Assange Back In Court For Sex Crimes Appeal

kaptink writes "Julian Assange is back in court today to appeal his extradition to Sweden. So far the court has heard more on the incompatibility between UK and Sweden sex crime laws and that the arrest warrant used was essentially flawed. — 'Ben Emmerson QC told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ousely that the European arrest warrant under which Assange is being held was flawed because it failed to provide a "fair, accurate and proper" description of the alleged sexual misconduct.'"

Comments

So it goes like this

[unity100]

The girl that we had willing sex with, decides days LATER that she may or may not be so willing after all, and goes and asks for advice.

a conservative (swedish) politician (with ties to u.s. backed companies) intervenes, and a prosecutor in a DIFFERENT area takes up the case that the other prosecutor has DROPPED, and conjures up a new sex crime by stating 'continuing after a condom broke constitutes rape'.

with that fantastic, politically-driven propped-up legal interpretation, probably 30% or more of the world's male population are now classified as rapists. yes. if your condom popped out in the last moments before your ejaculation, you are a rapist.

how could you stop, you ask ? well, thats not the prosecutor's problem apparently. you may need to go to tibet and train 10 years in a mountain temple to be able to control your dick, in last stages of pre-ejaculation maybe. prosecutor doesnt care. he had to invent a sex crime, and he did.

well done sweden. good for you. you were one of the few countries in which corporate backed conservative politicians didnt start to screw the basic human rights over. now, you are one.

Re:So it goes like this

[UnknowingFool]

My understanding of the charges is that Assange had sex with two women on separate occasions. Both times the condom broke. Under Swedish law, your partner can demand that you to get tested for STDs and other diseases in this case. Assange refused. Now this isn't a law in the UK. Is this malicious prosecution? I don't know. But let's not let details of what happened get in the way of your uninformed rant.

Re:So it goes like this

[LizardKing]

Under Swedish law, a large number of things are considered to be a sex crime. The beauty of this if there really is a smear campaign going on is that Assange will now forever be associated with a sex crime that would not be considered an offence in most, if not all, countries apart from Sweden. As for the title of the Slashdot article, it's misleading. He's not in court for a "sex crimes appeal", he is in court for an extradition appeal.

Re:So it goes like this

[LizardKing]

Based on the - undisputed - version of events that has come out in Sweden, Assange had consensual sex with the first woman who subsequently attended a social function accompanying him. Odd behaviour for a rape victim. He then had sex with another woman, and when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police. Also undisputed is the fact that the first woman had previously written an article suggesting such a course of action to get revenge on any man she felt had cheated her.

Re:So it goes like this

[Teron]

No, under Swedish law you can't even force a convicted rapist to get tested for STDs. The only ones who can be tested against their will are pregnant women.

Re:So it goes like this

[ari_j]

(I have no knowledge of the actual facts and am only responding to the facts as stated here. I take no position on the accuracy of the factual foundation to my comment.) It sounds as if Assange's real mistake was one we all make at one time or another: Failure to properly review a woman's published materials prior to engaging in a sexual relationship with her.

Re:So it goes like this

[cgeys]

That is exactly true. We have many great laws here, but this one is one that is fucked up.. It basically does give the right for girls to complain about the sex several days later, just because they did not like it. It's a dangerous situation for every men.

Re:So it goes like this

[Arancaytar]

Moamarr Quadaffi

You're saying the US falsely accused him of rape? I guess he's not such a bad guy after all then.

You know, apart from the whole assassinating-dissidents and murdering-millions-of-people thing.

Re:So it goes like this

[l-ascorbic]

OK, fanboy: excuse this one. This is the description of what happened *according to Assange's own lawyer*:

The appellant [Assange]'s physical advances were initially welcomed but then it felt awkward since he was "rough and impatient" They lay down in bed. AA was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom She did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration AA tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.

Source

Re:So it goes like this

[hhnerkopfabbeisser]

It's very sad that bullshit like this gets voted up on slashdot. I suppose in this boys club wimmin are not someone you bother to empathize with.

This story is not about women who willingly sleep with a man, and afterwards claim he made them. It's a about a man who gets women into his bed, willingly, and then does things to them they don't consent to.

In one case, a condom broke, she tried to grab a new condom but couldn't because he held her down. For this, he may be charged with some sort of sexual assault.
In the other case, he put his penis into her while she was asleep, without bothering to put on a condom first. He really should have known better, because the day before, she had to repeatedly tell him to put one on, because he wasn't eager to do so. And after waking her up by getting to be the first man to enter her without a condom, he badgered her into letting him continue. He wanted to have some fun, after all. Who cares if she enjoys it. For this, he may be charged with a minor case of rape.

He enjoys it, she endures it. By itself, one instance of this sort may not mean much. In the heat of the moment, stuff can happen.
But if it happens to two women in a row, one might get the idea that he likes sex this way, taking what he wants while she endures it, whether she wants to or not.
And when two women talk to each other and find out that there is a pattern behind what they had previously discounted as bad sex, the decision to throw the book at him may well be justified.

PS: The legal terms don't translate well, different legal system and all.
PPS: There are men who think that once you have a woman in your bed, you can do with her as you please. If the Swedes have laws against that, good for them.

Re:So it goes like this

[hedwards]

No, it wouldn't count as rape then. Rape is purely about consent. Consent was given and provided that he wasn't knowingly spreading the disease there's nothing that can or should be done about it.

While we're at it, what about all the women that trick men into getting them pregnant by claiming to be on the pill? Following your logic that's rape as well, which is just absurd. If you have sex without a condom, STIs and pregnancy are real risks. Claiming that it's different if the risk turns out to be high isn't really legitimate.

Re:So it goes like this

[hedwards]

You can withdraw consent at any point during sex, but you can't withdraw consent afterwards. Which is really the crux of the matter, the women didn't consider it to be rape until after consulting with police, which makes it really fishy that there was anything that Assange did that was criminal. Sure it was stupid to sleep with a radical feminist, but nothing that could reasonably be foreseen as criminal.

Re:So it goes like this

[DavidTC]

No, having sex with a person and deliberately giving them HIV is assault (Just like deliberately giving any other infection), not 'rape'.

Rape is a specific crime. Failure to get tested for STD might be illegal, but is not rape. Failure to inform someone of STD status might be illegal, but is again not rape.

Rape is the specific crime of having sex without consent.

Re:So it goes like this

[SleazyRidr]

Continuing with the next paragraph from that same source:

But crucially, Emmerson said, there was no lack of consent sufficient for the unlawful coercion allegation, because "after a while Assange asked what AA was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together. AA told him that she wanted him to put a condom on before he entered her. Assange let go of AA's arms and put on a condom which AA found her."

Women have always expected men to be mind-readers, but that doesn't constitute rape.

Re:So it goes like this

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

He enjoys it, she endures it.

What kind of nonsense is this? People don't endure rapes and sexual assualts; they suffer them. Enduring someone who is poor in bed, and not articulating what you do/do not want them to do, does not constitute a sexual assault.

This case is groundless unless the alleged victim had a serious reason for "not articulating" herself properly, that is, fear for her safety if she did so. That would make the case a sexual assault, and that is a common feature of assaults. Being "badgered" into sex is not grounds enough.

Rape laws are for victims who did not consent to sex with another individual before or during the act. They are not for people who afterwards decided that they shouldn't have consented. It's unfortunate that a case of the latter kind should become so prominent, to the detriment of victims in the former, far more serious cases.

Re:So it goes like this

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Odd behaviour for a rape victim.

Possibly a different definition of one as well. This isnt "gun to the head violent rape", this is "Swedish-law-consent-was-withdrawn" rape, if the accusations are correct.

You know, basically all industrialized Western nations consider it rape when somebody continues having sex with a partner who's withdrawn consent. This isn't some Sweden-only thing.

And "gun to the head" is a very rare rape scenario. Stuff like The Implication is a lot more common than that.

Undisputed....Assange had consensual sex with the first woman.....when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police.

Its not undisputed, it is in fact the primary dispute of the case-- whether the sex was consensual, or simply started that way and consent was withdrawn during the act.

Yup. There's a large number of morons who will tell you the "facts" of this case—which upon examination, turn out to be the defense lawyers' version! And then there was the time back in November or so when some documents from the prosecution came out describing the accuser's allegations that Assange used force to obtain compliance; the defense then protested vigorously that the prosecution was trying to try the case in the court of public opinion.

Good luck with that

[AmiMoJo]

For some reason the UK seems to roll over when it comes to extradition warrants. Someone will probably try to blame the EU (as TFA seems to) but it does not affect other EU countries. For example there was a case last week where some German men were found guilty of various war crimes while they were stationed at concentration camps in Italy, but none of them will be extradited. Germany only extradites people with their consent.

Assange has a long hard battle ahead I think.

Re:Good luck with that

[HerculesMO]

You can't say long and hard when talking about rape cases, it's a no-no.

Re:farking bastiges!

[gstoddart]

deported to sweden. but claims he's not from there!

Isn't he Australian?

Re:farking bastiges!

[Canazza]

It's not deportation, it's extradition, there's a difference.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[nedlohs]

Depends on how deep you go down the conspiracy path.

At the extreme end, when they got involved in exposing that the US has no gold - http://www.eutimes.net/2011/05/russia-says-imf-chief-jailed-for-discovering-all-us-gold-is-gone/

More reasonable (but still off in conspiracy land) when Strauss Kahn talked up Special Drawing Rights to replace US dollars for reserves and for oil trading - http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/markets/dollar/index.htm. Such a move would crater the US economy (yes even further). Saddam and Gadaffi also got on the "trade oil in something other than dollars" bandwagon before the US bombed their countries.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[dkleinsc]

Another angle on the Dominique Strauss Kahn case: They may also have been targeting New York AG Eric Schneiderman, who just happened to be making moves to prosecute the banking giants under New York law. By having the case blow up in his face, they probably succeeded at discrediting Schneiderman as well.

the moron who modded the above down

[unity100]

explain to me. why it is flamebait.

is there someone in their right mind justifying people complaining about sex, DAYS later it happened in a consentual fashion ? have sex today willingly, decide its rape tomorrow.

im anxiously awaiting justification of the moron who downmodded the parent as flamebait. not that it is possible to RATIONALLY justify what i have posed though.

Re:the moron who modded the above down

[Anonymous Coward]

is there someone in their right mind justifying people complaining about sex, DAYS later it happened in a consentual fashion ? have sex today willingly, decide its rape tomorrow.

Yes, this is the politically correct stance in Sweden today. ALL High-ranking politicians call them selves feminist and will -at least in public - subscribe to the view that a woman never lies about being raped, and that the woman was raped if she at any point in time decides that she was raped.

I am posting anonymous because I was myself involved in a similar situation and lost my job and my friends because of rape charges which were not true. I was convicted and have spent time in jail. I consider Swedens rape law to be unjust. My case is appealed.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[elrous0]

The point is that this is what Strauss Kahn was calling for right before his arrest on trumped-up charges. And literally within days of a new IMF chief being elected, the prosecutor in the case (who had previously made a public arrest and called the case rock solid) suddenly drops the case and admits that the only witness is a joke. If you think that's all just a coincidence, well then, what can I say?