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Swedish Court Orders Detention of Wikileaks Founder Assange
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is likely to be detained for questioning over his alleged connection to a rape case. The Director of Prosecution, Marianne Ny, has requested the District Court of Stockholm to detain Assange, claiming that they have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations. 'I request the district court of Stockholm to detain Mr Assange in his absence, suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion,' Ny said in a statement."
He'll get a conviction too.
I said it from the very beginning; courts here are _extremely_ political - when just plain old prestige isn't the deciding factor - and with the current right leaning crypto-facist government headed by one of the more glaring psychopaths leaders in a "democratic" state, it was a big mistake to come here. Something like this was bound to happen.
Sexual crimes seems to be a big thing in Sweden recently, since they're at the core of some popular Stieg Larsson books / movies that have grown in the public eye there and internationally over the past few years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Trilogy
We saw the first two movies at indy theaters / Netflix lately. Whee vengeance!
This is an attempt to discredit the Wikileaks website in the minds of the EU and US public, by smearing the owner as a "rapist"
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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I smell a setup to send him in the US when he'll be in custody...
(If you're not from Sweden this might be hard to understand, but yes, it's seen as culturally ok to claim rape several days after the fact - even if it was consentual at the time)
Press release by counsel for Julian Assange
LONDON, 2pm Thursday November 18, 2010
Mark Stephens of law firm Finers Stephens Innocent said today, “On the morning of 21 August 2010, my client, Julian Assange, read in the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen that there was a warrant out for his arrest relating to allegations of “rape” involving two Swedish women.
However, even the substance of the allegations, as revealed to the press through unauthorized disclosures do not constitute what any advanced legal system considers to be rape; as various media outlets have reported “the basis for the rape charge” purely seems to constitute a post-facto dispute over consensual, but unprotected sex days after the event. Both women have declared that they had consensual sexual relations with our client and that they continued to instigate friendly contact well after the alleged incidents. Only after the women became aware of each other’s relationships with Mr. Assange did they make their allegations against him.
The warrant for his arrest was rightly withdrawn within 24 hours by Chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who found that there was no “reason to suspect that he has committed rape." Yet his name had already been deliberately and unlawfully disclosed to the press by Swedish authorities. The so called “rape” story was carried around the world and has caused Mr. Assange and his organization irreparable harm.
Eva Finne’s decision to drop the “rape" investigation was reversed after the intervention of a political figure, Claes Borgstrom, who is now acting for the women. The case was given to a specific prosecutor, Marianne Ny.
The only way the accused and his lawyers have been able to discover any substantive information regarding the investigation against him has been through the media. Over the last three months, despite numerous demands, neither Mr. Assange, nor his legal counsel has received a single word in writing from the Swedish authorities relating to the allegations; a clear contravention to Article 6 of the European Convention, which states that every accused must e informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him”. The actions by the Swedish authorities constitute a blatant and deliberate disregard for his rights under the Convention.
We are now concerned that prosecutor Marianne Ny intends to apply for an arrest warrant in an effort to have Mr. Assange forcibly taken to Sweden for preliminary questioning. Despite his right to silence, my client has repeatedly offered to be interviewed, first in Sweden before he left, and then subsequently in the UK (including at the Swedish Embassy), either in person or by telephone, videoconferencing or email and he has also offered to make a sworn statement on affidavit. All of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor who is abusing her powers by insisting that he return to Sweden at his own expense to be subjected to another media circus that she will orchestrate. Pursuing a warrant in this circumstance is entirely unnecessary and disproportionate. This action is in contravention both of European Conventions and makes a mockery of arrangements between Sweden and the United Kingdom designed to deal with just such situations. This behavior is not a prosecution, but a persecution. Before leaving Sweden Mr. Assange asked to be interviewed by the prosecution on several occasions in relation to the allegations, staying over a month in Stockholm, at considerable expense and despite many engagements elsewhere, in order to clear his name. Eventually the prosecution told his Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig that he was free to leave the country, without interview, which he
Julian Assange is _special_, so little niceties like laws, rules and regulations don't apply to him.
I believe it's an elaborate setup by assange himself so people will believe twisted organizations are after him
The Assange case makes a good study in how the violent right goes about dealing with threats; we first saw serious suggestions that he is some sort of 'sex pest' being inserted into the media earlier this year; for instance a BBC profile piece on him contained 'hints' of this, shadow actors started adding entries to his wikipedia article, all pro-establishment media now uses a standard 'looks greasy and sleezy' stock photo of him, etc..
Then later on; he failed to resist some of the loose women who suddenly started attaching themselves to him at every opportunity; and behold; they turned out to be shills; whoring themselves for publicity and (being underhandedly encouraged by the warmongers Assuange threatens).
And now we enter the first endgame. Lets be quite clear; the decision to arrest was not really made by Swedish legal types; it was made by pro-violence media manipulators working to support the arms industry; the authorities in Sweeden are just doing as they are told.
The only crime Assuange has made against me was to not tell these whores to fuck off when they draped themselves over him.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Precisely because the people behind it don't want it to die. They want to keep it in the public mindset that "Assange is a rapist", not "Assange was the media figure who helped expose US military abuse, incompetence, and murder".
In Sweden, neither judges or public prosecutors are elected on popular vote.
Look...I'm in Sweden and I don't trust the Swedish Justice system on this matter. It may sound like what a conspiracy-theory nut would say, but the justice system around here breaks when the US is involved. Moreover, rape is absurdly loose in this country. You can have consensual sex with a girl, but she can still change her mind the next day and claim you "got her drunk" or "talked her into it". Personal responsibility pretty much goes flying out the door in such cases (precedents abound). Moreover, the fact that Assange was denied a residency permit (uppehaltillstand) a few weeks back hints to some heavy bias on the part of the government. Both women admitted to having consensual sex with Julian. But he allegedly had an "attitude problem" with women. That's not rape in my book. I don't care what the law says, it is simply immoral to prosecute a man for rape on such bullshit. In many regards, Sweden leads the world in democracy, transparency, social justice, etc. but some of the laws are simply ridiculous.
Res publica non dominetur
"I request the district court of Stockholm to detain Mr Assange in his absence, suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion," Ny said in a statement."
Assange allegedly replied, "[citation needed]"
citation is needed because the statement was NOT in English.
He is not accused of what we English-speakers consider 'molestation'. The proper translation (as opposed to a transliteration) would be "sexual harassment". And 'rape' under their law includes any unwanted contact of a sexual nature, so for example if you grope a chick's breasts at the bar, it's "rape".
taco, please either spend some time studying language, or at least stop parroting what you see on TV. Thanks.
Is Assange a cock-faced asshole? From what I gather, yes, yes he is. But that's no reason to accuse him of molestation.
Lifetime judges may be blind but DA's are often elected political creatures.
"Lifetime judges" are human, and are thus just as prone to arrogance, corruption, deceit, and bias as any elected DA or judge. I simply do not understand the reliance by some on the theory of impartiality of judges with life tenures. The idea that life tenure makes them impartial doesn't even work in theory when you think about it. All it does is make them unaccountable. The fact is that there ARE no perfect judges, because there are no perfect people. This is why lifetime tenure for SCOTUS justices was one of the few really bad ideas of the Founders. Limit their terms on the bench. Otherwise, you've basically got a collection of unaccountable kings.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
That might save his hide(probably not, though), but the person that becomes the head of Wikileaks after him will be targeted, too.
He may look like an attention hungry egotist for not stepping aside, but jumping ship to let the next person get smeared would be cowardly.
The existence of the allegations is a fact.
We have two competing hypotheses to account for that fact
Having read the allegations, I find it very difficult to discount the second hypothesis.
If your goal is to prosecute a guy for a crime, you bring charges and you prosecute. If your goal is to assassinate his character, you draw out the process as long as possible, using innuendo in the media, without actually involving the courts.
This reeks of the latter.
"We're thinking of getting an arrest warrant to detain Assange for questioning involving these charges that we keep bringing against him and then dropping, but we haven't actually done it yet. We're just putting it out there in the media that we're thinking of doing it. We'll tell you more when we maybe do it next week, or decide not to, so we can keep getting media attention."
How about we turn the tables then. You have a quickie with a woman because you think she looks very hot and has large bosoms but eventually you learn that it was all makeup and padded pushup bras.
Can you claim rape ? You clearly would not have done it with her in her natural condition.