfortable and anxious to leave ..."

City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

Swedish were trying through Assange's lawyer to arrange a second interview when Assange fled Sweden -- the Assange defense lied about this in UK court, and the UK court caught them

[sabrina 1]

92. Well, if he had run, you would have a point. But he did not run. In fact he went to the police

himself where an interview was conducted, then stayed in Sweden for several weeks asking for an interview with the prosecutor which she refused to give. Everyone knows that especially in sex cases, as this prosecutor herself stated many times BEFORE this case, it is essential to conduct interviews with witnesses and the suspects as soon as possible after the alleged incidents occur. And she and many experts on the subject all agree that this is one of the most important steps a prosecutor needs to take.

Yet she violated this most important rule by refusing to conduct an interview with him, as pointed out by Women's activists, like Naomi Wolf eg. Why do you think she refused to conduct that interview and then gave him permission to leave Sweden?

[struggle4progress]

252. The Assange defense lied about that in UK court, and the UK court caught them lying:

... In cross-examination the Swedish lawyer confirmed that paragraph 13 of his proof of evidence is is wrong. The last five lines of paragraph 13 of his proof read: “in the following days <after 15th September> I telephoned <Ms Ny> a number of times to ask whether we could arrange a time for Mr Assange’s interview but was never given an answer, leaving me with the impression that they may close the rape case without even bothering to interview him. On 27th September 2010, Mr Assange left Sweden.” He agreed that this was wrong. Ms Ny did contact him. A specific suggestion was put to him that on 22nd September he sent a text to the prosecutors saying “I have not talked to my client since I talked to you”. He checked his mobile phone and at first said he did not have the message as he does not keep them that far back. He was encouraged to check his inbox, and there was an adjournment for that purpose. He then confirmed that on 22nd September 2010 at 16.46 he has a message from Ms Ny saying: “Hello – it is possible to have an interview Tuesday”. Next there was a message saying: “Thanks for letting me know. We will pursue Tuesday 28th at 1700”. He then accepted that there must have been a text from him. “You can interpret these text messages as saying that we had a phone call, but I can’t say if it was on 21st or 22nd”. He conceded that it is possible that Ms Ny told him on the 21st that she wanted to interview his client. She requested a date as soon as possible. He agrees that the following day, 22nd, she contacted him at least twice.

Then he was then cross-examined about his attempts to contact his client. To have the full flavour it may be necessary to consider the transcript in full. In summary the lawyer was unable to tell me what attempts he made to contact his client, and whether he definitely left a message. It was put that he had a professional duty to tell his client of the risk of detention. He did not appear to accept that the risk was substantial or the need to contact his client was urgent. He said “I don’t think I left a message warning him” (about the possibility of arrest). He referred to receiving a text from Ms Ny at 09.11 on 27th September, the day his client left Sweden. He had earlier said he had seen a baggage ticket that Mr Assange had taken a plane that day, but was unable to help me with the time of the flight ...

Mr Hurtig was asked why he told Brita Sundberg-Wietman that Ms Ny had made no effort to interview his client. He denied saying that and said he has never met her. He agrees that he gave information to Mr Alhem. He agrees that where he had said in his statement (paragraph 51) that “I found it astonishing that Ms Ny, having allowed five weeks to elapse before she sought out interview”, then that is wrong ...

In re-examination he confirmed that he did not know Mr Assange was leaving Sweden on 27th September and first learned he was abroad on 29th. He agreed that the mistakes he had made in his proof were embarrassing and that shouldn’t have happened. He also agreed that it is important that what he says is right and important for his client that his evidence is credible.

The witness had to leave to catch a flight. Miss Montgomery said that there were further challenges she could make to his evidence, but thought it unnecessary in the circumstances. That was accepted by the court after no point was taken by Mr Robertson. The witness was clearly uncomfortable and anxious to leave ...

City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[sabrina 1]

289. The defense did not lie, the defense like many defense attorneys do every day

especially over-worked public defenders with more than 200 other cases they are handling, missed seeing some messages, probably from other clients and prosecutors also.

Crossed wires, happens every day and was no big deal except to those who are desperately, furiously trying to convict someone because they exposed dirty secrets of this government, War Crimes to be exact, and because they were about to expose corruption in the banking system.

But that aside, what does this have to do with Assange? He was not involved in the back and forth between the prosecutor and the attorney. The prosecutor told his attorney he was free to leave. He didn't leave right away, still hoping for an interview but Prosecutor did not get around to that until Sept 22.

Why did the Prosecutor wait so long to interview Assange? That is the question everyone is asking. And why did she refuse his offer to return to Sweden then refuse to go to London when there was no reason whatsoever not to do so?

Nice try at distraction with that irrelevant point between the prosecutor and attorney. It does not change a thing, the prosecutor has failed to do what is necessary to file charges in this case, and I think a majority of intelligent people know why by now.

[struggle4progress]

294. Assange's attorney admitted to the court he had made untrue claims -- yet you repeat those claims

[sabrina 1]

296. What the lawyer and the prosecutor did is not relevant to what Assange did.

The prosecutor told Assange's lawyer on Sept 15 that he was free to leave. The prosecutor should NOT have done that. The prosecuter's DUTY was to have interviewed him immediately after the dismissed case was reopened. But the prosecutor refused to do so and waited for three weeks, before contacting the defense, and AFTER telling Assange he was free to leave.

The crossing of wires regarding the communication between her and the defense is NO EXCUSE for her dereliction of duty to begin with, and her refusal even after her failed attempts to reach the defense, once she did, to accept Assange's offer to return to Sweden on Oct 9.

Furthermore, she then procrastinated for two years, and is still doing so, making excuses, all of which have been debunked, as to why she has not interviewed him and then filing her case.

She has been widely criticized for her behavior in this case, in fact some legal experts believe she might be guilty of misconduct.

Assange violated no laws regarding speaking to the police, which he did, or to the prosecutor. He has made himself available to do so for two years now, he was in no way responsible for her failure to do her duty. She has denied both the women and Assange their day in court.

[sabrina 1]

97. No, I believe a woman when she says 'there was no rape'. Why would anyone not believe her?

And once again, since apparently you missed my comment above, he did not run, he went to the police where an interview was conducted with him and then remained in Sweden where he asked for an interview with the prosecutor and which she refused to grant for several weeks. After which she told him he was free to leave.

None of this is in dispute, even the women's attorney stated that he was given permission to leave and that there no charges against him.

Additionally he was always available for an interview. But for two years now, the prosecutor has refused to conduct that interview.

The question is 'why'? That is what everyone wants to know. Why the prosecutor has made excuse after excuse for refusing to interview him? A spokesperson for the prosecutor asked this question last week in a radio interview, responded with 'I do not know'.

Neither do we, maybe you have the answer?

[struggle4progress]

276. "The other woman wanted to report rape. I gave my testimony to support her story"

– Den andra kvinnan ville anmäla för våldtäkt. Jag gav min berättelse som vittnesmål till hennes berättelse och för att stötta henne.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article7652935.ab

[Swagman]

282. God damn it ! THERE ARE NO CHARGES !

why the f**king hell do we have to repeat time and time again :

there are no charges that have been laid against Julian Assange in respect of the allegations.

why do we have to keep repeating these truths?

[struggle4progress]

295. There is a valid arrest order from a Swedish court, which has withstood several appeals

from Assange's lawyers in Sweden: Assange is to be taken into custody in Sweden for the continuation of prosecutorial process under Swedish law. This is why there is an international warrant, and this is why the Swedish prosecutors have sought his extradition from the UK. No fewer than three separate UK courts have upheld the extradition as being for the purposes of prosecution

The bottom line is that Assange is wanted in Sweden for the continuation of prosecutorial process; the Swedish courts have ordered him taken into custody for that purpose; and the UK courts have agreed that the UK must hand him over to Sweden

[sabrina 1]

298. Glad you brought up the 'valid arrest warrant'. There is doubt as to whether that arrest

warrant was valid or not. First, there was no need for it, as Assange was always available for questioning, it was the Prosecutor who has been refusing for two years to accept his offers to speak to her. Assange did speak to the police who, unlike the prosecutor did not refuse to speak to him.

Second, the EAW is not supposed to be issues on someone who has not been charged with a crime.

This prosecutor has violated several rules covering these kinds of situations and may have violated EU law when she issued that arrest warrant when 1) it was not necessary as he was always in contact with her, and 2) it is to be used only to arrest someone against whom charges have been filed.

The more people look at the way this whole mess has been conducted, the more suspicious they are that none of this was ever about any sex crimes from the beginning.

I have to thank you for always providing me with the opportunity to straighten out the misinformation being disseminated about this case. I would forget if it were not for your posts.

[struggle4progress]

299. The matter's been litigated thoroughly in both the UK and Sweden. The Swedish court's arrest order

has been upheld in Sweden. The arrest warrent has been upheld repeatedly in UK court

[sabrina 1]

300. The matter of the legitimacy of the warrant has been raised and has not been litigated

since no charges have arisen, yet, against the Prosecutor. Iow, the questions raised by reputable Swedish legal experts have yet to be answered.

[struggle4progress]

301. Warrant validity was the central topic in the UK cases. Assange lost. The cases are here:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2011/5.html
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2012/22.html

[sabrina 1]

303. It has not been litigated in Sweden. The issue has been raised in Sweden and

that is where it needs to be dealt with. Britain has no control over how Sweden deals with these issues, they were relying on the belief that she had the authority to issue that warrant. Now questions have been raised about who has that authority and about issuing it without first filing charges in Sweden.

[Cleita]

16. K&R

[Comrade_McKenzie]

17. Only the ones without critical thinking skills. nt

[OnyxCollie]

20. Only the liberals who have

appeared to misidentify themselves on the liberal/conservative identification scale.

The ones who can justify the assassination of Anwar Al-Awlaki (and his 16-year old son), the treatment of Bradley Manning, etc.

There are quite a few of them here, a result of the big tent, and they often succeed in warding off any criticism of their liberal credentials.

[AnneD]

21. Not this liberal...

esp. since I read that Karl Rove might be involved. It is classic Rove MO.

Karl Rove, Sweden, and the Eight Major Aberrations in the Police Sex Crime Reporting Process in the Assange Case. By Naomi Wolf



Professors blogg presents to the Swedish audience an analysis by notable American feminist Naomi Wolf, examining procedure aspects around the Assange case. Washington-based attorney and journalist Andrew Kreig, Director of Justice Integrity Project, sent the full-text article for publication in Professors blog on February 9, 2011. /Prof. Marcello Ferrada-Noli







http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.com/2011/02/karl-rove-sweden-and-eight-major.html

[randome]

37. Ha! Rove?

The criminal mastermind behind Palin? Romney? Akin? You must have PTSD if you continue to think he controls the world to that extent.

[KoKo]

38. Need to read the link....

before you post.

[randome]

43. Sorry.

I just assumed it was the usual story about how some Dr. Brian Palmer says that Rove is advising Sweden on something and how there are 3 degrees of separation connecting him to a partner in a law firm that advises Assange's accusers.

I'll read the link now.

Huh. That's exactly what it was. Innuendo and supposition. Nothing of any factual basis whatsoever. Of course missing from this part of the conversation is why would our little genius Rove care about Assange?

Or are you saying that both Rove and Obama want Assange dead?

Strange bedfellows indeed.

And all the points raised about how the case isn't a perfect one? Rove and his minions must surely be the most incompetent puppet masters in history if they have left such an obvious trail for us to follow.

[sabrina 1]

101. Yes, Rove, glad you brought it up. Rove has been, oh so coincidentally, in the background

of this case from the beginning.

For the benefit of those who are not aware of this, Rove was in Sweden working as a political adviser to Sweden's current PM, Fredrik Reinfeldt, a man referred to as 'Sweden's Ronald Reagan'. Rove is also longtime friends with Sweden's foreign minister a man deeply involved in the Wikileaks case.

This fact was not known until relatively recently and has raised understandable questions, since we know now that Rove has motive to smear Wikileaks, being that they exposed the war crims of his bosses, he had opportunity and the nature of the way this has been handled has Rove written all over it.

So, was he involved? People can form their own opinions. But the information is important for people to have.

[randome]

103. I hear he's related to Kevin Bacon, too.

[sabrina 1]

106. Let me try again to keep this discussion on an adult level. Why has the prosecutor

refused to interview Assange for two years now, instead making excuse after excuse, all of which have been thoroughly debunked by legal experts both on Swedish and International law and which they themselves can no longer claim?

Is there ANY reason why a prosecutor would not charge someone after two years when nothing was standing in the way of her doing so?

You still have not answered this question, now being asked even by former supporters of the prosecutors.

[sabrina 1]

107. Got any evidence of that? I'm sure you are not trying to be funny since you apparently take

this case so seriously. I like evidence to back up claims relating to cases like this.

Not that it would have anything to do with this case.

But you seem to think it is in some way related.

Oh, and regarding the facts you seemed to be trying to distract from, what do you think of the major coincidence of one of our War Criminals, Karl Rove, being at the scene of the 'crime' and bff with the Swedish PM and the Swedish Foreign Minister?

[randome]

120. I think nothing of Rove, the criminal 'mastermind' behind Palin, Romney & Akin.

He is not the super-villain genius some want to believe he is.

And yes, I think he SHOULD be tried as a war criminal. So should all of them who took us into Iraq for no good reason.

[sabrina 1]

128. So you believe that he is a war criminal.

Do you believe he was part of the conspiracy that outed Valerie Plame to get at her husband for exposing some lies they told about the Iraq War?

Do you believe he had anything to do with the firing of the US Attorneys because they refused to create false evidence against Democratic politicians in order to destroy them?

He fled to Sweden during the investigation into those crimes, btw and told Congress to go to hell with their subpoenas.

I am interested to know where you draw the line as to what might cause Rove to orchestrate smear campaigns against political enemies. I mean, it's not like it hasn't spent his entire life doing it.

But do you think he has reformed and would never try to destroy an organization like Wikileaks that exposed his boss's war crimes?

You do know the impact of the Leaks on the rest of the world don't you? They brought down a major crooked bank in Iceland eg, exposing the corruption of Wall Street in no uncertain terms.

They exposed pay for votes in India's government with Washington behind the scenes, nearly toppling that Government and exposing the US's role behind the scenes in India's and other country's democracies.


The list is so long of the negative effects of Wikileaks excellent journalist work on war criminals and dictators, often friends of the US around the world.

But you think none of this would be of any interest to Rove?

[SidDithers]

118. LOL!...

He's everywhere!!



Sid

[sabrina 1]

231. Not everywhere, but definitely and coincidentally in Sweden at just the 'right' time.

Where he should have been was in front of Congress answering questions about the firing of the US Attorneys.

Rove's MO, go after an enemy by falsely accusing them of something nefarious, like a sex scandal, or in the case of the US Attorneys, corruption of some kind. It doesn't matter if in the end they are exonerated, no one will remember that, just so the headlines are screaming 'sex, rape, corruption', usually he uses Murdoch's rags, or in Sweden the one they used, Expressen.

In the US even Republican US Attorneys refused to be that evil, to smear Democrats and accuse them of things they did not do. So he had them fired. In Sweden? We shall see.

But you are wrong, he wasn't everywhere, he was in Sweden.

[AnneD]

228. Rove and his dirty tricks.....

Rove has been active behind the scene since his early days during the Nixon days under Segretti. He managed to escape the Watergate roundup of criminals. He hooked up with the BFEE and came to Texas to foul up our state. I have been watching him at close range every since then. The man is evil incarnate. He started a whisper campaign against Ann Richard that got her unseated. He did his next hatchet job on McCain, and I would be willing to bet Kerry got his attentions too.

He loves to get a juicy scandal going to discredit a good person. Maybe I have been so conditioned by his actions, but I can smell a Rove job a mile away. When I first heard of Assange's problems, out of habit, I checked Rove's where abouts. I was not so surprised and a bit sick at my stomach when I put the two together. What I haven't figured out is who is he really working for. Bush senior was CIA director. The only thing I can speculate, and it is pure conjecture on my part, is that the BFEE is trying to clean up and tie off some loose ends. The wiki leaks when they all come to light, might be very damaging to the Bushs'.

[sabrina 1]

232. If you remember he was being questioned by Congress for his role in the firing of the US

Attorneys when he avoided the subpoenas and refused to answer questions about it.

His scheme supposedly was to get the US Attorneys to look for something to 'get' Democrats with and when they did investigate but found nothing, he fired them.

His MO, he can't win on issues and doesn't even try, or on legalities, he wins by smearing people as he tried to do by using Valerie Plame, to get at her husband.

I don't know whether he played a role in this, but it's hard not to see his MO, right down to contacting the Right Wing Rag and having them scream 'rape' even though the women denied it. The damage was done anyhow.

It will be no surprise to me to find out he was involved.

[AnneD]

233. That will be one...

Sick evil bastard I would love to see tarred and feathered. And if my instincts about his sexual proclivities are right, there is a whole lot of displacement going on.

[Doctor_J]

22. Some of our peeps are a little like the Dittiots

Too faithful to our "leaders" when it fits a world view.

[valerief]

61. From someone whose favorite group is the gungeon!

[AnotherMcIntosh]

102. An ad hominem fallacy is the best that you've got? That's it?

Incidentally, as shown by a recent DU poll, your anti-gungeon ad hominem attack is unlikely to have much effect because a great many DU members are not anti-gun advocates.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/117265861

It's also unlikely that many will fall for ad hominem attacks.

[valerief]

132. Yeah, a poll in gungeon wouldn't be biased.

[ElboRuum]

302. Selection bias in that poll.

The poll is posted in the RKBA forum, and the respondents are almost exclusively RKBA frequenters.

The "great many members" are of course selected in a biased way based upon their desire to participate in that forum.

The only way we could get an actual view of where the majority of DUers stand on gun control issues would be to have a poll in a generally available forum and have it be responded to in a much greater sample size. This would have to be a great deal more participation than is likely to be found in RKBA.

This poll only states the following: "The vast majority of people in this poll are of the opinion that tougher gun laws would not prevent criminal access to guns, and the sample is comprised largely of a group of people already likely to have a pro-gun stance."

While I'm sure to see this link more often as some sort of "proof" of something in the coming weeks, it is not, upon inspection, a very convincing argument to offer to support your assertion. It is pretty much the poll equivalent of stating that "water is wet". Truthful, but not illuminating.

[krawhitham]

24. I miss UnRec

[a2liberal]

26. Yes.

Political correctness is a powerful force

[The Doctor.]

27. It's one of the easiest ways to manipulate liberals.

[fascisthunter]

28. and I seriously doubt they are liberals

Last edited Sat Sep 1, 2012, 11:00 AM - Edit history (1)

but instead I think they are authoritarian hacks trying to sway popular opinion on DU.

[randome]

36. If there are two 'sides' to the Assange story...

...and I reject the idea of being on any side at all, then it's clear which 'side' hurls the most invectives and insults. I think that's a tell that you know, deep down, that your arguments do not hold merit.

[Bonobo]

41. Invectives such as "rape apologist" you mean? nt

[randome]

46. 'Rape apologists'.

'Not liberals'.
'Trolls'.
'One percenters'.
'Defenders of the corporatocracy'.

Many of those non-debate points raised on this very thread.

[Bonobo]

50. "Rape apologist" is more offensive than any of the ones you listed.

The invectives were equal on both sides. To pretend otherwise is just dishonest.

[randome]

51. There are invectives from both sides, I agree.

I DID state it as 'most of' the invectives come from the pro-Assange side but maybe that's a distinction not worth parsing.

I agree that 'rape apologist' adds nothing to the debate and is offensive.

[rhett o rick]

44. Yes there are two sides and it's not the liberal side that wants

to lynch Assange.

One side says to be wary of a scorned government with unlimited power to silence critics.

The other side says 1. But it's a Democratic run government therefore we must never question, 2. We must silence all who would upset our carefully crafted state of denial.

If someone thinks that Assange should be excused from rape charges for political reasons, they are by definition, not liberal.

[randome]

49. This liberal does not want to 'lynch' anyone.

Assange should obey the Swedish and U.K. rulings -which have all gone through lengthy appeals processes- and put this matter behind him.

Then he can go on about his business or return to Australia, for all I care. I don't want anyone to imprison him unless it's Sweden for his specific offense.

[rhett o rick]

81. Then we agree. However, in an earlier post I believe you called him

a womanizer and only interested in publicity. Without knowing him any better that via the CorpMedia, that would sound like bias.

[sabrina 1]

164. The Swedish Prosecutors are entirely responsible for the

failure to prosecute this case. Assange or any other person is never under any obligation to place themselves voluntarily in legal or physical jeopardy especially when all they are wanted for is questioning and even more so, when they have made themselves available for that questioning and have been turned down over and over again.

Assange did what any intelligent person in his situation would do, he never refused to answer questions, and went willing to talk to the Swedish police. And he asked for assurances that he would be treated fairly if and when he returned to Sweden. The prosecution has refused to interview him and to assure him of fair treatment.

He would be a fool to go to Sweden under those circumstances.

[sabrina 1]

143. Such as your own comments in this thread dismissing those who actually want to see

some evidence before convicting someone, as 'hero-worshippers'? Since when is someone assumed to be a hero-worshipper simply because they will not convict someone of a crime without evidence? You are correct, the insults and invectives being hurled at thoughtful liberals who generally are known to be unwilling to throw someone in jail based only on allegations do indeed show which 'side' is hurting. We liberals believe in due process which in your view, apparently means 'hero-shippers'.

[randome]

147. I don't want to see any evidence because it's none of my business.

It's a simple matter. Face the music in Sweden. There is so much notoriety associated with Assange now that no one can pull off some kind of weird, super-duper-secret kidnapping.

If they could do that while the entire world was watching, they would have done it two years ago when Assange was under house arrest.

If you think they don't care about legal niceties, then why are they bothering with this insanely convoluted process to get him to Sweden?

[sabrina 1]

166. Well that has been obvious, 'I don't want to see any evidence'.

So you don't think this case is any of your business, you are not interested in any evidence (which I knew having provided you with many facts which you have ignored) yet you are in every thread about this case. That certainly is one major contradiction.

When I am not interested in something, I do not comment on it, especially as you have now admitted, if I know nothing about it.

So why are you spending all this time in these threads if it is none of your business and you don't want to see any evidence?

[1monster]

185. Brava! Papable hit. Valid point!

[AnotherMcIntosh]

217. x2

[valerief]

56. +1000

[valerief]

62. self-delete; dupe

[treestar]

193. BS. Why is this case the litmus test for whether a person is a liberal?

It makes more sense to say the mindless supporters are operatives trying to make liberals looking stupid and emotional, and like they blindly hate the US and will worship anyone who does the slightest thing against it.

[brentspeak]

33. No, but right-wingers who pose as liberals on liberal websites

certainly are.

[valerief]

57. +1000

[backscatter712]

66. +1000 more!

I'm currently guessing that some of the anti-Assange posters/sockpuppets here are operated by the government or a federal security contractor (Blackwater/Xe/Academi?)

[Zorra]

74. Bullseye! Thread win for total succinct accuracy. nt

[KoKo]

39. K&R

[valerief]

55. Only those 'posing' as liberals claim to believe this shit.

It's so friggin' obvious the guy is being framed. It's a Louvre-class framing.

[Cirque du So-What]

59. From my observations, I've seen quite the opposite reaction among liberals to the charges

It's the wingnuts who would like to see Assange put away and Wikileaks shut down permanently.

[randome]

68. But I thought Obama wanted Assange 'put away'.

Is he a wingnut now, too? Damn! I need a scorecard!

[valerief]

134. Obama is a centrist, not a liberal. We liberals wish he was a liberal. Oh, yeah, and

thank you for your concern.

[randome]

137. Yeah, but I don't think a centrist would be out to 'get' Assange.

I wish he was more liberal, too. But it's going to take a little time to crawl out of 30 years of Conservative bullshit.

He's taking steps. Ask gay rights advocates if he isn't 'turning liberal'.

[snot]

70. K&R'd.

[alarimer]

71. No, he needs to face those charges.

He may well be acquitted. They may not be true, but process needs to occur, and it won't if he's hiding out somewhere. Those women will not see justice as long as that is true.

Sex charges are serious and should be taken seriously ALWAYS, regardless of the alleged perpetrator. If he is truly innocent, he should be willing to be questioned and have his side be heard.

[99Forever]

87. There are NO fucking charges to face, "serious" or otherwise.

Only one vague allegation and a shitpot full of drummed up lies. All that is required for some people I guess, is to hear those fucking lies told over and over, and they buy them. I used to think it was just a Teabagger/Rape-publican thing, now I'm not so sure.

[randome]

89. Whatever you or Sweden want to call them, the facts are...

Interpol agreed with the arrest warrant.
The U.K. appeals process agreed with the extradition request.
Australia does not want to intervene.
The Swiss prosecutor wants Assange back for questioning.

All these entities and judicial reviewers agree that Assange needs to return to Sweden for questioning and possible arrest.

That's a lot of moving parts to believe Europe is trying to 'get' Assange at the behest of President Obama.

It is not up to us to decide what is sufficient proof or not. It's up to Assange and Sweden to put this matter to rest.

[sabrina 1]

141. And again, you leave out one very important fact. Assange has been available for questioning

by the Prosecutor both while in Sweden and for two years since then. The prosecutor has refused to question him. Leading to the question, 'why'? And another question, why do you consistently leave this very important fact out of your list? Had she done her job, charges would have been filed long ago.

If she cares about these women, why has she NOT taken that step and gone ahead and filed her charges?

And don't bother with the false claims that there ever was a legal impediment to her doing so either in Sweden or in London because there was not.

Or the next excuse when that false claim was debunked, that she couldn't arrest him in London. He was arrested in London.

Sweden can and does arrest suspects in other countries because they are members of the EU and signed an agreement giving them the power to issue a European Arrest Warrant, which the prosecutor already did. That ensures that their suspect can and have been arrested and detained and turned over to them.

So, that leaves the prosecutor with no more excuses as to why she refuses to move this case into the courts where it belongs. Until she does, it is nothing more than allegations with, so far, no evidence to back them up.

It could be that as soon as she files charges, she will finally have to stop refusing to hand over whatever evidence she has to the Defense. Including all the exculpatory evidence, eg, the texts between the women joking about 'making money from this' eg.

Or, as the women's lawyer himself has admitted 'this is a very weak case'.

She needs to either file her charges or drop this case. Meantime people will continue to doubt these allegations as they should.

[99Forever]

170. Save your imperiosa argumentum...

.. for the Teabaggers and other authoritarian dickheads, it ain't selling here.

If you think I'm going to play YOUR game of shooting down your hogwash just to have you ignore or try to belittle every rational argument put in front of you, just like you have already done dozens of times to other posters, you'd better buy a clue. I'm not. The more you and your like-minded friends run your game, the more I'm convinced that this is a clear cut case of smear the messenger by the PTB.

[sabrina 1]

199. The only reason I repeatedly respond to this posters comments

is to use them to give the facts to people who may genuinely not be familiar with the case. This poster stated above that s/he has 'no interest in the evidence because it is 'none of my business'. Which explains why s/he has ignored the now, dozens of posts I have made presenting him/her with facts about the case, all of which are ignored as s/he goes about repeating the same old false information over and over again as if no one ever presented them with facts.

So, I simply use his/her posts now to educate others who are reading never expecting any acknowledgement of the facts especially now that s/he has stated they are not interested in facts. It's hilarious really, but a golden opportunity for people who actually do care about the facts.

Everything has a purpose

[AnotherMcIntosh]

220. It takes energy to do what you are doing to set the facts straight, and I thank you.

[sabrina 1]

116. What charges? He has never been charged?

Hard to answer charges that have never been filed against you. Even harder when the prosecutor refuses to take the step that would either cause a dismissal of the case or enable her to finally, after two long years, file those charges.

The process has not occurred because of either prosecutorial incompetence, or because of something else. Assange, like anyone against whom allegations are made, has no responsibility to do anything other than protect himself against what he has called 'totally false allegations'.

He has done his part, he voluntarily went to the Swedish police and was interviewed by them. He was not arrested or charged at that point. He made himself available for an interview with the Prosecutor both in Sweden and after leaving.

The ball has always been in the Prosecutor's hands. Why she refuses to pursue this case in a professional manner, and has dragged it out for so long, making excuse after excuse, is the question the world would like her to explain.

[D23MIURG23]

72. In my experience no one is ever too eager to believe rape charges, particularly against a celebrity.

Maybe some subset of feminists, which I doubt are a plurality of liberals.

I would be less jaded about this if I hadn't seen the same sort of apologia for famous people accused of rape who haven't done anything useful for the world.

[sabrina 1]

173. I see the opposite in this case. I see a concerted effort to believe the rape

charges without a shred of evidence, and there has been none so far, other a few allegations cobbled together very late in this case, and which contradict the women's own statements when this whole case began.

That is an insult to women, to speak for them, to refuse to listen when they say 'no, I was not raped' and if it is being used for political purposes, a fear that Women's Rights Groups and Activists have expressed, it is a vile thing to do.

We can't even say the women lied in this case. They have been silenced by the politically motivated attorney who inserted himself into this case and by the refusal of the Prosecutor after two years, to file any charges in this case.

She is denying both the women and Assange any justice by her total mishandling of this case and by refusing to speak to Assange both in Sweden and in London.

We are all sick of women being used for the benefit of powerful entities. Either file charges or admit you have no case. It's not that difficult to do.

[Iggy]

73. HUH? I'm a liberal....

I don't for a second buy into these trumped up charges against Assange.

the Company has a long record of accusing whistle blowers of PHONY sex crimes. the "useful" tools in the
MSM always buy into it, publishing the BULLcrap as often as possible.. thus the person is convicted _before_ any sort of trial.

just why do you think Assange is so defiant?? he knows they got NOTHING.

[Nye Bevan]

75. What were the women wearing? Did they lead him on?

Did they act friendly towards him the next day?

Many DUers want these questions answered before Assange is made to face a trial.

[randome]

78. You should really do some Googling before you post something like that.

You're in for it, now.

[sabrina 1]

121. Far more important than any of that, THEY DENIED THERE WAS ANY RAPE.

Sorry to shout, but some DUers refuse to respect the intelligence of women to know when they have been raped and when they have not.

And btw, those questions have all been answered, in interviews with both women and in Assange's own interview with the police. They have also been answered by the many witnesses who gave statements to the prosecution and in photos, text messages from the women themselves including at least one digital photo sent by one of the women while in bed with Assange.

Those are not the questions that need answering. The questions that need answering are 'why did the Prosecutor refuse to interview Assange for two years despite the fact that there were no legal impediments to her doing so?

And of course there are other directly relating to the evidence itself in this case. Questions have caused the women's own attorney to state that 'this is a very weak case'.

[Nye Bevan]

149. Did they say that there was NO SEXUAL ASSAULT OF ANY KIND?

Didn't think so.

[sabrina 1]

161. They stated that there was no threat to them, that they were never in danger

and that there was no rape. One of the women has refused to sign the statement provided by the police after she learned of the rape allegations. That means she is not cooperating with the prosecution. She was distraught, not over the sex with Assange, but over the reports of rape, her only concern initially was that she wanted to know if she could force Assange to take and STD test.

That visit was distorted and sent to the Right Wing Tabloid Expressen, in violation of Swedish law especially in naming Assange which is illegal in Sweden. Only about six people had access to that information. The investigation is apparently still 'ongoing' after two years.

The women went to the police station to ask a question about getting a test for STDs They did not go to claim sexual assault. It was the police who took it upon themselves to make that claim, and the attorney who inserted himself into the case who believes that women do not know when they have been sexually assaulted (thank YOU Mr. Patriarchal defender of us stupid women) that the state will make that determination for them. If you believe that the state knows more about a woman's personal experiences than she does, then I guess you will agree with the attorney. I find it highly sexist and insulting to women.

[struggle4progress]

245. Well, if that is true, then Assange should be able to win easily in Sweden

[struggle4progress]

277. "The other woman wanted to report rape. I gave my testimony to support her story"

– Den andra kvinnan ville anmäla för våldtäkt. Jag gav min berättelse som vittnesmål till hennes berättelse och för att stötta henne.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article7652935.ab

[AnotherMcIntosh]

76. In what way, exactly, are those who have abandoned the presumption of innocence "liberals"?

What makes them, if at all, "liberals"?

What makes them "liberals" instead of right-wing authoritarians who are willing to presume that the state and anyone acting in the name of the state are correct? The state in this case is Sweden; or Sweden and the UK; or Sweden, the UK, and the USA. What makes even those who claim to be "somewhat in the middle," or self-identified centrists, "liberals"?

What is this cause célèbre that has attracted the anti-Assange posters? Why must he be hunted down at all costs? Is Assange a war criminal like Pinochet? Can he be described as a violent man who, if not stopped and brought to justice, will engage in more violence? Has he stolen a loaf of bread?

What is the criminal charge? As early as December 2, 2010,

Assange's London attorney, Mark Stephens, told AOL News today that Swedish prosecutors told him that Assange is wanted not for allegations of rape, as previously reported, but for something called "sex by surprise," which he said involves a fine of 5,000 kronor or about $715.

"Whatever 'sex by surprise' is, it's only a offense in Sweden -- not in the U.K. or the U.S. or even Ibiza," Stephens said. "I feel as if I'm in a surreal Swedish movie being threatened by bizarre trolls.
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/02/sex-by-surprise-at-heart-of-assange-criminal-probe/

To justify some heated anti-Assange posts, some posters have looked at U.S. law and found laws in a few states in which the charge of rape can be based upon sex with a sleeping woman. It obviously makes sense that an unwanted sexual assault upon a woman while she is sleeping is rape. This makes sense with respect to a stranger or even a known person with whom the woman does not want to have sex with. But the anti-Assange posters have gone beyond that, thrown out common sense, and have implicitly claimed to believe that a continuation of sex involving sex partners after one of them has fallen asleep is rape.

They are willing to believe the Swedish government's version of the details, while disregarding the fact that the Swedish officials have selectively released full-text transcripts while only releasing the police summaries of the transcripts from the woman or women. These posters, who purportedly believe that American law provides that all sex with sleeping women is rape, have never posted a single link to even a single case in which a sex-partner and bed-mate has been prosecuted on such a theory for rape. No such case can be found because the theory is inherently incredible. The anti-Assange posters who claim to rely upon the special nuances of Swedish law (but apparently misrepresent Sweden's "sex-by-surprise" law as being "rape&quot have not even posted a link to a single case in which Sweden has prosecuted even one sex-partner and bed-mate who has resumed having sex with a sleeping woman. For them, accusing Assange of rape is enough.

For them, even if the Swedish government hasn't accused Assange of rape, they'll do so. Or at least some will do so while others will say something along the lines of they are "centrists who haven't made up their minds as to whether Assange is guilty of rape but they want him to return to Sweden to defend himself on rape charges."

WTF? Sweden hasn't accused Assange of rape, but the anti-Assange posters, and the I'm-just-a-centrist-who-want-him-to-defend-himself-on-rape-charges posters, are now somehow "liberals"?

Excuse me, but I'll repeat the original question in a slightly different way. What exactly makes them "liberals?"

[muriel_volestrangler]

124. You haven't been keeping up with the case since 2010, it seems

if you're relying on what his lawyer claimed back then. Since then, it has been agreed by all lawyers in Sweden and the UK that the accusation of sex with the woman who was asleep is rape in both Sweden (where there are gradations of rape; it is a lower one) and in the UK (where there is just 'rape', and since she was incapable of consent, it is in the legal definition).

Having sex with someone by improperly exploiting them while they are unconscious is rape, under Swedish law. This may be due to unconsciousness, sleep, intoxication or other drug influence, illness, injury or mental disturbance - or otherwise in a helpless state.

...
(English law)
"Practically speaking, if someone is so drunk that they are incapable of making a choice then that is rape," says Gerry. "Evidential presumptions" of what renders someone incapable of consent include the complainant being asleep, under threat of violence or having a disability which prevents them from communicating.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19333439

[AnotherMcIntosh]

206. You are claiming to have special expertise on an issue of which you obviously do not such expertise.

You claim to know that that since 2010 when Assange's attorney gave his AOL interview,

"it has been agreed "all lawyers in Sweden and the UK that the accusation of sex with the woman who was asleep is rape in both Sweden ... and in the UK ..." (emphasis added)

You claim to know something which you cannot possible know, and you do so while disregarding a qualification or exception that I pointed to my post.

In contrast, it is common knowledge in the United States that attorneys disagree with one another all the time about the law and how it should be interpreted with qualifications and exceptions. It may be possible in totalitarian countries ruled by authoritarians for the attorneys to universally agree as to what the law is without any exceptions. But that is not the way that it works in free countries.

You claim to know that all attorneys in Sweden and the UK agree, without any qualifications or exceptions, that sex with a "woman who was asleep is rape." You implicitly claim to know that all attorneys in Sweden and the UK would not consider any qualifications to that statement. Although sex with a sleeping woman can be rape when a woman is assaulted by a stranger or an unwanted person, as I said above, the

"posters, who purportedly believe that American law provides that all sex with sleeping women is rape, have never posted a single link to even a single case in which a sex-partner and bed-mate has been prosecuted on such a theory for rape."

You haven't done so either.

More importantly, you can't possibly know what all lawyers in Sweden and the UK think in the manner in which you claim. Although you are located in England, I doubt that you could find even a single English solicitor or barrister who would agree with your view.

[sabrina 1]

238. 'All lawyers'? Totally wrong. You apparently are the one not keeping up with this case.

There have been many reviews of the available evidence in this case by Swedish legal experts who have concluded that this case could not succeed in court. So you might want to revise your statement about 'all lawyers'.

You are now claiming that the evidence given by the women has changed over the course of time. Well, you are somewhat correct.. One of the women, the one who supplied the condom, which was torn, claiming it to be the one worn by Assange, but which turned out to have no DNA on it, has, aside from providing that piece of fabricated forensic 'evidence' also changed her story no less than three times.

Unfortunately actual evidence has not changed. Her text messages eg, stating that she 'can make money from this' by 'destroying his reputation' by 'going to the right wing tabloids' among other odd murmerings now scrubbed from the internet, but in the possession of the attorneys, have not changed and she admitted that she 'may be in trouble' for this.

The other woman's testimony has not changed. She has refused to cooperate by signing the police documents, outraged over what she called the 'false allegations of rape'. She is supposedly the woman they are claiming was asleep. Her original testimony does not state she was worried about the sex, she was worried that he was not wearing a condom. She and he had a conversation which those of us who have researched this case have read and both of them separately, Assange and the woman gave their accounts of that conversation regarding her concerns, which were entirely about him not wearing a condom. That was all..

If that changes, then someone is lying now, or they were lying then. And they would have to explain the original testimony. You can be in a lot of trouble in Sweden for falsely accusing someone of rape btw.

But we have not heard from the woman, only the allegations produced by her extremist attorney, constructed late in the case to try to overcome the fact that no charges had been filed.

The interviews taken by the police are still the evidence in this case. And none of it accuses anyone of rape.

However we are dealing with a Patriarchal attorney who has stated that a woman does not know when she has been assaulted and that the state will make that determination for her.

Given that we know the evidence from the woman herself, 'no rape, no threat, no fear of danger' which is on the record, we can assume HE, Mr. Women-are-too-stupid-to distinguish-between-sex-and-assault, is now making that determination for her since she had refused to cooperate. And that is one good reason why the Prosecutors will not file charges. They do not have a case.

[muriel_volestrangler]

239. This is not about success in court; it's about when the allegation is 'rape'

After the High Court judgement in 2011 that the 4th accusation is held to be rape in both Sweden and England, Assange's lawyers stopped trying to appeal on those grounds. Their appeals after that were on the basis that the Swedish public prosecutor was not a valid authority to issue a European Arrest Warrant.

Where has "You are now claiming that the evidence given by the women has changed over the course of time" come from? I don't think I've ever claimed that. Certainly not in #124, which is purely about whether the accusation is rape in England and Sweden. Perhaps you're replying to some other DUer at the same time?

If we have on record from the woman "no rape", and "she had refused to cooperate", can you point me to that record, please? The police interviews show she said she woke up to find Assange already penetrating her. That is the act which, if it happened, is rape. The interview says "When she talked with her friends afterwards, she understood that she was the victim of a crime", and then she went to a hospital for samples to be taken. The legal facts are that the crime is rape, if her description is accurate. It's the accuracy of her account that has to be tested, not the law.

[ronnie624]

287. Some interesting excerpts from Donald Boström's statement:

But I told Julian, “The young women want you to take
an HIV test; and if you do, they will not file a complaint. But if you do not, they will file
a complaint.” So I just passed that on; I was the messenger.…

My impression was that — partly, I was of course bewildered that suddenly it is a
completely different picture…. But then I believe that my impression was that she was
credible, and there was a little of this — one is inclined to believe a woman who has
been mistreated. It is like that, in some way; it is sort of…. So that was my immediate
impression.…
But at the same time, I began to think: How can it be possible? For, if they are
having sex, consensual according to her, and something happens that she experiences
as an assault, how can she nevertheless gladly arrange a crayfish party, let him remain
in her flat, share a bed and so forth? I felt that there is something here that does not add
up. So I had the feeling that she was a credible person, yet there was something about
her story that did not add up.

So those are pretty much the two impressions I have, parallel with each other:
a credible young woman, a strong young woman who knows what she wants, but
something that does not add up. And it is somewhat strengthened by the fact that
I now had three versions of what happened.… And Julian still says the same thing:
“I don’t understand anything”.…

When she called me and said “we had
sex” and this happened, she did not in any way imply that she had been the victim of
sexual assault. In fact, she did not even want to go to the police. But the way she put it
was like, “I want to go with, I promised Sofia I would go with her for support” — not
that she had any reason to go, herself. And so my impression is that she did not
experience anything very serious, but that she had become angry. Roughly: Don't
destroy the condom, but not that it was an assault. That was my impression, because
she did not want to go to the police for her own sake.

[muriel_volestrangler]

288. Note that the rape allegation is about Sofia, not the woman Boström refers to (nt)

[ronnie624]

291. Sofia went to the police initially,

to explore her options on compelling Assange to take a test for STD with the threat of filing a complaint, not to actually file it:

“The young women want you to take an HIV test; and if you do, they will not file a complaint. But if you do not, they will file a complaint.”

[struggle4progress]

268. "... The position with offence 4 is different. This is an allegation of rape. The framework list V

is ticked for rape. The defence accepts that normally the ticking of a framework list offence box on an EAW would require very little analysis by the court. However they then developed a sophisticated argument that the conduct alleged here would not amount to rape in most European countries. However, what is alleged here is that Mr Assange “deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state”. In this country that would amount to rape ..."
City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[Alduin]

77. There are a few DUers here who'll do everything they can to smear Assange.

[KansDem]

86. Really? In a country that brought us...

The "Oswald alone assassinated JFK," and "Ruby assassinated Oswald because he didn't want Kennedy women to endure Oswald trial," and the "magic bullet theory" explanations...

And don't forget the--

"Gulf of Tolkin incident brought to us by the NSA" (remember them?) explanation...

Oh, and finally the--

"George W Bush 'I saw the first plane hit the WTC, no, wait, I was told about it, no wait...!" explanations that go unchallenged...

Why should anyone believe the charges against Assange, let alone eager liberals?

[Rex]

91. Liberals? Why are we getting dumped on again?

I don't know what happened, but time will tell and I will reserve judgement until said period.

[bemildred]

94. Bizarre question. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

112. K&R You got five of them to come out so far. n/t

[MineralMan]

119. I neither believe or disbelieve those charges.

Only someone who was there at the time knows, and I wasn't. As far as I know, nobody on DU was there. So, nobody on DU knows, either.

It seems an empty question, with no possible resolution in the end.

[randome]

122. It is all moot, you're right.

[sabrina 1]

142. And all three of those who were there have said 'there was no rape'.

So no, the question is not empty. There is plenty of available evidence in this case and has been from the start which allows people to draw conclusions based ON that evidence.

We do not have to have been there when those who were have already denied the charges of rape, publicly. Together with witnesses who have backed up those claims by the women.

[MineralMan]

181. Did they say that to you, Sabrina 1?

I don't think so. You have it on second hand. I discount all second hand information. I simply do not know the facts of this case, and must rely on whatever legal system there is to decide. I'm not telling you what to think happened. I'm saying that I do not know, and so, am not saying what happened.

I hope you enjoy your evening. As I said, I'm taking neither side on the issue.

[sabrina 1]

230. No, I have it directly from the evidence.

The women's own words are not second hand.

From the police evidence. Having followed this from the beginning, AND written about it right here on DU as it was happening, the comments of the women and Assange to the police were always available.

Not to mention the women's own comments to others and text messages, all of which were online, although some of them were scrubbed after the Right Wing Tabloids began twisting the evidence into rape allegations. A reprehensible thing to do to the women, and the reason why one of them stopped cooperating with the police. Because she was totally distraught, and the witness testimony supports her own words, that they had turned her questions in 'rape'. I very much sympathized with her at the time. Her brother also testified to how distraught she was over the allegations that were falsely attributed to her.

You may not know, because you apparently have not followed the case. Please do not assume what the rest of us know. It implies that people are lying, or making stuff up.

[HiPointDem]

123. "the public’s desire to see officials investigate rape/crimes against women is being exploited"

[OnyxCollie]

130. Too bad for Assange that he wasn't accused of torture or banking fraud.

He'd probably receive an apology from Eric Holder and a pair of Presidential cuff links for the inconvenience.

[MannyGoldstein]

131. If he's wanted by Sweden, he's definitely guilty

Particularly if neither woman wants to press charges. And one of them is linked to the CIA.

P.S. The UK always threatens to invade foreign embassies to extradite people wanted for questioning in these sorts of crimes.

P.P.S.

[SidDithers]

136. You left Karl Rove out of your tin-foil theory, Manny....nt

Sid

[sabrina 1]

140. Yes, he did. But I did not. Karl Rove fled to Sweden when he was wanted here by

Congress in relation to the case of the firing of the US Attorneys.

Do you know why they were fired btw? The allegations against Rove in that case were that he was pressuring US Attorneys to fabricate crimes against Democratic Politicians and smear them with false allegations so that they would be ruined, politically.

Some of those US Attorneys, despite being Republicans, could not find any evidence to charge these Democrats with and refuse to fabricate it. Coincidentally, as is always the case with Rove, so many coincidences in his otherwise exemplary life, eight of those US Attorneys were fired.

Rove refused to answer Congress' subpoenas and we were all waiting for the US Marshals to go get him. But Rove had to go to Sweden to visit his ancestors or something, and that appears to be last we heard of those crimes.

So then, just recently we find out that Rove is a great friend and political adviser to Sweden's PM and just happened to be in Sweden right at the very time that Assange had threatened to reveal information about some Big Banks, July of 2010 to be exact.

One month later, August of 2010, Assange was involved in a 'sex scandal'. Somehow and against Sweden's own laws, on the same night the women went to the police to 'ask some questions about a test for STDs', the Right Wing Tabloid, Expressen, received the information and illegally splashed the words 'rape' and 'Assange' across their headlines. So far, the criminal responsible for that leak, has not been apprehended.

I did follow all of this at the time but had no idea back then, that Rove and Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt were such close buddies nor did we know that Karl Rove and the Swedish FM were also very, very long time friends.

But we all know that Karl Rove as an adviser to Presidents and Prime Ministers would never stoop so low as to try to smear a News Organization that had just revealed the War Crimes of his friends in the Bush administration.

Just like we know that he would never have had anything to do with outing Valerie Plame, or firing US Attorneys who refused to smear honest politicians.

But it's interesting, don't you think? Such an incredible coincidence which certainly adds a little more 'context' to a case that from the beginning was extremely questionable.

Information is always valuable and Rove's connections to the anti-Wikileaks factions in Sweden is certainly interesting.

[MannyGoldstein]

226. Did you have any specific comments regarding facts?

Feel free to correct the facts if anything's out of place.

[w4rma]

139. Sweeden needs to back off on Assange. (nt)

[Nye Bevan]

152. Here's how George Galloway put it...

Let me tell you, I think that Julian Assange's personal sexual behaviour is something sordid, disgusting, and I condemn it. But even taken at its worst, the allegations made against him by the two women – and I'm not even going into their political connections, I'm going to leave that for others and for another day. I'm going to leave the fact that one, maybe both, of his accusers have the strangest of links to the strangest of people, organisations and states, I'm going to leave that entirely aside.

Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don't constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this.

Let's take woman A. Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him. Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know.

I mean not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion. Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.

It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, "do you mind if I do it again?". It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning. . .

I don't believe either of those women, I don't believe either of these stories.


http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/george-galloway-assange-only-accused-bad-sexual-etiquette

[struggle4progress]

158. "Shooting George Galloway in the face isn't murder! It's just bad gun etiquette!"

saw that on twitter somewhere

[Robb]

145. Probably.

[liberal_at_heart]

146. I think there are people on both sides of this issue

who can't put their own opinions aside for a rational evaluation of the situation. I will simply leave it to the Swedish authorities to decipher. I don't personally know any of the people involved therefore I cannot possibly know if he raped those women or not. I think that too many people on both sides think they know when they don't have a clue. It's like they're just picking their favorite players like when people pick their favorites in American Idol.

[struggle4progress]

150. Wypijewski's piece shows just how much analytical power the Left has lost, by abandoning

historical materialism in favor of smug rhetorical tricks

"The law" (Wypijewski smirks) "is no more capable of delivering justice in <Assange's> case today than it was for a black man alleged to have raped a white woman in the Jim Crow South." She adds: "I am not comparing the founder of WikiLeaks .. with black men on the other side of a lynch mob" But she does make exactly that comparison, at the same time she denies it: "The Scottsboro Boys might have been innocent or they might have been guilty; it didn’t matter, because either way the result would be the same." This dishonest gambit is called apophasis -- and it never adds anything of value to a discussion

The Scottsboro defendants were nine black hobos, riding a freight through Alabama in the early spring of 1931. They were accused of rape and, two weeks, all but the youngest sentenced to death almost immediately by the jury. The youngest was twelve and none was as old as twenty

They were, in fact, lucky not to have been lynched soon after they disembarked the train, having been protected first by the sheriff and later by the National Guard. From 1921 to 1930, there were at least 275 lynchings in the US -- and 90% of the victims were black. It is sometimes tempting to gloss that long ugly thread of Americana, simply as the unkind treatment of a minority group by the majority -- but an examination of the class interests involved shows something else: Jim Crow was an economic system. Antebellum slavery had provided easily-identifiable underclass to exploit and had mystified the exploitation with an elaborate racial ideology. Jim Crow later retained both the underclass and the mythologies used to justify its exploitation, although legal slavery itself was replaced by other forms, such as share-cropping, debt-bondage, and prisoner chain-gang labor. Like slavery before it, Jim Crow depended on violence and unequal protection of the laws. The lynching of black Americans, always without consequence for the perpetrators, was not simply a matter of white people being unpleasant to blacks: it served a distinct purpose in the economic structure, conveying a message to the underclass that their lives simply did not count and that resistance could lead only to pain and death. The violence of the Jim Crow lynchings was a result of carefully-crafted hatred, but it was not merely a result of hatred: it was also an explosive result of the psychological tensions and contradictions required to maintain the irrational ideological views associated with the entire system of oppression

Comparisons with the Assange affair are ridiculous and become more distasteful each time Wypijewski makes such a comparison while simultaneously disavowing the comparison. If Assange's case had resembled in any way the experience of the Scottsboro Nine, he would already have been sentenced to death twice by now

[Zorra]

165. Wrong. The analytical powers of the left have never been stronger.

We on the left can spot RW bullshit from a mile away, and smell it from two.

shows just how much analytical power the Left has lost

Really.

[struggle4progress]

197. Your peculiar belief, that everyone who disagrees with you is a rightwinger, can serve

as a great warning flag to thoughtful people, I think

[Zorra]

202. Your peculiar penchant for trashing the left and leftists has

already caused many thoughtful people to believe that you have RW POV.

I have no absolutely no problem with folks on the left who disagree with me, because that is honest disagreement, and never imply that they are RWers -- because they really aren't RWers, and this fact is obvious.

[struggle4progress]

212. Your peculiar belief, that everyone who disagrees with you is a rightwinger, can serve

as a great warning flag to thoughtful people, I think

[Zorra]

247. LOL! Bush: "See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again

for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

Oh, yeh, and BTW - Did you ever contact the administration about that ominous PM you received from the DU member who wrote that s/he met you in Sweden, and wrote that you were about to get banned and that you should take a few days off from posting?

This one:

This message was self deleted by its author.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1240&pid=136716

You never got back to us with the outcome.


Alas, yes, it is true, thoughtful people ponder many things, and one great advantage we on the left have is the ability to determine meaning and sincerity through analysis.

[renie408]

153. At the risk of being flamed to death...

and having the liberal handshake and password changed without my knowledge...

Why is this such a big deal here?

I swear, I have been trying to figure that out since I came back to the DU a couple of weeks ago. I am not trying to be obtuse, I just don't understand why this is such a hot topic HERE and nowhere else on earth.

I have friends in England who do not talk about this as much as you guys do.

It's kind of like the kid with the bus...what the hell has that got to do with anything?

[liberal_at_heart]

155. Wikileaks is sacred here

They reveal secrets that the world governments are hiding from ordinary citizens. I get the importance of this. I do. But that does not mean that I am going to just assume he is innocent. I'm also not going to assume he is guilty either.

[HiPointDem]

221. it's nothing to do with wikileaks being 'sacred'. i personally have doubts about what wikileaks

actually is & who assange actually is.

i just think that the sexcrime charges are phony, that's all.

[randome]

156. Yeah, it is a mystery, isn't it?

And as MineralMan pointed out, there really is nothing to discuss until Assange makes his next move.

I'm going to try and stay out of these threads for a while. Opinions aren't being changed.

The thing is, though, that some posters will respond to this with 'good'. Which is puzzling because that implies they only want to hear opinions that are in agreement with them.

That's not why I post in threads. I want to know the good, the bad and the ugly.

But, as I said, I'm really not learning anything new on this topic now.

Welcome to DU! Welcome BACK to DU, I mean.

[woo me with science]

182. Authoritarian government

that seeks to punish truth tellers upsets Americans.

And Americans' becoming aware of the tactics their government will use to silence truth tellers terrifies the government and the one percent.

There is relentless smearing of Assange and attempts to spin an alternative narrative by the usual defenders of the one percent, because these events threaten to open American eyes to what our government is capable of doing to truth tellers, even under a Democratic administration.

[renie408]

214. Did you recognize that you use the word "Americans' in the exact same way a

Republican would?

The clear implication being that someone who is not all that upset by the possibility that the US government is after Assange is probably NOT a real American?

How interesting.

[OnyxCollie]

218. It IS interesting!

In that it's the same kind of ridiculous crap one would find on Glenn Beck's chalkboard.

[treestar]

195. Some people were so thrilled with Wikileaks

and thought it would cause a revolution of some kind - they then credited it with anything and everything of which they approved and have convinced themselves that unrelated charges in Sweden are solely to persecute Julian and get him extradited to the US to be put to death (as if that could never happen from the UK, but they never defend that). They've put together a house of cards in which the powers that be are focused solely on getting Julian and "disappearing" him and there is no reasoning with them.

[Fla_Democrat]

154. Wow

Thanks, I needed that.

[DeSwiss]

167. TPTB know how to turn......

...politically-correct liberals on each other. They've become expert at it. And the point that one is innocent until proven guilty has become anathema in our country, even among so-called liberals and Democrats who claim to uphold the virtues of the Constitution and civil liberties.

It's an old ploy perfectly designed to undermine TRUTH by attacking the messenger. There's no point changing tactics when the masses continue to fall for the old ones. The charges made against Assange become even more questionable if one factors-in the possibility that one of the women making them may have a connection to the CIA.

- No one ever seems to take this into consideration while willingly trashing Assange's reputation on no evidence whatsoever......

K&R

[center][/center]

[msanthrope]

179. That's because "Israel Shamir" who authored that rumour (at your link) is well known in Sweden

as an anti-semite, Holocaust denier, and ridiculous fabricator.

He's well known for putting forth the rumour that all Jews in the WTC got texts telling them to stay home on 9/11.

Of course..this was when Israel was still calling himself Joran Jermas. You should wiki him, and see what he's calling himself now...they have quite an extensive reference of his rantings..

[woo me with science]

184. Yep. Note the mantra.

"Rape apologism," often with no other content in the message. They are sounding the whistles. Anything to smear Assange and anyone who dares focus on the real story here, of government authoritarianism and abuse of power.

[Herlong]

177. Many people come here simply to find out what happened

I am not a truth seeker. I am a what happened seeker. Information is my God. I know in this instance, few people know what happened. Truth is, unless you were in the room, you don't know what happened either.

[treestar]

188. What we believe does not matter

It's what the legal system determines that will matter. All we know is that Julian is dodging that procedure.

[Bonobo]

201. Is that philosophy true across the boards or just when you find it a good arguing point.

For example, does it "not matter" what we believe with regards to allegations of torture at Gitmo since it is a legal matter?

Does it not matter what we think each time there is a report about police brutality?

Damn, that was an easy one. Next!

[treestar]

285. Pretty much. A legal system is to make it go by the evidence

and a procedure that at least tries to be fair. Rather than the mob mentality. If the mob thought Julian guilty and wanted to string him up without trial that would be bad, so why not it is just as bad to let him off by mob favoring him. Especially this kind of thing, where women are only just starting to get justice, in historical terms.

[sabrina 1]

204. What we know is that the prosecutor has evaded and obfuscated and avoided filing

charges for two years now. We know that she misrepresented, or lied, about her reasons for doing so. We know that at least one of the women stopped cooperating with the prosecution AFTER she found out her questions had been turned into rape allegations and refused to sign the police documents.

We also know that the radical far left, extremist attorney who inserted himself into the case and was the one who forced the reopening of it AFTER it was dismissed by a qualified female Prosecutor, even he admits 'we have a very weak case'.

You have it backwards, it is the prosecution that is procrastinating, that is refusing to do what she has the ability to do to file charges in this case.

And anyone who cannot see this doesn't want to. Fortunately for Assange, a vast majority of the people around the world, do see it. Sweden has embarrassed itself in their efforts to cooperate in the taking down of Wikileaks. Not like it's the first time they cooperated with the Western powers, without the knowledge of the Swedish people, to their shame. They have generally gone from being viewed as a true democracy over the past decade, to being viewed as nothing more than just another lapdog of the Western powers.

[liberal_at_heart]

205. OMG. enough is enough. Time to trash this thread. Good ridance.

[AtomicKitten]

208. I believe he should answer the charges, assuming neither guilt nor innocence.

[sabrina 1]

211. Well, that's up to the prosecutor. He already voluntary spoke to the police. But the prosecutor

for some reason keeps refusing to interview him, even though there is nothing standing in the way of her doing so. No legal impediment to talking to him in London, nothing stopping her from arresting him in London.

But for some reason she refuses to give him his day in court where most legal experts, having studied the evidence, believe he will be vindicated. Could that be the reason why she won't file charges? After all it would end this charade where she can keep 'alleging' rape. And he may be able to file charges against her for prosecutorial misconduct, which has already been suggested, not that he file charges, but that she has engaged in misconduct.

[struggle4progress]

270. The Assange defense lied about that in UK court, and the UK court caught them lying:

... In cross-examination the Swedish lawyer confirmed that paragraph 13 of his proof of evidence is is wrong. The last five lines of paragraph 13 of his proof read: “in the following days <after 15th September> I telephoned <Ms Ny> a number of times to ask whether we could arrange a time for Mr Assange’s interview but was never given an answer, leaving me with the impression that they may close the rape case without even bothering to interview him. On 27th September 2010, Mr Assange left Sweden.” He agreed that this was wrong. Ms Ny did contact him. A specific suggestion was put to him that on 22nd September he sent a text to the prosecutors saying “I have not talked to my client since I talked to you”. He checked his mobile phone and at first said he did not have the message as he does not keep them that far back. He was encouraged to check his inbox, and there was an adjournment for that purpose. He then confirmed that on 22nd September 2010 at 16.46 he has a message from Ms Ny saying: “Hello – it is possible to have an interview Tuesday”. Next there was a message saying: “Thanks for letting me know. We will pursue Tuesday 28th at 1700”. He then accepted that there must have been a text from him. “You can interpret these text messages as saying that we had a phone call, but I can’t say if it was on 21st or 22nd”. He conceded that it is possible that Ms Ny told him on the 21st that she wanted to interview his client. She requested a date as soon as possible. He agrees that the following day, 22nd, she contacted him at least twice.

Then he was then cross-examined about his attempts to contact his client. To have the full flavour it may be necessary to consider the transcript in full. In summary the lawyer was unable to tell me what attempts he made to contact his client, and whether he definitely left a message. It was put that he had a professional duty to tell his client of the risk of detention. He did not appear to accept that the risk was substantial or the need to contact his client was urgent. He said “I don’t think I left a message warning him” (about the possibility of arrest). He referred to receiving a text from Ms Ny at 09.11 on 27th September, the day his client left Sweden. He had earlier said he had seen a baggage ticket that Mr Assange had taken a plane that day, but was unable to help me with the time of the flight ...

Mr Hurtig was asked why he told Brita Sundberg-Wietman that Ms Ny had made no effort to interview his client. He denied saying that and said he has never met her. He agrees that he gave information to Mr Alhem. He agrees that where he had said in his statement (paragraph 51) that “I found it astonishing that Ms Ny, having allowed five weeks to elapse before she sought out interview”, then that is wrong ...

In re-examination he confirmed that he did not know Mr Assange was leaving Sweden on 27th September and first learned he was abroad on 29th. He agreed that the mistakes he had made in his proof were embarrassing and that shouldn’t have happened. He also agreed that it is important that what he says is right and important for his client that his evidence is credible.

The witness had to leave to catch a flight. Miss Montgomery said that there were further challenges she could make to his evidence, but thought it unnecessary in the circumstances. That was accepted by the court after no point was taken by Mr Robertson. The witness was clearly uncomfortable and anxious to leave ...

City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[AnotherMcIntosh]

215. You "believe he should answer the charges" when no charges have been brought by a prosecutor?

When a Swedish prosecutor won't even take a routine two-hour trip to England to interview him?

[AtomicKitten]

219. Charges as in formal allegation. 'Kay? Knock off the semantics BS.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

222. "semantics BS"? Is that different from your "BS"?

There are some who value due process of law.

There are some who think that no hanging should occur until after there has been a trial.

Likewise, there are some who think that no one should be required to answer for a trial until after formal charges have been filed.

In your rush for a trial, you indicate that no charges need to be filed before deciding that he should be obligated to stand for a trial. That is a denial of due process of law. If that is your type of "BS," you're welcome to it.

[AtomicKitten]

224. You clearly do not value (nor are familiar with) Sweden's legal due process.

[daeron]

227. extradition is NOT used merely to ask questions

To ask questions Sweden can accept the offer to do so in the UK and now at the Embassy.
Extradition is normally only used if you have a provable case, not for a fishing expedition. But this is not a normal case, it is a case where the US would be thankful if Sweden arrested Assange on behalf of claims that Assange broke US laws as an Australian publishing information the federal government objects to.

[sabrina 1]

237. And you clearly do not understand Sweden's legal due process. A process that so far

has been seriously abused in this case. Starting with the illegal leaking of the women's visit to the police to ask a question, which was then leaked to a Right Wing tabloid, revealing Assange's name illegally, and claiming falsely that the women were alleging rape.. That was a serious violation of Swedish law and is supposedly being investigated. But like everything else with this case, two years later and there is still no result of that investigation. Maybe they don't want to reveal the violator of the law.

Swedish law requires the prosecutor to conduct an interview with the suspect. After which IF there is cause, she can then file charges. This is not rocket science yet to this prosecutor, it appears to be Herculean task which she has failed to complete.

She refused to conduct that interview in Sweden and file the charges right away. Why?

She has spent the past two years refusing to conduct it, despite there being no legal impediment to doing so in London, nor any restriction on her having him arrested, since she already did, BEFORE there were charges, another violation of the EU law btw.

The conclusion now being reached even by those who initially thought she might have a case is that no prosecutor would be so derelict in their duty if they had a case they had faith in.

We understand Swedish and International law. It appears that the Swedish prosecutors do not or we would not have the two violations of the law I just mentioned above.

[girl gone mad]

284. Before accusing others of unfamiliarity with facts..

it might be good to take a few seconds to familiarize yourself with said facts.

[sabrina 1]

236. What is a 'formal allegation'? Is that a new legal term?

The women's attorney has stated he was under no obligation to remain in Sweden, even though he did trying to get this incompetent prosecutor to talk to him, because, said the attorney, he has not been charged with a crime.

The allegations were a construct produced when they could no longer argue for his extradition because there were no charges. They are still merely allegations, formal/informal, false or not, the are NOT charges. There are no charges because the prosecutor refused to take the step needed before she can file charges. That leads people to believe she does not want to file charges, because as many legal experts having gone over the 'allegations' and the available evidence, that there is no case that would hold up in court.

[struggle4progress]

271. "... The position with offence 4 is different. This is an allegation of rape. The framework list

is ticked for rape. The defence accepts that normally the ticking of a framework list offence box on an EAW would require very little analysis by the court. However they then developed a sophisticated argument that the conduct alleged here would not amount to rape in most European countries. However, what is alleged here is that Mr Assange “deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state”. In this country that would amount to rape ..."
City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[struggle4progress]

272. "... In the Swedish system formal indictment takes place at a very late stage in proceedings,

following a second and final interview with the suspect, and in the case of a person in pre-trial detention, trial must follow within two weeks. (As Assange is very unlikely to get bail again, for obvious reasons, it must be assumed that this would apply in his case).

However, the High Court has held that Assange does stand accused of the four offences (including rape) for which his extradition is sought. It is a requirement of the Extradition Act 2003 that the warrant contains a statement that the person in respect of whom extradition is sought stand "accused" of the offence(s) set out in the warrant. There is no doubt that the European Arrest Warrant issued in Sweden did contain such a statement.

Assange sought to argue, first in the Magistrates Court, then in the High Court, that it is not enough that the statement is made, but the statement must also be true; and that he has not in fact been accused of any offence in Sweden because he had not been formally charged and so criminal proceedings had not yet commenced. He lost that argument ..."

Why doesn't Sweden interview Assange in London?
http://storify.com/anyapalmer/why-doesn-t-sweden-interview-assange-in-london?utm_campaign=&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter&awesm=sfy.co_e56c&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_source=t.co

[struggle4progress]

273. The Stockholm District Court has ordered Assange's arrest. He appealed twice but lost

both his appeals of that order in the Swedish courts

[sabrina 1]

235. There are no charges. If there ever are, then maybe he can answer them.

[hack89]

241. Besides the charges on his arrest warrant you mean? nt

[riderinthestorm]

242. Hack's back. How about answering my questions on your standards as the arbiter of a sex crime

From the other thread remember hack? You still haven't answered me. Hack believes the government (and hack plural since hack has a penchant to address themselves as "we&quot gets to strip a woman of her right to control her own authority, to make decisions about their bodies. He believes there will be 'clear evidence" of a crime that will supersede a woman's rights so I've asked him exactly what he means by "clear evidence" since obviously this is the crux of the matter with Sweden.

Would such evidence include being tied up, or hit with a whip? (BDSM). Or how about strangulation? (erotic asphyxiation). Rough sex? Gentle nudging against your lover's leg with your penis to provoke arousal? How about waking up your lover to make love? (is that really rape? Guess you get to decide, not the woman involved).

Really, why do you get to decide which activity is "rape" and what's "lovemaking"? Since you have decided there's a standard of 'clear evidence", go for it. Define "clear evidence" that entitles YOU to decide if that sexual activity is "rape" or consensual sex (and not the parties involved)?

Hack also believes that not only HE (they?) gets to decide for women, and governments, but also witnesses(!) get to decide for women if they are making love or getting raped.

Yup, the women involved don't have the authority to do so. Lots of others do, but not the parties involved. Too bad, so sad.

So I'd like to know exactly what's allowed hack? What crosses the line into rape?

[hack89]

243. Still denying reality I see?

if victims tell police and prosecutors about a crime, they don't get to decide if charges are pressed or not. That is reality and that is all I said.

Your fevered imaginings aside as to what you thought I said, victims do not have a veto over the prosecutors.

[riderinthestorm]

246. Nice try hack. The women didn't report a crime, they went for an HIV test

My husband woke me up this morning performing a sex act. I was totally asleep when he began, no consent on my part. We then proceeded to finish up having consensual sex. I won't go into the details but let me tell ya, probably LOTS of illegal acts...

So was I raped? Obviously I don't have the authority to decide that in your view.

Since you, the government and other witnesses are the arbiters for me (thank gawd my mother wasn't there since she believes any sex position but the missionary position is rape. I know in your view she's a "credible witness" and is therefore a decider for me...) do I need to give you my address so you can report my husband for a crime?

[hack89]

248. So why are they still pursuing the issue?

It is not like they have come out in support of Assange.

[riderinthestorm]

249. If you answer my questions first, I'll answer yours.

Is BDSM rape? How about erotic asphyxiation? My husband initiating sex with me before I was fully awake this morning? (cause he really does NOT want to go to jail today and I do NOT want to detail out our "sex crimes" that we performed this morning, in order to put him away).

The biggest question for me of course is how do you get to decide that my mother is a credible witness about what's rape?

Since you're the decider on these things (and the government and other witnesses but not me, the woman involved)....

[hack89]

250. None of that is rape if it was consensual.

if you were to go the police and make a formal statement where you were to say it was not consensual then it is a different matter. Why would you go to the police if you didn't feel a crime was commited? And in the course of giving your statement to the police you describe an incident that meets the criteria for rape according to the law then it should come as no surprise if the prosecutor starts a rape investigation.

My definition of rape is what the law says it is. Consensual sex by definition is not a sex crime. But then why would you complain to the police about legal consensual sex?

[riderinthestorm]

255. I wouldn't. And neither did the women in Sweden. But you are saying you get to decide

and the government gets to decide or my mother gets to decide if my consensual sex is really rape. The women went to the police NOT to make a complaint about sexual assault but to get Assange to take an HIV test. The government decided to create a case when THERE WAS NO FORMAL STATEMENT.

Say I go to the police about my daughter's drug use, and they notice the handcuffs, chains and whips in my car. They ask me about it and I say it was used for being tied up and whipped during sex. You've now told me the government (or you or my mother) gets to decide if that's rape (or abuse or assault) or not. I can tell you that it was consensual but the government may decide I don't know any better and that I was really assaulted (which I was ).

See how that works?

Nobody should have the right to take away a woman's authority to make those kinds of decisions about her own body (or her life). You appear to be perfectly okay with that.

As a person whose actually been to rape trials, its difficult enough for people to voluntarily discuss every last detail in public about the episode. Your prurient and lurid desire to force women onto the stand to testify AGAINST people they have voluntarily made love to, is disgusting imho.

There's a reason Monica Lewinski burst into tears at the end of her testimony to the Grand Jury in the Clinton affair. She knew she was being used as a political pawn in the Rethug game to get Clinton. Its horrifying and misogynistic.

[hack89]

256. So where did the detailed and graphic description found in the arrest warrant

come from if not from the women? Can you honestly tell me that if that happened to you you would be ok with it?

[riderinthestorm]

259. I just told you the exact same thing happened to me this morning and I am a-ok with that.

Are you telling me you never had sex the night before with someone, fallen asleep, and then woke up to have MORE sex?

If not, I'm the sorrier for you since in your mind, that would be rape. In fact, you are telling me I was raped this morning by my husband. YOU are TELLING me. I can insist til I'm blue in the face that its not rape, NOT RAPE, but in your mind, it is. And in your world, you get to decide for me since I don't know any better and you (and the government and "credible" witnesses like my mother ) know better.

As for your first question, its easily done with the police trumping up imaginary crimes. If the police while investigating my druggie daughter extended the conversation into questions about my BDSM equipment, and then used those comments to form a complaint against my husband, FOR ME, then voila!






(fwiw, in the interests of fair disclosure, I'm not really into BDSM, not that there's anything wrong with it. I do have all the gear though and usually in my car - whips, chains and hobbles - all fairly common equipment on a horse farm).

[hack89]

261. Why are you ignoring the three other charges?

and if they were trumped up then can you show me where the women specifically repudiated them?

[hack89]

257. So why did the women describe an sexual assault?

can you show me their actual statements? Can you show a direct quote from either that supports your argument? What did they actually say?

[riderinthestorm]

260. NO! The women didn't describe sexual assault!

But you know that already.

They described their sexual encounter to the police who decided FOR THEM.

Sabrina upthread has provided many, many posts on this. I'm not going into redux for you. Besides I've already posted the interview in the paper in their very own words that this wasn't a sexual assault over and over (which you have clearly ignored at least 10x). This bizarre and deliberate aversion to "hearing" anything that doesn't fit your anti-Assange agenda is twisted (and not in a good BDSM way).

[hack89]

262. I don't think you have shown me any such interview.

could you give me a link please? Apologies in advance if you have and I forgot.

[riderinthestorm]

263. .

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article7652935.ab

It was published in Swedish and has been virtually ignored by western media. Here's a snippet from the article. I do not have a full english translation. Google translate is impossible and produces gibberish. I only have what's been translated and posted from others.

"One of two women involved told Aftonbladet in an interview published today that she had never intended Assange to be charged with rape. She was quoted as saying: “It is quite wrong that WE were afraid of him. He is not violent and do not feel threatened by him.”

Speaking anonymously, she said each had had voluntary relations with Assange

Sources close to the woman said that issues arose during the relationships about Assange’s willingness to use condoms."



Virtually everything dealing with this case has been scrubbed, and now we're left with snippets and smears. Sabrina has been all over these threads with information and corrections, even the women's own lawyer - a publicity hound and celebrity lawyer, has said this is a very weak "case". None of this is new and whether it came from me or not its been re-hashed to death.

[hack89]

264. So these women have made no public comment since 2010?

you would think they would be continuously calling for the charges to be dropped. Yet they have not.

[tammywammy]

281. The same woman didn't think it was rape, but did think it was assault

The woman in her 30s says that she, for its part claims to be the victim of a sexual assault or molestation, but not rape.

From your link with the Google Translate

[struggle4progress]

278. "The other woman wanted to report rape. I gave my testimony to support her story"

– Den andra kvinnan ville anmäla för våldtäkt. Jag gav min berättelse som vittnesmål till hennes berättelse och för att stötta henne.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article7652935.ab

[struggle4progress]

274. "... The position with offence 4 is different. This is an allegation of rape. The framework list

is ticked for rape. The defence accepts that normally the ticking of a framework list offence box on an EAW would require very little analysis by the court. However they then developed a sophisticated argument that the conduct alleged here would not amount to rape in most European countries. However, what is alleged here is that Mr Assange “deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state”. In this country that would amount to rape ..."
City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court (Sitting at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court)
The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange
Findings of facts and reasons

[struggle4progress]

275. The Stockholm District Court has ordered Assange's arrest. He appealed twice but lost

both his appeals of that order in the Swedish courts

[mzmolly]

254. I would ask the opposite question.

Are some too eager to dismiss the allegations?

[Ichingcarpenter]

258. I can't dismissed the allegations that she was a CIA operative

the whole story stinks when something like this causes
an international incident.

Bush should be on trial.

[mzmolly]

269. I thought there was more than one

complaint? I have never understood the notion that Assange accomplished anything and/or acted heroically -regardless.

[tammywammy]

283. There were two women involved. n/t

[msanthrope]

292. Yes--you can dismiss those allegations....they are completely fabricated by a nasty little man

called "Israel Shamir." When he was still called Joran Jermas, he was pretty famous in Sweden for claiming that all Jews at the WTC got texts telling them to stay home on 9/11. His son currently works for Wikileaks in Sweden.....you might want to read Katha Pollitt on Mr. Assange and Mr. Shamir....

http://www.thenation.com/article/157288/case-julian-assange#

[Swagman]

280. and they are not victims : they are 'alleged victims' just as the accused has

allegations not yet proven.

Language is used to destroy people as well.