General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Defending Assange against sexual assault allegations [View all]cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)As you've seen by now, for most participants in these Assange threads, it's long since passed the "monkeys flinging poo" stage, but the case has been out of the news for awhile. So hopefully, you'll at least arm some newcomers to the issue against the flood of "Lol, why does Sweden refuse to charge him" posts. I read the judgment of the extradition court around the time he entered the embassy, and it really clears up a lot of the myths swirling around Assange's legal status, but people would rather rant about the NWO/MIC/Illuminati/whatever than read dry boring court documents.
And for those of you upthread lecturing us about presumption of innocence, keep in mind that:
1. We're not judges, jury, lawyers or reporters connected to this case, so we are free to draw whatever conclusions we want.
2. Assange himself is the only impediment to clearing his name. His refusal to face trial certainly colors my perception of his guilt vs. innocence
3. As has been pointed out in this thread and others, Assange didn't really dispute the allegations against him in the extradition trial, just that they didn't pass muster as rape charges in the UK and thus the extradition order wasn't valid. The allegations are the bolded part of OP's post. #3 is the only one that doesn't look like unambiguous rape to me, and even it looks more than worthy of some lesser sexual misconduct charge.
4. Assange forfeited somewhere north of $300,000 of other people's money when he jumped bail. I just don't have a hard time believing that someone displaying this level of callous narcissism and entitlement would be capable of rape.