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 We covered the warrant being issued and withdrawn yesterday.

Comments

Foreshadowing.

[cosm]

They will get him. Eventually. I hope not, but I believe they will. Through defamation, assassination (character or otherwise), I just want to forecast now, that as a pessimist / realists / tinfoil hat wearer, they will get him.

Re:Foreshadowing.

[Jedi Alec]

At this stage it's going to take one hell of a trick to pull that off though. Assange's opponents don't have all that much credibility left, so even if someone does have major legitimate dirt on the guy it's gonna be a heck of a job getting public opinion on their side.

Re:Foreshadowing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, just like there isn't anybody left to believe Obama is a muslim, or wasn't born in the US.

Re:Foreshadowing.

[Cutterman]

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
Cardinal Richelieu

Assange and his team are doing great things

[FuckingNickName]

I wish I had his skill and his balls. He, at least, is going some way to watching the watchers.

And if there are any times that attention whoring is absolutely warranted, it is now.

I just hope he's not David Kelly'd.

Before I go, let me just accuse every /. commenter below me in this article of rape. I hope you judge Assange for the accusations against him as you'd hope people treat mine against you.

Re:Assange and his team are doing great things

[commodore64_love]

>>>let me just accuse every /. commenter below me in this article of rape

Worse: Accuse them of child rape. Even if you are found "not guilty" you'll still be treated as a pariah. We need to stop assuming someone is guilty upon mere accusation, and instead assume they are innocent until the Lords have proved their case.

Re:Assange and his team are doing great things

[Mashiki]

Sorry. In this day and age of hyper-feminist(and yes it is womens groups who are at fault for this), with any and all hits of anything relating to rape, child rape, pedophilia, child abuse, etc. You're already screwed, because the law has already decided in various countries that you have the hint of guilt, you're already guilty. Leaving in some cases may not even counter your accuser, because they're required to be protected to the fullest, even from questioning.

Not a mistake?

[loteck]

If a man can be publicly accused of rape, a warrant issued for his arrest, and his name splashed all over the international media PRIOR to you being 100% sure you want to bring him in on those charges, then I would say something is seriously wrong with your system of justice.

Re:Not a mistake?

[Kidbro]

This is nonsense. There is nothing wrong with the justice system. They did not "publicly accuse" anybody of anything. They did exactly what they should do in this case. Two women contacted the police and informed them of a crime that had been committed. They needed to speak to the accused, and since it's a matter of a foreign citizen that is expected to leave the country soon, they chose consider him "anhållen i sin frånvaro", something that has somewhat wrongly been translated to "arrested", as that's the closest counterpart in English speaking nations. This, they did in order to give the police authority to actually detain him long enough for an interrogation.

The "publicly accusing", "name splashed over international media" and whatnot is the work of media, and has absolutely nothing to do with the justice system.

What would you have them do? Ignore the accusations? Interrogate the witnesses more thoroughly so the suspect had plenty of time to leave the country? Keep in mind that ill treatment (e.g. harsh interrogation shortly after the crime) of rape victims is not something that's particularly popular around here (for good reasons).

For the record, I am convinced that Assange isn't guilty (although I believe the whole thing is the result of a pair of very confused women, rather than a military conspiracy), but I honestly don't see how a justice system would become better by ignoring self proclaimed victims reporting crime to the police...

Re:Obama acting like Bush again

[commodore64_love]

>>>Obama just signs his name giving them permission

Interesting argument for why Obama is innocent. Does the same reasoning apply to Bush to forgive his actions from 2002 through 2009? I suspect not..... then neither does it apply to Obama.

Re:Follow this story!

[betterunixthanunix]

There can be only one suspect for who was behind it: the U.S. government.

Why do you say that? Assange has pissed off a lot of world governments, and it does not take CIA level resources to have someone file a false report. The fact that the charges were withdrawn on the same day they were filed suggests that the CIA may not be involved after all -- they would do a better job than that.

Re:It's Pretty Obvious What's Going On Here

[cptdondo]

Or... Maybe he did it himself? Now he's more bulletproof. The first charge was baseless; any additional "character assassination" charges will be met with tin-foil skepticism.

Can you think of a better way to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen?

Re:Follow this story!

[roman_mir]

Do you think CIA has magic powers? It consists of people and it is a government bureaucracy, it is mostly shuffling papers around, it's glamorous as in movies. And yes, the same problems that are found in most government organizations and large corporations are present there - various power struggles, inefficiencies, idiots, everything.

I wouldn't put it past CIA to make any sort of mistake at all, actually it's a surprise when they do anything right.

No Formal False Accusations

[andersh]

Oh, and they are not "criminals" [the accusers] never claimed rape, they actually asked police for clarification if the alleged "actions" were criminal!

Under Swedish law false accusations of rape would most likely have lead to one year in prison, these accusations were less clear and the prosecutor would be looking for more information from Assange.

You see that's the beauty of the charges, they're not likely to lead to punishment for the accusers, the only damage would be to Assange's good name and standing. He could try for damages, but what would that help his name? It's perfect [for the people looking to smear him]!

Donate

[Concerned Onlooker]

Well, then, it's time to start donating lots of money to wikileaks. Fight money with money. There is a lot of big talk talk about ideals here so it's time to back that up with action.