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.

Comments

culture trap

[harvey the nerd]

It's a trap. A legal aussie date may be felonious in Sweden.

Re:culture trap

[Anonymous Coward]

A legal Aussie date is felonious pretty much anywhere else.

Re:culture trap

[Anonymous Coward]

But only in Sweden is regret considered retroactive rape.

No. At most universities in the US, regret can also be considered retroactive rape. See the Emma Sulkowicz case at Columbia University.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/columbia-student-i-didn-t-rape-her.html

Re:culture trap

[Rei]

F*ing a sleeping girl is to work around her refusal to consent to one's preferred form of sex - entry #4 on Assange's EAW - is rape in almost every jurisdiction in the first world. And the UK court system has - at multiple levels - upheld that all four entries on the EAW match up to equivalent British charges. And a full court hearing in the Svea Court of Appeals, including testimony from Assange's attorneys, has gone over the evidence and found probable cause on all four counts. Heck, one of Assange's attorneys (Emerson) all but admitted that he did it.

Sweden actually has rather unusually lax penalties in this regard compared to most places. If Assange was convicted of doing that in DC then he'd be facing a 10x longer maximum sentence than in Sweden. In fact, Sweden's rape laws in general are pretty lax. There was a rape case a while back where a teenage girl was gang-raped by a group of three men; however, only the first could be charged because, having been beaten into submission by him, she had stopped resisting by the time that the other two got to her.

Anyway, for the case at hand here, it's amazing that the Slashdot header didn't mention the actual stated reason why the prosecutor is doing this: because the statute of limitations on some of the lesser charges** runs out this year (the statute on the rape charge** doesn't run out until 2020). Thus he has to be indicted**, of which this questioning is a legal requirement (he's only been questioned on some of the charges before he fled***, all other communication has been through Q and A via his attorneys). This will pose some challenges, as in general in Sweden, once indicted**, there's a time limit on when the case must go to trial, but if he still refuses to hand himself over, he could run this out. But the prosecutor's office may be able to extend that, we'll have to see.

** I use here "charged" in the case of "anklagad" and "indict" in the case of "åtala". They don't exactly match up to English words, and a lot of Assange fans like to play this word game where they say he's not been "charged" and use that as an excuse for why he should be able to go free. But in Sweden, the process is that one gets formally anklagad by the processor and a judge issues a warrant (following the same sort of process as a charged person in the US or UK), and then once in custody and sufficient evidence has been gathered for prosecution, they're åtalad, which brings the case to trial. You're anklagad to get you in custody, åtalad to try to convict you.

*** Yes, he did flee. The claim that Assange was "free to go" as promulgated by Björn Hurtig, a former attorney of Assange's. He tried that same line in court and got smacked down by the judge for trying to deceive the court, and then got an official reprimand from the Swedish Bar Association.

Re:culture trap

[Rei]

I'll add that I am curious as to whether anyone has managed to negotiate with Ecuador conditions in which they would hand him over.

I was recently pondering over a potential situation where both Ecuador and Sweden could get their sides met. Let's remember, Ecuador's side is to play up "We're protecting him from the evil imperialists in the US, and won't give him up unless we can be guaranteed that you won't honor any extradition request from the US". Sweden's is "We're not going to let someone who our courts system declared a probable rapist just walk without a trial, and nor are we going to promise to break our extradition law if a valid extradition request from the US was received, never mind that our law doesn't even allow for extradition for intelligence crimes". There's a bit of undertone of mutual disrespect in both cases. In Sweden's case, the undertone is along the lines of "We're a nation of laws, not of kangaroo courts bullied by the executive like you", while in Ecuador's case it's along the lines of "We're not your f*ing colony to order around, we make our own decisions, deal with it."

But there may be a way that both to get out of this with what they want.

Ecuador could charge Assange with a crime - say, hacking a server in Ecuador, and Assange could admit to it, providing all of the evidence they need to justify an extradition request. The extradition request could be filed concurrently with Sweden taking Assange into custody. Hence Ecuador's extradition request would have priority over any subsequent extradition requests from any third state (such as the US). The Swedish case, operating under the auspices of an EAW, would take priority. Whether he was convicted or not, whenever the Swedish legal system was done with him his extradition request would come into force before he could be set free. Normally both the UK and Sweden would have to approve an extradition request to a third state, both their courts and governments. But a consent to be extradited short circuits all of that, so if Assange consented to be extradited to Ecuador, it would be automatic. The US could file extradition requests with Sweden or Ecuador, but of course Sweden would never have a chance to serve it (having surrendered him to Ecuador in the order of precedence), and Ecuador would never honor such a request from the US.

Once in Ecuador, Assange could deny the charges that got him there and Ecuador could decide to drop the case for a lack of evidence.

It may be a bit distasteful for Ecuador to have to charge their guest with an extraditable offense, Correa might lose a bit of face for having to take that route. But I think he'd gain more face than he lost, with the means being seen as justifiable for the end.

Re:culture trap

[pla]

all other communication has been through Q and A via his attorneys

They have offered from the beginning to allow Ny to either question him in London, or to do it via teleconference, both of which Swedish law allows. Even the Swedish press and non-NyD MPs have started ridiculing Ny for her stubborn refusal to do so.


Heck, one of Assange's attorneys (Emerson) all but admitted that he did it.

Why wouldn't they? Anna Ardin never accused him of rape, just wanted to force him to get tested for STDs. She has even tweeted since then that he never raped her. Why would Assange or his lawyers bother denying facts that no one disputes?


before he fled

Slight correction there - After the first prosecutor cleared him, and Ny stalled for weeks, Assange asked permission to go to London, which Ny granted (and then immediately issued an international arrest warrant to generate as much worldwide publicity as possible).


The claim that Assange was "free to go" as promulgated by BjÃrn Hurtig, a former attorney of Assange's.

The chief magistrate of Assange's extradition hearing (who originally voted to extradite) has publicly stated that he incorrectly applied a law that effectively tied his hands into approving the extradition, and would have voted against it otherwise. Unfortunately for Assange, that really doesn't matter, because the UK has chosen to interpret him seeking asylum as breach of bail - Though in some sort of alice-in-wonderland loop of logic, amusingly enough, that doesn't count as a criminal offense in the UK, it just allows forfeiture of the bail itself and taking the accused into custody pending trial. Except, he doesn't face trial because Sweden hasn't actually charged him because (as you point out) they can't charge him without interviewing him, which Ny has refused to do until now.

If he didn't legitimately fear the

Re:culture trap

[Rei]

By "the history", you mean "the one case a decade and a half ago where Egypt lied to Sweden and told them that two people were convicted terrorists and promised to treat them well, getting them deported on the flight that Egypt arranged with the CIA", a case that caused such an uproar that the two were given residence, large financial compensation packages, and EU extradition law in general was changed so that countries had to have a history of upholding their promises for extradition to be allowed to proceed? The case that led to such an anti-rendition backlash in Sweden that in in 2006 Sweden had their special forces disguise themselves as airport workers to board a CIA jet and stop the extradition program from going through their territory, causing a major diplomatic incident with the US? A case that was exposed by.. wait for it.... Wikileaks!

While no country is perfect, Sweden has the #1 ranking in the world for the rights of the accused by the peer-reviewed World Justice Project. They have the world's best protections for whistleblowers - it's not even legal to investigate who leaked information in most cases, let alone prosecute. Assange thought so much of Sweden that he was moving there and setting up a new Wikileaks base of operations there - that's why he was in Sweden. He repeatedly called Sweden his shield, he thought so much of them. Right up until he was accused of rape, when suddenly Sweden magically transformed into an evil US lackey. Funny how that works.

Re:culture trap

[Rei]

They have offered from the beginning to allow Ny to either question him in London, or to do it via teleconference, both of which Swedish law allows. Even the Swedish press and non-NyD MPs have started ridiculing Ny for her stubborn refusal to do so.

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."

Why wouldn't they? Anna Ardin never accused him of rape, just wanted to force him to get tested for STDs. She has even tweeted since then that he never raped her. Why would Assange or his lawyers bother denying facts that no one disputes?

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.

Slight correction there - After the first prosecutor cleared him, and Ny stalled for weeks, Assange asked permission to go to London, which Ny granted (and then immediately issued an international arrest warrant to generate as much worldwide publicity as possible).

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.

** 22 sep 2010 **

13:50 Lejnefors -> Ny: Hello! It turned out that the police already had that address. Erika

16:02 Ny -> Lejnefors: This was not something that could lead us

Re:culture trap

[Slayer]

*** Yes, he did flee. The claim that Assange was "free to go" as promulgated by Björn Hurtig, a former attorney of Assange's. He tried that same line in court and got smacked down by the judge for trying to deceive the court, and then got an official reprimand from the Swedish Bar Association.

I can't confirm or deny your claim here, but the link you provide doesn't confirm it either:

Riddle was referring to testimony in which Hurtig had said he had been unable to contact Assange last year when he was sought by Swedish prosecutors for questioning.

Nothing is said about whether Assange was free to leave Sweden or not, but a court order banning you from leaving the country usually means you hand over your passport. Since the UK is not part of the Schengen Area, he would have needed a passport to enter the UK from Sweden.

DNA sample?

[pla]

Neither Assange nor his accuser deny that they had sex. They just disagree over how consensually they had sex.

What, exactly, do they hope to prove from a DNA test?

Now, I suppose it would certainly put quite an interesting spin on all this if it turns out Assange didn't have sex with her, but other than that totally-out-there possibility, what other use could they have for his DNA?

Ah, that last, mostly rhetorical question brings out the paranoid anti-government side of me. What other use could they have? "Hey, check it out, we "found" his DNA in hundreds of previously-unprocessed-for-decades rape kits from the US!" And just like that, the US would have direct standing to extradite him.

Finally

[techsoldaten]

Finally.

It's not like this is unprecedented. I don't know what's so special about Assange that they could not have done this a long time ago.

My guess on what's about to happen:

- Sweden interviews him and drops the charges.

- Assange steps out of the embassy and is immediately arrested.

- Assange is charged in the US and extradited within a few days.

Re:Finally

[NotDrWho]

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!

Swedish Charges/British Charges

[Virtucon]

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.

Re:Swedish Charges/British Charges

[Xest]

Yeah I'm interested to see how that plays out. If Sweden drops it's extradition request, there's every possibility that the British courts may deem that that adds weight to his argument that there was no case to answer, that it was political, and that he shouldn't have had to be on bail in the first place making his fleeing of that effectively irrelevant.

But then if there is a political dimension, it may be that they'll be happy to get him on whatever they can, and they do indeed punish him for skipping bail.

It'd be interesting to see how that plays out, but it really depends what happens after the questioning that is finally going ahead.

It's interesting that Ny cites the impending statute of limitations date as the reason for the change of heart. There have been two other key events in the last 6 months that I suspect were more relevant:

1) Assange's petition to the Swedish courts to have the case dropped failed, but in the ruling the Swedish judiciary was clear that it could not understand why Ny hadn't just questioned him over here, that it was incredibly odd that she hadn't and that she must do this ASAP.

2) There has been growing political pressure to stop guarding the embassy. When £10million has been spent on guarding the embassy whilst police forces have been cut MPs have faced increasing pressure from the public and even policing unions to stop wasting time on it. Recent cuts have meant that some crimes such as car crime have become defacto decriminalised because the police no longer have the resources to pursue them. In that context it's rather galling for the police and public alike to hear we're spending millions just to have officers stood around doing nothing.

So I imagine the weight of these two events have been the key reasons for this shift rather than expiry of statute of limitations for the most minor allegations. If Ny defied the Swedish courts a further appeal to have the case dropped would likely succeed due to Ny refusing to do her job and actually pursue a prosecution. Similarly, the Ecuadorian embassy might stop being watched and Assange could flee anyway.

She's really been left little choice. At least the case is finally moving, and Ny has been forced to do her job properly rather than simply persisting with long discredited excuses not to do it (the most amusing of which is that the Swedish justice system doesn't allow overseas questioning - what a laughing stock the folks that persisted in pushing that myth have now become).

Re:Never about a rape charge

[NotDrWho]

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!

Wait, are they asking for my permission?

[Ecuador]

Hmm, nice of them to ask. Guess it is the Excellent Karma?
Anyway, sure, go ahead, you have my permission.

So, Sweden disccovers Skype, phones and air travel

[gestalt_n_pepper]

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.

Re:Yes, that's the claim of the prosecutor.

[Rei]

Once again, Assange fans demonstrate their total ignorance of everything related to the case.

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.

"They dozed off and she awoke and felt him penetrating her." - SW's testimony

"After that, SW told HR that she was feeling worse and worse. She said that the problem was that Assange had had unprotected sex with her while she was sleeping. SW also said that Assange had nagged her and tried to have unprotected sex with her during the night, but that she had made him wear a condom. SW had told Assange several times to wear a condom. SW also told HR that Assange had spoken so strangely, as though he wanted SW to become pregnant. He said things that sounded like he wanted to make women pregnant. He reportedly said that he preferred virgins, because then he would be the first to make them pregnant." -- HR's testimony (friend of SW since childhood)

"SW had said that Assange wanted to have sex with her, and that SW had said that she did not want to have sex without a condom. SW also said that, when she was half asleep on her side, she had been aroused from slumber to feel that Assange was inside her. SW had then asked him what he was wearing and he had replied, “I am wearing you”. The witness said that SW did not believe that he had entered her; rather, she had been aroused from slumber when he was already inside her." - KS's testimony (close colleague of SW)

"He learned about what had happened from SW and his mother. The latter had said that Julian had sex with SW without a condom and against her will as she slept." - KW's testimony (SW's brother)

"Then Sofia said that she had been raped by Julian Assange, in that he had initiated unprotected sex with her while she lay sleeping." - SB's testimony (old friend and one time boyfriend of SW)

Where does your ridiculous "she was just sleepy" claim come from? It's an echo-chamber morphing of a claim from Assange's attorney, which was based on the "half asleep" line in KS's testimony. But KS continued, "she had been aroused from slumber to feel that Assange was inside her."

Moreover, after that morning's sex, she went out to the shops, did some shopping, came back and made breakfast for them both.

False. There was shopping and breakfast - but it came before the reported assault. Here's the descriptions of that from the leaked testimony:

"Earlier, she had fetched some condoms and laid them on the floor by the bed. He reluctantly agreed to use a condom, although he muttered that he preferred her to latex. He no longer had an erection problem. At one point when he took her from behind, she turned to look at him and smiled and he asked her why she was smiling, what had she to smile about. She did not like the undertone of his voice. They fell asleep, and when they woke up they may have had sex again; she does not really remember. He ordered her to fetch him some water and orange juice. She did not like being ordered about in her own home, but thought “what the hell” and fetched the liquids anyway. He wanted her to go out and buy more breakfast. She did not want to leave him alone in the flat — she really did not know him very well — but she did it anyway. When she left the flat he lay naked in her bed and was fiddling with one of his telephones. Before she left she said, “Be good'”. He replied: “Don't worry, I'm always bad”. When she returned she served him oatmeal porridge, milk, and juice. She had already eaten before he awoke, and had spoken with a friend on the phone." - SW's testimony

"While sleeping on the night of the episode, MT was awakened by an SMS message from SW. MT's recollection of that message is that it was not positive — that the sex was not goo