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Assange Asks For New Lawyer, Denies Blaming CIA
Tootech writes "Julian Assange has requested a new lawyer to represent him during a rape investigation in Sweden because his previous brief, Leif Silbersky, was not engaged enough with the case. Assange wants Bjorn Hurtig to represent him as authorities continue to investigate the allegations, according to AP.
Assange told Sweden's TV4 that he had never blamed the CIA for the 'smears.'"
From TFA: "Assange wants Bjorn Hurtig to represent him as authorities continue to investigate the allegations, according to AP"
Why not link the AP's FA?
Free Martian Whores!
Leif Silbersky, for those not familiar with Swedish media and Swedish courts, should know that he is a high profile defense attorney who often works on cases where there is lot of media interest. Silbersky knows how to deal with journalists better than most lawyers in Sweden. His track record in court seems no worse or better than anyone else's though. Björn Hurtig is a TV celebrity lawyer, he also knows media but that is all I know about the guy.
Yea or this guy could just be a shuck with an ego the size of Sweden.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
When a low-profile person gets assassinated, it's not called assassination. It's called a "random act of violence".
Is this the link you wanted?
I wish Slashdot would fix clipboard paste not working in Chrome, this is getting really annoying...
I agree that there's a significant chance that this whole thing is a CIA smear campaign. But there's also a significant chance that he's actually guilty. Or that it's a smear campaign unrelated to the CIA. You know what they say about assumptions.
Clearly, the CIA got to him and has convinced him it would be in his best interest to quit saying that they were trying to smear him with rape allegations. Isn't it obvious?
You know what they say about assumptions.
That they make you a famous, filthy rich political pundit overnight? I'm not sure how that applies to this situation...
Too high profile to assassinate? Oh come now. A man is an enemy of Agency X; a man is found dead or dying. Who is ever to connect the two facts with an assassination authoritatively? It's one thing to have suspicion, but it's completely another thing to have proof. The guilty party for the assassination of Georgi Markov in 1969 was never held to account. There is no antidote for ricin, and the stuff is damn near impossible to detect in the body because of the phenomenally small amount necessary to kill. The KGB was never proved to have been responsible.
See here and here.
You CANNOT be serious.
He's never claimed it was the CIA in much the same way that Fox News "never claims" stuff - you say it in every way you can except the one you want to be able to deny, and then you try to shift the argument so it's about your "word choice" rather than the intent of your statements.
"We were warned on the 11th by Australian intelligence that we should expect this sort of thing. We were warned about dirty tricks and specifically that they would be of a type like this.”
"Assange, who is Australian by birth, told WikiLeaks' Twitter page the charges were 'without basis' and that their timing was 'deeply disturbing.'"
"We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one."
What conclusion does he expect everybody to draw with these statements, issued in the context of the news coverage over wikileaks' publication of the Afghan War Diaries? Obviously, that these charges are part of a smear campaign against him, orchestrated by the US government, and that these allegations were the first "dirty trick" to be used as part of that campaign.
To now backpedal and shift the focus onto a question of word choice is disingenuous at best, and absolutely intellectually dishonest. He never specifically uttered the word "CIA," no. But every single statement he's issued since the charges came up has screamed "It's a smear campaign by the US government."
A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it. And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist 2 weeks after releasing a cache of documents that embarrasses the world's most powerful government and threatening to release more? Are you kidding me?
Do you REALLY think that's just a coincidence? Come on. Even I knew this was coming. Or maybe you think I'm just psychic.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How far does this conspiracy go?! They've even gotten to Assange! Surely at this point nobody can deny the plain evidence of duplicity.
How telling is that? I've heard this exact language before.
That's right. Rumsfeld. What more proof is required? Assange is now just another puppet on the long strings of the CIA; determined to undermine the fine work of Wikileaks and Assange himself.
If our government is behind his rape allegations then I hope he is convicted. Seems to me it would be pretty easy to bribe some women to seduce a man and then get evidence to file for rape. If we cannot do that right, then it's a sad state of affairs for the CIA.
If Assange is no longer claiming "cia!" why are people still claiming diversion and conspiracy.
Even if he did nothing he may have just ticked off the wrong woman!
Because it made the news too fast.
Because Assange never "claimed CIA" but you say that he did (I claimed CIA, but he just said he was 'warned of dirty tricks').
Because if I google...
Wikileaks rape
About 2,730,000 results (0.41 seconds)
Search Results
1.
News for wikileaks rape
2. Icelandic WikiLeaks associate says founder should step aside - 17 hours ago
You can't take the sky from me...
Obviously, that these charges are part of a smear campaign against him, orchestrated by the US government,
intellectually dishonest, indeed. You just tacked on the "orchestrated by the US government" part yourself there, didn't you?! If your so convinced that he directly implied it was the CIA/US government and not just you following propaganda talking points - then [CITATION NEEDED]. I'll make it easy: Wikileaks twitter feed links all Assange interviews for you to find a reference. From the interviews I have watched at no place did he imply directly or indirectly that it was the CIA/US Gov. He did say that the Aussie government warned him of dirty tricks - whether you believe that or not, or that they meant "The CIA is going to use dirty tricks" is upto your imagination, and little else.
He's already caused the death of many Afghan informants who were working with American troops (at least, according to 4 different NGOs, including Amnesty International).
Sources??? I can't find any references to support your claim. Amnesty International criticized wikileaks ~ 10th/11th August but there don't appear to have been any statements since then. This smells like bullshit.
Might want to look into Sweden's "rape" and "molestation" laws. They cast a broad net. Also, see the nature of prosecutors/lawyers.
Home of The Suki Series
Sure, it could be a CIA plot, but he's specifically disavowing making that allegation, so clearly he has no evidence that it is.
Lacking evidence that it's a CIA plot, it's just as likely the story plays out like this:
A guy goes 39 years without amounting to much more than a hacking charge. And then suddenly he gets his 15 minutes of fame by embarrassing the world's most powerful government, and has his face plastered all over newspapers around the world. Suddenly he starts feeling pretty powerful - people say he's a hero, people want to hear him talk, people care about what he has to say - hell, some girls are even throwing themselves at him! So maybe he gets a little overzealous, or starts feeling overly entitled, because after all, he's *important* - and behaves like a jerk and pressures a girl into doing something she didn't really want to do. Or maybe he just pisses off the wrong girl by not calling her, and she decides to start a little smear campaign of her own.
I mean, since we're speculating without evidence, that story reads as far more likely to me than it being a CIA smear campaign, since the smear campaign would require:
-- the 2 girls to be in the service of the CIA;
-- Most of the world media to be dupes of the CIA;
-- The entire criminal justice system of Sweden to be easily manipulated by the US;
-- an Icelandic MP (and ardent supporter of Wikileaks) to suddenly be in the employ of the CIA;
AND, the kicker:
-- That the bumbling organization that can't keep PFC Manning from stealing all its data is simultaneously capable of pulling off a black op of this scope just to discredit the guy, rather than simply making him have an accident, and eliminating the problem.
I think when Saddam said the US Government wanted him dead, he wasn't being paranoid.
Taking into account that USA was actively supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, that fact would be a major blow to the relations and would end up the billion dollars worth arms deals USA had to sell arms to Iraq.
Those arms where passing in the port in Lisbon and it came to the attention of the defense minister.
The source indicates that CIA assassinated the defense minister, together with the prime minister (that one by accident, since he was not supposed to go on that plane), carried out the arms deal with Iran and in exchange, just 1 month after the plane crash, the USA hostages where liberated by Iran.
No, there are no proofs that this was indeed a CIA black op. But you asked for cases where "people have pissed off the CIA and had tragic airplane accidents shortly thereafter", and I'm giving a very big one to you. And I'm sure there should be more, I just used this one because it happen right in my country.
Dude, relax. ALL militaries EVERYWHERE constantly have readiness plans constantly updated. You know, preparing for "what if" scenarios.
When the military leadership lists "states of interest" which it needs to form plan for military intervention/assistance, you don't start shouting "oh no, facism!" you go "thank goodness someone is doing their job."
What good is a military that isn't prepared for when it's needed?
You bet your ass.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Here, I'll quote back the relevant part of my post you're ignoring:
Are we supposed to believe that the Australian intelligence service was warning him that Nigeria was plotting dirty tricks against him, for not helping them smuggle $10 million USD out of the country by providing a bank account number to the son of their former finance minister?
Or that they had reason to believe 2 girls in Sweden who he had not met yet were plotting his eventual downfall?
Yes, it's intellectual dishonesty to pretend that "The CIA / US Government" is not *exactly* what he meant when he claimed it was a smear campaign. Look at the posts here in support of him - the overwhelming majority of his supporters have CLEARLY drawn that same conclusion.
So, as I said, he didn't specifically utter the words "CIA" - but in the context in which these statements & implications were made, there is no escaping the conclusion that that is exactly what he *meant*. Of course he can distract us now by saying "I NEVER SAID THAT! PROVE THAT I SAID THE WORDS CIA!" Which is, frankly, a geek's argument of last resort, and you see it here all the time on Slashdot - derail the discussion by arguing about the literal content of the message, while ignoring the context & implications that were most certainly intended.
In the 1920s, we created a serious and well designed strategy to invade Canada as part of an assault on Great Britain. It seems pretty wild that we'd do that, but it's important to be prepared. It increases our level of understanding of other nations, and allows people pursuing studies at the Naval War College a means of flexing strategic muscles without killing people en masse.
I can say with absolute certainty that today we have very similar strategies for every country on the planet. Very few have probably made it nearly as far as War Plan Red, but that's one of my favorite examples, and it's fairly well known.
Planning to attack one of our closest allies might seem dishonest to people outside of the military sector, but not planning to is simply irresponsible. Don't expect any of that to pan out, though. Especially if the Marines are talking about it. I remember hearing serious talk about an atmosphere skimming system to deploy Marines from space anywhere on Earth within 30 minutes. Where's that?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it.
Actually, 24 hacking charges.
And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist 2 weeks after releasing a cache of documents that embarrasses the world's most powerful government and threatening to release more?
Occam's razor. You're arguing that it's almost a certainty that instead he is the subject of an international conspiracy? That wouldn't prevent the release of further documents by wikileaks?
That's a totally bogus argument. Nobody decides to become a rapist, or murderer, etc. Not in the sense of having made some rational, well-thought out decision. If that were the case, there would hardly be any murders or rapes to begin with. But if you want to play that game, you can equally well make the opposite argument: Since he was in the media recently over the leaks, he saw his chance to rape someone and get away with it, because people like you would surely believe he must be innocent. (And no, I don't believe that, because I'm not a moron who thinks rapists are acting rationally)
If he's guilty, then the timing means nothing. In fact, the better timing would be before the documents had been leaked. Afterwards, what is the point of discrediting him?
The leaks do not depend on his crediblity, he's not the source. (which is the big hole in this conspiracy theory) Everyone knows smearing him won't stop Wikileaks, including the CIA. So what would the point even be? They can apparently manipulate foreign prosecutors and citizens, but are also too dumb to realize that it wouldn't achieve their goal?
No it's not a coincidence, in the sense that he was in the media, and was being asked around to give talks and whatnot and meet with possible allies (i.e. the Pirate Party in Sweden) and during that, he met these women. One of whom is (allegedly) a member of the Swedish Social Democratic party. So what's her motive then? We're talking about the party of Olof Palme, here, the party who spent most of the last 50 years being a giant pain in the USA's ass over foreign policy. Hell, when Assange was born in 1971, the US had broken off diplomatic relations with Sweden over their harsh criticism of the Vietnam War.
Out of all the countries he's going around visiting, you think Sweden is the one most likely to collaborate with the CIA? And their 'socialist' party, at that? This is typical conspiracy theory thinking. You have zero evidence that the CIA or whoever did this. All you have is a coincidence. And coincidences do happen. Just because a set of events may or may not benefit someone, doesn't mean the were behind it. Shit happens.
-- That the bumbling organization that can't keep PFC Manning from stealing all its data is simultaneously capable of pulling off a black op of this scope just to discredit the guy, rather than simply making him have an accident, and eliminating the problem.
Because clearly PFC Manning was the subect of the entire agency's scutiny, and "preventing" him would not have meant spreading resources to prevent all of the other PFCs that were doing similar work. A regular Joe off the street can pay a woman to sleep with a guy and cry rape. It doesn't require a conspiracy, but that doesn't mean that a conspiracy couldn't have ordered the regular Joe to pay her.
You googled for "rape", you will get search results with "rape". You can't draw any conclusions out of that.
But I agree, this story has an huge impact. But there are many factors involved, that make an intelligence involvement unplausible or unneccessary. One very important factor was: Assange made this political in an instant with his "dirty tricks" statement. And Wikileaks published their first official statement ever calling Assange the site's "founder" - until then they had maintained Assange was just a spokesperson.
You should study history a bit more. Isolationism is not new in concept or practice.
Julian Assange has requested a new lawyer to represent him during a rape investigation in Sweden because his previous brief, Leif Silbersky, was not engaged enough with the case
If you didn't want to repeat the word, you might have tried 'attorney'. The closest matching definition of "brief" is ...
An attorney's legal argument in written form for submission to a court;
Unless, of course, OP meant for it to be "briefs" and intended to say...
short snug pants or underpants
In which case it would have been more amusing, but still no more correct.
* disclaimer: this is in the context of American English, but I'm pretty sure that "brief" doesn't mean "lawyer" in any of the others...
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled commenting.
I call BS on that one. The guy who made that claim also makes a number of other absurd claims. For example: he claims to know who really planned the Portuguese revolution, Che Guevara's last words, who assassinated Kennedy, the truth about Lockerbie (whatever that is) and how Timothy McVeigh was merely a pawn. Oh yeah, and the truth behind Princess Diana's death.
But, sharing the same country of origin as yourself, I know full well that Europeans love conspiracy theories even more than Americans do. I'm amused and awestruck by the utterly absurd conspiracies my otherwise rational family members believe.
It's been claimed that the leaked documents will harm US and allied troops as well as the named informants (never mind that only a few were apparently left uncensored), which has some clamoring for the US soldier who leaked to be executed for treason.
I put it to you the ultra-right wing fundamentalist pastor who plans to burn the Koran on the anniversary of 9-11 will do a thousand times more actual harm, and destroy everything allied troops have fought and died for in the so-called War on Terror. Protesters have already pelted a US convoy with rocks, and this "church" hasn't even *done* anything yet except state their intentions.
Never mind it's a small, formerly-insignificant group of nobodies--they're white, they're "Christian", they're American. Never mind that every other religious group immediately denounced them on national TV--that won't get any airtime in Muslim countries because it gets in the way of an emotionally-charged issue.
If there's any traitor endangering US and allied troops now, it's this so-called church and its sociopathic leaders.
This is kind of a red herring to me, because the US government knows that Assange would just be replaced in WikiLeaks if he were thrown in jail. What Bush and Rove used to do was instead play the discredit game; deny, deny, deny, then attack the patriotism of those reporting (NYTimes) and claim those parties leaking were helping the terrorists instead of America. "Poison the well"
Let's look at the other ways the CIA and Pentagon could (and likely will) try to stop WikiLeaks. When someone in the 1990s leaked that the NSA has submarines specifically for the purpose of tapping undersea phone cables, I heard the NSA calmly put out conflicting leaks that the government was using those subs to covertly dump nuclear waste, making activists fight over which version of the story made sense.
If I were the CIA, I'd do some false flag operations on Assange, and then poison the well. Feed him a delicious leak of embarrassing stuff, followed by a real big accusation of something bogus yet plausible, and then when WikiLeaks gives it to the media, the CIA can step forward and show that WikiLeaks is dead wrong and show the media video and photographic proof eg "No, we never executed that Taliban prisoner in front of children, look he's alive in Supermax prison!" One or two of those would "poison the well" and make sure that mainstream media would pay less and less attention as the track record of WikiLeaks went sour.
It's not unreasonable to think in the light of such statements that warnings of "dirty tricks" implies the "orchestrated by the US government" bit on the end. No, Assange didn't say it but it's fair to assume it. And now he's Clintoned the whole thing so we're arguing semantics instead of paying attention to issues of substance.
-- the 2 girls to be in the service of the CIA;
Trivial. They don't even have to be employed in the traditional sense. They could just be paid really well.
-- Most of the world media to be dupes of the CIA;
You don't need the majority, you only need the biggest and the loudest. In the US, for example, you only need one station to spout idiotic nonsense loud enough and long enough to convince a non-insignificant percentage that their own president is a Kenyan Muslim.
-- The entire criminal justice system of Sweden to be easily manipulated by the US;
Again, you don't need all of it. You just need the most powerful and influential. It's also quite impressive what a little green grease will do for the wheels of justice.
-- an Icelandic MP (and ardent supporter of Wikileaks) to suddenly be in the employ of the CIA;
Not really. Someone with designs or ambitions for themselves may be willing to cooperate with the CIA in order to further their own agenda. You're assuming all players in this saga are on the CIA doll. That is a possibility, but it would be more probable that people involved may just be making mutually beneficial arrangements.
AND, the kicker:
-- That the bumbling organization that can't keep PFC Manning from stealing all its data is simultaneously capable of pulling off a black op of this scope just to discredit the guy, rather than simply making him have an accident, and eliminating the problem.
I would think it would take a "bumbling" organizations to have screwed up a public character assassination as bad as this one, wouldn't you agree? Assuming this is some sort of plot, it certainly being run by a bunch of ass-clowns.
You're also forgetting that Manning had access to the systems legitimately. It's hard to protect your systems from a user you "trust" and have granted access to.
At any rate, it's all just conspiracy hypotheses an blather at this point. While it is plausible that there are some shady dealings going on (and the coincidences and screw ups along the way certainly suggest that it could be), we don't have any solid evidence.
Perhaps someone will post something on Wikileaks about it.
~X~
I didn't say they were impossible, I said the existence of all of these elements, in concert with one another, is a lot less likely to be the case than "guy acts like jerk, girl gets pissed and goes to police."
The person citing Occam's razor as support for the conspiracy theory below is amazing to me, when a simple "guy pisses off girl" scenario is much more likely (and doesn't require the presence, cooperation, and silence of quite a few other people to work).
Slashdot is no longer a US centric news site, but hijacked by anti-american individuals in communistic states (or states of mind).
What you call anti-american, I call pro-american. We need our great nation to be what it is supposed to be. This requires action on our part.
Obviously you missed his statements that he has a number of even more confidential documents to release. And the point isn't just to threaten, it's also to discredit. And a sex crime charge is a great way to discredit (everybody hates rapists and molesters, right?). The Scientologists have been known to do this when they want to get really nasty.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So you're saying Assange posted this *because* he felt he had nothing to fear from the CIA? Who did he know he was marked by then? What exactly DID he have to fear, if not the CIA?
You are arguing that it was CIA involvement, after Assange himself has said "I've never said it was the CIA after me." He didn't need to, the brainless Assange supporters will do it for him.
And frankly, I find your use of Occam's Razor to be incredibly humorous, given that you're using it to assert that a worldwide conspiracy to smear one man is "far more likely" than a simple "dude pissed off a girl who called the police."
My money's on the simpler explanation - that is, the one that doesn't involve a network of spies, payoffs, bribes, and international pressure & manipulation, and instead, involves a single guy and a single girl, where either: 1) the guy is a creep; or 2) there's a misunderstanding and the girl goes to the police in anger.
I always find it hilarious that people assume the government (CIA, military, etc.) is capable of this type of sophisticated organization. Have you never gone to the DMV? Have you never worked with a government employee?
Advice: on VPS providers
It's because he has an agenda. He's not about making society transparent. He's about exposing those he views as political opponents.
Assange is too pussy to ever take on someone like an Iranian mullah, because these guys would simply send someone to slit his throat and not worry about it.
And yet, Wikileaks has already leaked (supposed) secret recordings of Iranian security force discussions and documents from the Iranian Ammunition Industries group. Having said that, there may well be fewer leaks from Iran for several reasons: lower levels of PC ownership, no personal laptops or PCs in the military, increased monitoring of personal internet connections etc.