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Swedish Authorities Offer To Question Assange In London
An anonymous reader writes: Since 2012, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up inside Ecuador's embassy in London trying to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces a sexual assault investigation. Now, after the case has been stalled for years, Swedish prosecutors are arranging to come to London and question Assange within the embassy. According to his lawyer, Assange welcomes this, but Sweden still needs to be granted permission from both the UK and Ecuador. "Assange's lawyers, who are appealing against his arrest warrant in Sweden's highest court, have complained bitterly about the prosecutor's refusal to travel to London to speak to him – an essential step under Swedish jurisprudence to establish whether Assange can be formally charged. [Lead investigator Marianne] Ny's refusal, they say, has condemned Assange to severe limitations on his freedom that are disproportionate to the accusations against him." Ny has also requested a DNA sample from Assange.
There's two dimensions here, first there's the Swedish charges and certainly if the prosecutors can question him in the Ecuadorian embassy then that's great, however he still fled and violated the conditions of his bail while awaiting extradition proceedings in the UK. That's still a problem for him.
I think Ecuador is going to ship a large "diplomatic pouch" about the size of a refrigerator sometime soon because he has to be stinking up the embassy by now.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Are you saying that the CIA would trump up a fake rape charge just because someone was foolish enough to threaten U.S. interests, only for the truth to come out as soon as they got what they wanted?
That's just ludicrous!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I hear the President invited Snowden back to the U.S. for a special "We Love Whistleblowers!" party, where there will be cake. Better hurry up and get on that plane Edward, before the cake is all gone!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
If the US had grabbed him, tried him in some kangaroo court and imprisoned him, he'd stay relevant as a sort of journalistic martyr.
Well that's marvellous and all, except he's got way more freedom in the Ecuadorian embassy than he would have in some solitary cell in gitmo or whereever he wound up.
Also, his stay with the Ecuadorians comes with 100% less torture!
It is massively in his favour to be where he is now.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Not the claim in court, however. They'd had sex, she says in her testimony (one of the two women) she was sleepy when he started foreplay, and waking to full arousal, they had full sex. She never claimed she was woken by intercourse.
Moreover, after that morning's sex, she went out to the shops, did some shopping, came back and made breakfast for them both. Later she tweeted about how great Assange was and the sex was good.
This does not sound like rape.
Unless you're trying to work out how it MUST be rape, either
a) because the accusation cannot be allowed to be questioned, since that's telling a woman who claimed she was raped is wrong.
b) because Assange must be evil, because WL only exposes hateful things done by the USA, not any other country.
False rape allegations happen a lot.
Rape is, in the overwhelming number of cases a case of he said/she said. Allied to "innocent unless PROVEN guilty", this means that the available evidence cannot often support the allegation.
In this case, the claim is complete fiction. Even the women involved claim it wasn't rape and withdrew their complaints when they found out that was the charge being made. One of them wanted Assange tested for STDs because he'd had sex with another woman at the same time, however, this
a) isn't required by law
b) wouldn't be of any use anyway, since it wouldn't matter if he DID have STDs, all that matters is does SHE have them from intercourse with Assange?
it was made to shame and discomfit Assange. Jailed for rape wasn't what she wanted.
Since clearly, they knew of none of these things years ago when Snowden was first sequestered.
As Snowden has correctly stated, it's a ruse to allow the USA to take him into custody. Apparently Sweden will do its questioning, probably drop the case for lack of evidence and the USA can go twist in the wind.
What this really says is just how the USA's power position in the world has changed. Sweden has read the writing on the wall. They'll respond to pressure from the US state department just as much as they need to, which is now apparently, not much.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Which would be relevant if this was some sort of "information gathering phase". It is not. They have a court finding (upheld on review) of probable cause of all four charges. According to the sworn statement of the prosecutor to the UK courts, "Subject to any matters said by him, which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be launched with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."
As usual with most assange fans, you're so ignorant of the actual case that you don't even know the bloody charges. There are no rape charges concerning AA. The charges concerning AA are 1-3 on the EAW, the most significant of which is "unlawful sexual coersion", which matches AA's statements, including her most recent (late last year), referring to what happened to her as an assault but not rape. #4 concerns SW. AA's one public statement shortly after the case came out, and the many statements in the leaked police testimony (of which is just a fraction of the total testimony, more was collected after that), was that she went to the police with SW to provide support for SW's accusation of rape, but that what happened to her did not amount to rape. The charges are in line with this.
You're also mixing up all sorts of other stuff in that statement. Her statements about what happened to her in the press and in the police testimony weren't tweets. The "tweet" thing most people talk about were tweets she made during the period in which Assange was living with her. But they're almost always misquoted. The main one misrepresented is usually the one about going to the crayfish party, where she talks about being at a party with the "world's most amazing people". The police interviewed people who went to the party. One of them, KB, testified that AA had complained to her at the party about the "violent" (her words) sex with Assange.
Once again, I'll repeat: there are no rape charges related to AA. So it's a moot point anyway. There are two molestation charges and one unlawful sexual coersion charge related to him pinning her down and trying to pry her legs open until she agreed to consent.
This is simply false, and Hurtig's lies about it got him both scolded by a judge and officially reprimanded by the Swedish Bar Association. You can also read the leaked SMS logs from Ny (mainly with Hurtig), it gives a good sense of the game Hurtig is playing - he keeps trying to convince the Swedish side first that Assange is still in Sweden and getting ready to meet with them, then pretends to be out of touch with him and stops answering his phone, then when it's clear that Assange is overseas he still keeps pretending that Assange will be coming back very soon to meet with them Assange is setting up long-term lodging in the UK and hiring local attorneys.
"Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon." -- Primer