Did Sweden Pay Cambodia For the Pirate Bay Co-founder?

An anonymous reader writes "At the start of this month, news broke that The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm had been arrested in Cambodia. A bunch of updates followed, including that Svartholm would be deported to Sweden, and that the two countries of course collaborated on his capture. The latest tidbit, as of today, is the craziest one yet: Sweden essentially paid Cambodia tens of millions of dollars. The Government of Sweden has agreed to give 400 million Swedish Kronor ($59.4 million) to Cambodia for various reasons, including democratic development, human rights, education, environment protection, climate change, sustainable development, and poverty reduction. You name it (just don't say international arrests)."

Comments

Damn Neutrals

[gijoel]

What makes a man turn neutral Kiff? Is it lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutral?

Re:Damn Neutrals

[lordholm]

Sweden is not neutral. Sweden has had a policy of being non-aligned in order to keep the ability of being neutral in the case of war. Sweden was never de-jure recognised as neutral. Although to some, Sweden, may be seen as de-facto neutral, the actual fact is that Sweden has been involved in numerous armed conflicts during the last century. In WWII Sweden who stayed outside of the main conflict, sided with Finland and even sent troops, both air force and army (including officers) that took part in combat operations, all-though technically they where sorted under Finnish flag, the fact is that they where endorsed by Sweden, how also sent over lots of arms.

In addition to this, Sweden has been a member of the EU since the 1990s, and even though the EU did not have mutual defence guarantees until the Lisbon treaty, the fact is that no EU state would remain neutral in the case of another one being attacked.

Sweden has also removed "neutrality" from their foreign policy documents. So, it has not been neutral nether de-facto or de-jure since before WWII. And especially, given the membership of the Union, the old motto of "non alignment in order to be able to be neutral in the case of war" has not been true for 20 years.

Greased palms

[flyingfsck]

Well, that kind of money should reduce the poverty of one or two government officials...

Re:Greased palms

[Mr. Wok]

Or what kind of strings Sweden wears

Conspiracy or not

[Isbiten]

I highly doubt that the Swedish government would have such a great interest in Svartholm that they would pay to get him extradited. Also how much aid was given to Cambodia before Svartholm was arrested? Unless that figure was close to zero I fail to see how Sweden payed for his extradition.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't read Khmer but on page 2 of this PDF document there's a table of what looks like some or all aid provided by Sweden to Cambodia over the past few years.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how much Sweden give as aid to Cambodia normally, but the Swedish government spend several hundred times more per capita in international aid then US do both as government aid and as given by people and non-governmental organisations, add to that, Swedes privately gives as much per capita in charity as the US population gives privately per capita (this is of course comparing bananas to apples, since most US charity is done for tax purposes and is highly ineffective as anything but constructions to avoid tax), most of the charity in US is donated by a handful of people, while the Swedes have an even distribution of giving charity among the population (poorer Swedish people give, proportional to their income, considerably more then rich people in charity, on the other hand, low income receivers in Sweden have an income comparable to the lower middle class in US).

This of course means that many governmentss, and people, around the world, act very favourable towards the Swedish government and Swedish people (heck, older Dutch people still loves us passionately for the aid we gave during just a couple of critical months in 1944, and older Greeks and Turks still loves us for the aid (and political refugee) we gave during their junta regimes and in the development after the juntas (meanwhile, the US governemnt aided the Greek and Turkish junta to oppress (and kill, torture, imprison, starve et c.) the common people)). Being a Swede on a trip abroad is usually really nice compared to being of some other nationality (cough, USian) visiting that same area. Another source of the strong Swedophilia around the world, is that until a few years ago, the Swedish educational system was open to, and free of cost, to anyone applying from around the world, and accepted students purely based on academic merits. Unfortunately, this practise was not allowed within EU and discontinued some years after Sweden joined EU. Interesting in this case is that many higher government officials and bureaucrats in influential African countries have received their education in Sweden.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they did not pay, the thought is absurd. Then again, if Cambodia gets regular aid from Sweden they have an interrest in not upsetting Sweden, which might make them more cooperative.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Mr. Wok]

It's beyond stupid to suggest that Sweden paid Cambodia for TPB admin. Why would they do that? It's not personal. And this is Cambodia we're talking about. There would be no need to pay $40 million to the whole government, just a little to one or two people with connections to immigration office.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Zemran]

Total previous budget 3.5 million SEK, new budget for today 400 million SEK - no anomaly there...

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Assange case there are so many strange facts that the burden of proof has been shifted... not so here.

I assume that you haven't had time to read up on the way the Pirate Bay trial was handled. (Police paid by Warner Brothers, Judge part of a pro-copyright organization, takedown requested by government officials and a lot more neat stuff.)

Re:Conspiracy or not

[t0p]

It's beyond stupid to suggest that Sweden paid Cambodia for TPB admin. Why would they do that? It's not personal. And this is Cambodia we're talking about. There would be no need to pay $40 million to the whole government, just a little to one or two people with connections to immigration office.

OMFG you think this isn't personal?!! I suppose all the Assange-hating isn't personal either.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[t0p]

Sweden initially told the USA that TPB weren't actually breaking the law. It was only after much being leaned on and loudly whispered at that Sweden suddenly discovered that, oh my gosh, TPB really were breaking the law after all. There's a lot of stuff going on under the table between the USA and Sweden.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Toksnok]

The 400 million SEK it for a period of 2 years.

From the press release

"The Agreement covers the period 2012-2013. The Swedish support for the two-year –period will amount to SEK 400 million (approx. 40 million euros or 57 million US dollars)."

Just slightly more than the 180 million SEK they gave in 2011.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[gnasher719]

OMFG you think this isn't personal?!! I suppose all the Assange-hating isn't personal either.

All this extradition will achieve is that someone will go to a Swedish jail for a rather short time, and I'm sure there are many places in the world that are worse than a jail in Sweden.

In the case of Assange, he is in the public eye which is why we hear all these things, he is accused by two women of rape in Sweden, was supposed to meet the police for questioning (which in Sweden happens before you are charged, while in other countries you are first charged with a crime and then questioned), fled the country to the UK, was on bail while fighting an extradition order, violated his bail conditions by moving to the Ecuadorian embassy, which I believe is in itself a crime, plus the bail money that his supporters put up is now gone, and now Ecuadorian tax payers pay to feed him and give him a place to sleep. I can't see any particular hating here, everything happening to him is a normal consequence of his actions.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Rei]

OMFG you think this isn't personal?!! I suppose all the Assange-hating isn't personal either.

Yeah, it's not like two people said he raped them or anything. It's clearly all part of a giant circituous plot to have him go back to Sweden where he'll have to go through the Swedish courts, the British courts, the Swedish government, the British government, and the EHCR, all of which are tasked by European law with not extraditing where there's a risk of the death penalty, human rights abuses, or political persecution, where the EHCR's only job (which it enforces stringently) is to do that, and where the Swedish courts and government are also tasked by law not to extradite on military or intelligence manners. Instead of, you know, just simply having him extradited when he (famous for international jetsetting) landed in a friendly non-European country with no restrictions on extradition. No, the former makes soooo much more sense.

Oh, and remember, famous people never let their fame go to their head and never commit crimes. Any crime accused of a famous person is automatically a set-up.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Rei]

Right. Once incident 11 years ago means that the entire nation of Sweden is the Central Repository of Evil.

BTW, you know that Sweden was revealed to have refused to work with the US anymore after the details of that case came out (that the people reported to be convicted terrorists were not), right? You remember who leaked that information that they stopped cooperating?

Wikileaks.

Anyway, overall, Sweden has an excellent judicial fairness rating. Number one in the world in fundamental rights, and it's lowest ranking, #7, was for letting suspects off the hook too easily.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[DarkOx]

since most US charity is done for tax purposes and is highly ineffective as anything but constructions to avoid tax

That is just crazy talk. In the US you get to write charitable gifts off against income, not your final tax bill.

So most filers are a per dollar basis will be in the situation that $Gift $TaxSavings. There may be some corner cases where you are right on the cusp of a tax bracket and a large value for $Gift might push you down into the next lowest bracket. That might bring $Gift and $TaxSavings much closer together, it might even invert the relationship, but its still very unlikely to be significant source of savings.

If anything many people do give because they'd rather support some organization they see as doing good, rather than our Government, which will probably use the money to violate the 4th Amendment rights of your friends and neighbors, kill some brown skin toned people on the other side of the planet, conduct some social experiment many find unethical, etc. Actually I mostly feel guilty paying taxes. I love my country but I think we may have crossed the line where actions directly attributable to Washington amount to more harm than good. I am all for "Stave the Beast."

 

Re:Conspiracy or not

[MoellerPlesset2]

In the Assange case there are so many strange facts that the burden of proof has been shifted.

Why are these "strange facts" then only apparent to ardent Wikileaks supporters, with no working knowledge of Sweden or the Swedish legal system, and a quite selective and distorted set of 'facts'? It'd be a huge scandal (and a violation of the constitution, et cetera) if his prosecution was actually "ordered" at the political/cabinet level. But there isn't one. Now either you could conclude that Swedes don't know what's going on in their country as well as you do, or you could perhaps wonder if you've gotten the whole picture.

It's not like the Swedish administration isn't hiring an ex Bush administration official

They're not. What happened was that two years ago, Rove visited Sweden for a few days, invited by some TV-production company. In 2008 he also visited a few days on the invitation of a Swedish right-wing think-tank. (and prior to that, he'd been in the country some time during the 1980) Without any evidence or justification, that got turned into him an unusubstantiated claim he was 'consulting' for Reinfeldt, from this American left-winger in Sweden, Brian Palmer. Which was then picked up by Amy Goodman (also revealing that Sweden has a big munitions industry. Who knew? Well, everyone in Sweden at least) From there, it becomes a source for your Huffington Post story. Where's the actual evidence?
There's pretty good reason to ask for the evidence, because the Swedish right-wing is substantially to the left of even most Democrats in the US. (true of Europe in general but Sweden in particular) Swedish PM Reinfeldt (who's a centrist within his own party) made no secret of supporting Obama in 2008. Perhaps more importantly, they wouldn't have any good reason to hire Rove as a consultant in the first place. He has no in-depth knowledge of Swedish politics, society or political culture. He simply wouldn't have any useful advice to give, either on policy or strategy. It's absurd. Rove would be as useless to Reinfeldt as Reinfeldt would be in advising Romney. Add to that, the reason why the Reinfeldt won in 2010 wasn't because they used any dirty, 'Rovian' tactics. Anyone who knows Sweden will tell you why they won: Because the Social Democrats were lead by Mona Sahlin, the least popular leader of that party in living memory (with the possible exception of her short-lived successor Juholt, who never saw an election campaign). Of course, if you believe Julian Assange, he's claimed to have 'cables' (e.g. Rolling Stone interview last January), showing that Rove is the best-buddy of Swedish foreign minister Bildt, and Bildt has also worked as a "CIA informant". Said cables have failed to materialize since. (which wouldn't be the first time Assange talked about leaks that never turned up, btw).

In this case it's just a ridiculous example of post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc. Sweden's been giving aid to Cambodia to decades. This aid deal was has been in the works for months if not years (and publicized quite a long time ago). There's nothing unusual about it at all. It's also absurd to think any country would pay that kind of money to get back someone who'd been sentenced to one year in prison (and for a non-violent crime as well). This guy is far from the only Swedish fugitive in the world, and far from the "Most Wanted" as well. On top of all that: There's no real reason at all why Cambodia would actually refuse to hand him over in the first place! Lack of an extradition treaty has never meant they won't extradite you. (Given that he's apparently fallen into some heavy drug abuse now, they may well be glad to get rid of him)

Re:Conspiracy or not

[metacell]

Between defeating the Communist block, rebuilding the western Europe, including Germany, as well as Japan after the WWII and then protecting them militarily (as well as many other countries, S. Korea, Israel, etc etc) for over 50 years, thwarting countless dictators and having an instrumental and unique role (unfortunately without much help from Europeans) in transforming the world from the one in which majority of people lived under dictatorships, only a few decades back, to the current world in which majority of people live in freedom, the US has benefited the world in more ways than any single country in history. Not to mention providing a shining example of 250 years of unbroken stable, free, democratic government, while various European countries lurched from absolute monarchies, to fascism (in Spain and Greece into the 1970s) and communism (in half of Europe into the 1990s). You and the other psychotically anti-US Europeans are a bunch of ungrateful cunts even if you are too ignorant too realize it.

What about the British Empire?

They spread civilisation to Africa, Asia and the Americas by giving them an educational system, a legal system, infrastructure, a common language, and so on. They freed countless countries from despotism and replaced it with rule of law. They brought peace to unstable areas by providing a stable government. They built up industries in other countries and brought them from a medieval or bronze age state, into the industrial age. They championed individual rights and humane treatment, when most of the world's governments treated people as disposable. They were a shining example of civilisation and law and order to the rest of the world.

Of course, they ultimately did it for selfish reasons (to benefit the companies that traded with the colonies, and provide taxes for the Crown), and a lot of innocent blood had to be spilled for the greater good. But is it any different today?

Re:Conspiracy or not

[muffen]

Total previous budget 3.5 million SEK, new budget for today 400 million SEK - no anomaly there...

3.5 million? really? this just shows that slashdot mods really dont care about facts and are happy to mod post with no reference with completely made up numbers.

Here are the actual numbers ... and for those of you who don't read swedish, Sweden has given between 150 - 200 million a year since 2009, and the 400 million allocated now is for 2 years, so theres no change there at all from last year.

Yeah, and?

[girlintraining]

Wait, are you telling me that corporations paid the government to do what they couldn't do themselves? That's almost like saying that the government sometimes pays corporations to do what they can't do themselves... and we all know that never happens. Hangon, my cell phone is beeping... huh... I wonder why the GPS icon is blinking....

Re:Yeah, and?

[DarkOx]

You understand that she was making a joke, and they it might well be possible to remotely enable the gps on smart phone via one of the many alternate communications channels they off and that its likely possible to have that phone send its gps coordinates to you via that same channel, Right?

Assange and Ecuador?

[Chuck Chunder]

You have to wonder how "flexible" Ecuador would be if Assange ever made it there and USAID shows up with an offer of "development dollars".

Re:Assange and Ecuador?

[Ecuador]

No comment.

No, you tell me.

[loshwomp]

Did Sweden Pay Cambodia For the Pirate Bay Co-founder?

Why are you asking me? You're the one writing the article, so how about answering some questions and providing factual information instead of weaseling around with headline questions?

Re:No, you tell me.

[coofercat]

As my English teacher used to say "why use rhetorical questions?"

What kind of dumbass...

[outsider007]

goes to Cambodia for asylum? Seriously.

Re:What kind of dumbass...

[Mr. Wok]

I have lived there. There's lots of corruption. TPB admin also had huge drug problem, which most likely is why he chose Cambodia. He didn't go there for any kind of political asylum, he went there to hide from Sweden and to use drugs.

Read khrem440 forums or ask any expat living there.. everyone knew about his drug problems. He also lived in an apartment that cost $750 a month. That's huge rent for a country where people earn like $30 a month.

Re:What kind of dumbass...

[AlterEager]

If you are a dissident escaping from a tyranny like N. Korea or Cuba, then, yes, the US is the place to go.

You'd think so, wouldn't you.

Imagine you're running from Ghadaffi's Libya. The US would sound like a nice place to escape to. Imagine your supprise when you get waterboarded for two years then handed over to Ghadaffi's secret police for the real fun stuff.

What counts as a tyranny can change pretty fast.

Re:The Wookie Who Shagged Me

[Baseclass]

You spelled Wookiee wrong.

So?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Governments do this all the time. Jimmy Carter's famous Camp David Accords peace treaty between Sadat and Begin wouldn't have happened unless Carter bribed Egypt with $1.3 billion dollars per year in "aid". Not to be left out, Israel received a $3 billion bribe, I mean, foreign aid, for their part in the peace treaty. For accepting these bribes, Begin and Sadat shared a Nobel Peace Prize. Suddenly, everyone is shocked, shocked to find that aid is going on here?

Try this from now on: any time you hear the word "foreign aid", mentally substitute the word "bribe". You'll see it's a quite normal state of affairs among nations.

Simply put...

[xor.pt]

Wikileaks released cables that showed the US had threatened to put Sweden on the WTO’s black list if they refused to deal with the Pirate Bay 'problem'.
So either Sweden actually stood to lose more than the 59.4m by doing nothing or the money came directly from the US.
Either way, the US is being a bully once again.

This is why everyone should vote Romney. While he is just as much of an asshole as Obama and many others before him, at least he'll burn the country to the ground for good.

Betteridge's law of headlines

[Kergan]

Meh the answer is No in all likelihood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_Law_of_Headlines

Re:Betteridge's law of headlines

[Twisted64]

I am so sick of seeing this. It's the latest "correlation is not causation" (previously godwin's law) that somebody now feels the need to put into every god damn article with a question for a headline.

Nothing against the parent personally, and nothing will stop it from appearing again, just wanted to vent.

Sweden’s development aid to Cambodia began i

[G3ckoG33k]

http://www.sida.se/English/Countries-and-regions/Asia/Cambodia/Our-work-in-Cambodia/

"Sweden’s development aid to Cambodia began in 1979. Humanitarian efforts have gradually given way to long-term cooperation. In the current cooperational strategy (2008-2010) our cooperation is focused on supporting reforms for decentralization and democratization, and human rights through support for the development of civil society and education."

Since 1979? Hmmm. It has not been that effective.

Re:Bullshit, figures please.

[Anonymous Coward]

you do realize what "per capita" means, right?

I know it's not politically correct but....

[Grayhand]

Okay you piss off billionaires and the countries behind them then squeal like pigs when they come after you? I think "dah" is a simple answer to the situation for both he and Assange. Sure in an ideal world you can say it wouldn't work this way but why is anyone surprised that that powerful people want them off the street??? If you try to fuck the bear in the ass he's likely to chase you up a tree. Why is this shocking? They are talking tens of millions but they are multibillion dollar a year industries. If you piss off the right people there's no where you can hide. Say this isn't the way it's supposed to work all you want but in the real world this is reality.

Re:Can you spell Wikileaks?

[siddesu]

Well, one has a sentence, and the other still hasn't got one, so the situation is not quite the same. BTW, the word "sentence" reminds me that sentences are still shelled out more or less according to laws in the West, and that you can still try to influence with some degree of success the process of lawmaking in your own country. What have you done to help the unjustly accused and the jailed because of unfair laws?

Re:Crazy Swedes?

[lexa1979]

"In Soviet Russia, government pays you" ?

Swedish aid to Cambodia began in 1979

[emakinen]

Swedish development aid to Cambodia began in 1979. Since then Sweden has given millions of dollars to Cambodia. The article by The Next Web and Torrent Freak have no evidence at all to back their claim. It's biased reporting, based on no research and strong prejudice. It is ridiculous to claim that Sweden would use millions of dollars to arrest a man, who is, from government perspective, a petty criminal.

Re:Nobody Seems To Notice and Nobody Seems To Care

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, who's to say your boot sector's being modified if you've got malware in your firmware? All that shits loaded at boot son!

Even if you buy a safe system, like a 286, and throw an old Minix on there, and manage to modify your 286 and Minix to look at today's devices... who's to say they ain't got a little extra code in there to see if they're in the middle of booting or in the middle of forensic analysis and shit and drop the right code on you for the occasion?

What you got to do is build your own router from -scratch-. I mean solder that shit right on the board! You implement your own CPU, your own memory, and you handcode the fucker from toggle switches like it's a motherfucking Altair. ICs are for chumps! Make it know what authorized traffic is and what ain't, and have it give you a big ol' klaxxon and shit when it sees something phoning home.

That's where the fuck it's at. Playin with live cds and shit, that's level 1 thinking. You gotta go 8-bit, motherfucker, right to the roots!

Re:Your Bullshit is Bullshit

[brit74]

To be fair, the original statement was dramatically wrong. That statement was "Swedish government spend several hundred times more per capita". The actual number from your provided statistics is "3.44 times more per capita".

I know that Sweden gives more per capita in government aid than the US. However, claiming that it spends several hundred times more per capita immediately raised by BS detector, too. My first impulse was to verify it because I didn't believe it.

It's Sweden, again !!

[Taco Cowboy]

If the allegation of Sweden paying Cambodia, for them to body snatch a single person, - Gottfrid Svartholm, - so that they can then "deported" the guy back to Sweden - We would know what will happen to Mr. Julian Assange when he step on Sweden's soil --->

Mr. Assange will end up be "sold" to USA, just like Mr. Svartholm was sold to Sweden

Re:It's Sweden, again !!

[Rei]

From the first comment in the article:

Exactly who is giving that money to Camobdja I've checked the aid numbers and they say nothing about 400 million Crowns. Sweden do give ~150 million Crowns per year to Cambodja. See: http://www.openaid.se/countries/kambodja

So Sweden apparently already has a regular aid budget to Cambodia.

Sweden's annual foreign aid budget is $5,3B USD, and is generally considered to be well-run. Even if the reported number is accurate, that would only be 1% of the reported annual aid budget, an amount not at all inappropriate for a country like Cambodia.

Oh, and humans suck at detecting coincidence intuitively. The sample size of possible events one could find suspicious is enormous, as is the search space on individuals around whom you might suspect a conspiracy exists. Conspiracies feed themselves because of this.

Re:so messed up like jelly on a hot god

[metacell]

You're probably thinking about Switzerland (a republic situated in the Alps in Central Europe, known for its chocolate, watches and banking system).

Sweden (a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe) is not known for its banking system. We do have Volvo, Ericsson and The Pirate Bay, though.

Re:The Wookie Who Shagged Me

[rtb61]

The thinking would be, that Barrack Obama RIAA/MPAA stuffed department of in-justice put the hard word on Sweden via that political hooker Hilary Clinton, for totally screwing up the Julian Assange thing and making both the UK and US government look pretty ridiculous, that Sweden had better make that Pirate Bay guy. Campaign dollar pressures.

Re:Makes you wonder...

[miffo.swe]

Sadly probably not a single dime. Sweden's politicians are starstruck whenever they meet an American politician. They will happily bend over and take it. This is pretty strange considering Sweden being on the socialist side of the scale and the US on the fascist side. You would think atleast the Social democrats would have objections but no, as shown in the wikileaks cables, they cant wait to get that Uncle Sam schlong deep into their ass.

Re:so messed up like jelly on a hot god

[AliasMarlowe]

Volvo(cars) is owned by Ford

Bzzzzt wrong. Volvo cars is owned by Geely.

Re:Can you spell Wikileaks?

[siddesu]

I think you need to open yourself to new ideas. The world isn't as bad as you imagine it to be.

Re:He broke the law (according to court)

[BlueStrat]

[He broke the law (according to the court)]....aaaaand that's pretty much it.

So did Rosa Parks.

I'm just glad there aren't more like you for the sake of the Rosa Parks of the world.

Strat

What's next for slashdot?

[Pikewake]

A heated debate over an article from The Onion?
I thought /. was supposed to be "news for nerds" not "half baked conspiracy theories for complete fuckwits."
A clue for those of you who think you understand the legal system of Sweden from watching a few episodes of Law & Order or its foreign policy because you have managed to gather that Sweden is in Europe: Get a new tin foil hat and head to davidicke.com instead of posting crap here.

Re:He broke the law (according to court)

[metacell]

....aaaaand that's pretty much it. I (as regular Pirate Bay user) won't give into discussion about how it's unfair (life's unfair), how court was bought (again, prove this), etc.

I wouldn't say "bought", but it's well documented that several of the judges were members of pro-copyright organisations, i.e, organisations with the goal of strengthening copyright. It's not a secret; the judges admitted it in public after the newspapers pointed it out.

It's also well documented that the lead investigator working on the Pirate Bay case, was hired by Warner Brothers during the investigation, and started his job there the day after the investigation was concluded. Once again, he admitted it publicly.

It's also a well-documented fact that the public prosecutor initially decided to not prosecute the Pirate Bay, because he didn't consider what they did (publish links to copyrighted material) to be illegal according to Swedish law. US diplomats had a talk with the Swedish government and demanded they do something about the Pirate Bay problem (publicly admitted). After that, the Swedish justice minister had a talk with the public prosecutor about the problem with pirate sites (again, publicly admitted). The public prosecutor then, by pure coincidence, changed his mind and decided to prosecute Pirate Bay after all. This was a minor scandal when it was revealed in Swedish newspapers (and the Cablegate papers, which are even more incriminating, hadn't even been released at that time).

As I have understood, Pirate Bay founders/owners maitained civil disobedience during investigation and trial.

Not true, or at least not proven. The Pirate Bay founders claimed they had handed over control of the site to other people and were no longer running it. That may or may not be true, but the prosecution couldn't prove otherwise.

Re:Sweden seems to have problem with justice syste

[MoellerPlesset2]

These arrests must have been influenced/initiated/forced by politicians.

Because it's just unthinkable that someone sentenced for a crime could be extradited for it? And Assange's case is even more ridiculous. So was it political pressure that made the district attorney _drop_ the case, only for that decision to be successfully appealed by the women's representative? And given that the women and their legal representative are members of the opposition, are they working across the isle on this, too? You're living in a crazy fantasy.

In a healthy country, justice system is independent

But only if they're doing what you want, right? Because Assange doesn't think so. He thinks the Swedish government should provide guarantees he won't be extradited to the USA, despite the fact that this is a decision the courts would make. He's asking for the Swedish executive to tell the judicial what to do.