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Sweden Defends Wiki Sex Case About-Face
crimeandpunishment writes "Mistake? We didn't make a mistake. That's what Swedish prosecutors said Sunday as they defended their handling of a rape allegation against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the prosecutor who issued the arrest warrant Friday did not make a mistake, even though a higher-ranked prosecutor withdrew the warrant the next day. A spokesperson for the Authority said: 'The prosecutor who took over the case yesterday had more information, and that is why she made a different assessment than the on-call prosecutor.' Assange, who was in Sweden seeking legal protection for the site as it prepares to leak more Afghan war documents, told a Swedish tabloid newspaper, 'I don't know who's behind this but we have been warned that for example the Pentagon plans to use dirty tricks to spoil things for us.'" We covered the warrant being issued and withdrawn yesterday.
The statement only says that the bureaucrats did their job according to the protocol. Changing the justice system is not something they can do, you need to buy politicians for that.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
Most big US cities have prosecutors on duty 24 hours a day.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
It is not in the Scandinavian justice tradition to name accusers, victims or indeed criminals. Warrants are usually not public unless they have no other means of locating the suspect. Assange has no address.
We don't believe in scapegoating.
Aljazeera interview with Assange: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/2010822135529927326.html Apparently, he was forewarned by Australian intelligence?
Emotions! In your brain!
Which is why they should be damn sure of their accusations before they issued the warrant, otherwise they may end up causing irreparable harm to the victim of the false accusation. If there is a process for reviewing a lower-prosecutor's decision to issue a warrant, that process should be completed PRIOR to the issuance of the warrant.
The woman that accused Julian Assange has been identified on flashbackforum as Anna Ardin press secretary for the christians in the socialist party in Sweden. She has previously been an active radical feminist and author of articles on how to use the legal system to get revenge on people. She has also identified The Swedish Pirate party as a "problem we have to deal with" She waited several days to report this until the "on call" prosecutor Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand was on duty.
But how does Assuage have any credibility either way? How do we know that everything he posts on Wikileaks is legit and he didn't make the shit up?
Do you have any evidence that anything on the site is made up, or are you just concern-trolling conspiracies? I mean really, be serious, wouldn't he have egg on his face by now? I'm sure the Pentagon and Obama administration would have publicized any irregularities, but the only thing they've been able to come up with is a fake rape charge and an unsupported charge of him having "blood on his hands." Guess what? The Pentagon itself said this week that there isn't any evidence that any Afghans named in the War Diaries have been harmed.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Warrants are public
No in Sweden they aren't.
But somehow in this particular case the information found its way to the media and the police felt compelled to immediately confirm it instead of doing what they should have according to Swedish law, refusing to comment on the identity of the person accused.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
The better comparison is Scott Ritter. Weapons inspector, major Bush embarrassment. He was picked up in 2001 for suspicions of arranging a meeting for underage sex with an undercover cop posing as a young girl. He wasn't charged which to me seems kind of odd since there aren't too many good explanations for showing up at a sting like that. Whatever. The documents were sealed and not public record. They were leaked anonymously when he started becoming a pain in the Bushie behind.
Of course, the dumb shit went and got caught again in 2009. Just goes to show that being an expert in a given field does not mean you won't make stupid mistakes in some other area. People do fall for the trick of discrediting the messenger if they don't like the message. Your least favorite person at work tells you there's a mistake in the budget numbers, you may as well see if she's right.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne