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Time Runs Out On Sweden's Sexual Assault Charges Against Julian Assange
As the Guardian and many other sources report, the clock has run out on the three 2010 charges of sexual assault on which Swedish authorities had hoped try Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been waiting out those charges since 2012 in London, inside the Ecuadorian embassy, claiming that he feared extradition to the U.S. in connection to this Wikileaks work if he were first extradicted to Sweden. He was recently rebuffed after suggesting that he'd be interested in living in France as a political refugee. The linked Guardian story notes that the expiry of the Swedish prosecutors' time doesn't mean that Assange is no longer under scrutiny, as does CNN.
The unique problem here is there exists a power that wants to bring him down.
Im sure its comfy in that embassy and youre just itchin to get out. Well let me tell you, the US has a lot more dirt than just a one night stand to throw at you, Assange. Remember that time you bought falafel and a soda and then accidentally dropped garlic sauce on the pavement? looks like someones getting a warrant for littering. And that other time, remember when you bumped into that old lithuanian woman on the train? thats a heck of an assault you perpetrated.
Good people go to bed earlier.
He was never formally accused, only wanted for questioning. And when it turned out that they could only question him, and not take custody of him they lost interest...
It reminds me of how some people refused to believe Hans Reiser might've indeed been guilty of killing his wife, apparently just because he gave us ReiserFS.
Except that the ReiserFS doesn't piss off the government of the country you've been brainwashed in and its corporate masters, you mentally diseased idiot. Now get back working like a donkey and tonight don't forget to watch the katrashians with some beer and junk food at arm's length, so you won't have to think, ever.
Yes and no. I mean, I don't really know much one way or the other. However, legal troubles aside, the level of effort involved in his case, and many of the facts about how its been conducted DO make it look quite politically motivated; which, regardless of his innocence or guilt, is reason to look at the entire affair with a pretty jaundiced eye.
He may well be guilty, but, I honestly don't think that is the real reason for the prosecution, people more guilty of worst crimes get far less scrutiny. I honestly wouldn't even be shocked to find out the women involved worked for intelligence services to begin with and the entire deal was a setup, its not like they don't have a name for using pretty young women as agents.
And thats the problem, his big major enemies have no credibility at all and nothing can be put past them, because of long standing patterns of decietful behavior of which, this would all be pretty minor examples.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I think you're confused.
People who are on our side, whatever side that may be, never rape. If they're charged with rapes, it's due to lying sluts making fake charges due to political motives.
People who are against us however are never faced with false rape accusations. They're rapists, plain and simple. Even if they haven't been charged with rape.
Please keep these matters straight.
Also: It's easy to forget, but remember: rapists look like creepy guys who would jump out of the bushes with a knife. They never look like upstanding members of their community, and they never do things in their professional life that one can admire. Their whole life is dedicated to the pursuit of Rape and General Evil. We've all seen movies and TV shows, right? That's how rapists are in the real world too, because Hollywood is famous for accurate presentations.
Lastly: It's unfair to mention anything about Assange's past, so no mentioning his I am a god to women comments, his womens' brains can't do math comments, the accusations from whistleblowers working with him of misogyny and aggressive sexual behavior, accusations of cyberstalking a teenager before he got famous, his stopping an interview to oggle some pre-teens, or about 50 other things. Let's stick to the issues at hand: What a great hero he is! So kudos to him for his brave evasion of evil injustice!
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
BTW, if you're going to read any links, check out the last one - "Ghosting" by Andrew O’Hagan. He was Assange's ghostwriter for his book and spent months living with him, interviewing him and recording every conversation. It's a... very revealing read, to put it mildly.
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
Swedish prosecutors have interviewed 44 suspects in the UK since 2010, while for five years declining Julian Assange’s offer to be interviewed at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
Meanwhile the UK already spent ~12M pound to make sure he doesn't leave the embassy. If these rape allegations where the only reason for this theatre then the British police would have told the Swedish prosecutor that they will make sure Assange stays put for two or three month in the Embassy to give them the opportunity to interview him, and then they would have stopped this wast of public money.
Now is a good time to remember that since Assange was accused, we had Snowden release a bunch of documents, including one on JTRIG, GCHQs attack dog for perverting the course of justice in the name of national security:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
"the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) "...
"...JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable."
"..they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy)..."
I would also point out, that the fear of extradition to the US is a little baseless, he hasn't actually broken any US laws. If the US wanted to extradite him anyways, why work through Sweden which isn't a strong ally instead of the UK which is a Five Eyes partner and nearly the US's closest ally.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
He was never formally accused, only wanted for questioning. And when it turned out that they could only question him, and not take custody of him they lost interest...
That seems to me like the most damning evidence of all that this was a setup. If this were really about the crime, then they would have taken the chance to question him.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Does anyone actually care about this guy's legal troubles?
I've never understood why people simply assume there can't possibly be any basis in this story, just because he gave us Wikileaks. It reminds me of how some people refused to believe Hans Reiser might've indeed been guilty of killing his wife, apparently just because he gave us ReiserFS.
I think there were four important things to know:
1) There were real women who made real complaints, though they weren't particularly heinous and they dropped them fairly quickly.
2) The prosecutor decided to go ahead anyway, which is unusual, though potentially justifiable if the women dropped the complaints because they felt threatened or intimidated by Assange's reputation (ie, they didn't want to be the people who put an international hero behind bars).
3) The US really wanted Assange, it's quite plausible they Swedish authorities simply wanted to get Assange into the country to extradite him to the US.
4) Sweden went to very usual lengths to get Assange for a case of this stature, which might be evidence of an ulterior motive, or a proper reaction by the Swedish authorities to someone who was publicly flouting their legal system in a very public manner.
Personally I don't think the basic facts are in huge debate and I suspect Assange deserves some real (though mild) punishment, however I don't know if that's what he'll get in Sweden or if he'd eventually end up in a US prison cell.
I stole this Sig
An additional alleged incident of sexual molestation will be "time barred" - that is, time will have run out to question Mr Assange - on 18 August.
The Swedish statement also said an allegation of rape was due to expire on 17 August 2020, but that investigation would continue.
So those lucky Ecuadorian diplomats might have the pleasure of his company for another five years.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It was the timing. Right after the wikileaks, then the charges come up.
Governments use dirty tricks like this all the time. Obama wants to get hold of him, so they get Sweden to arrest him, then extradite him.
He was only wanted for questioning, yet for some reason England surrounded a embassy, and put 24/7 guards on it. When have they ever put so many resources into anybody else, simply because they wanted to question them?
do you know the story?
He is in charged of rape, because he didn't use a condom on a occasional sex. That is a crime in Sweden and is equivalent to rape. The girl don't even want any charge against him, but it is a public crime, so her opinion doesn't matter.
So this happen to thousand of people in Sweden and no charged are made... but he got charged and lot of work was put in to bring him to "justice"... why is he so special? Oh, right, he published things that powerful governments didn't like.
Ok, lets assume this is a valid charge... why do Swedish prosecutor don't agree to question him on another country or via the internet? Why they pressure so much for him to go to Sweden to be questioned. Assange didn't refuse to be questioned, he just want to do it out ot Sweden because he don't trust their motives. It is also known that the USA did pressure the Swedish government to arrest Assange... and a few months later, this charges show up.
So, he for sure is not perfect and for sure did much things that aren't right nor his ideas about women are all right... but this case is too uncommon and weird to blindly trust Swedish justice.
Higuita
The curious thing is the sticking point. Equador wanted one of their diplomats to be present at the interview, Sweden refused that condition...
You can see Marianne Ny, just didn't want to interview him in London in the Embassy. She only started the process in June because the court pressed her to act. It didn't matter what the issue was, she was never going to act in good faith.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/13/julian-assange-wikileaks-swedish-prosecutors-london-interview
"“My view has always been that to perform an interview with him at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would lower the quality of the interview, and that he would need to be present in Sweden in any case should there be a trial in the future. This assessment remains unchanged,” Ny said in a statement."
See, interview in London..... bad.... interview in Sweden..... good. The GPS location totally changes the questions and answers....
Does anyone actually care about this guy's legal troubles?
Probably the woman that was raped...
You mean the one who said publicly that she wasn't? Or the other who more or less said the same?
When asked about this the prosecution said "Ah, but they're not lawyers".
I don't doubt this guy's a creep. I also don't doubt that there is more to this case than the alleged sexual offenses.
More to the point,
1) Someone surrendered under an EAW, in order to be extradited to a third state, requires the consent of both states taking part in the EAW request, rather than just one. Being extradited under an EAW only further complicates any attempts at third party extradition.
2) Sweden is one of the few countries whose extradition treaty with the US flatly bans extradition for military or intelligence crimes, and has a consequence long been a place to where defectors and spies flee (the most famous being Edward Lee Howard, the greatest CIA defector during the Cold War period)
3) Sweden was so mad at the US extradition program ignoring their ban on use of their airspace for extradition flights that they caused a diplomatic rift with the US in 2006 by disguising their special forces soldiers as airport workers to sneak aboard a suspected extradition plane. And how do we know about this event? Why, Wikileaks of course!
4) Sweden has the world's strongest whistleblower protections, so the point where it's not even legal to look for the source of a leak, let alone prosecute them for it.
5) While no country's judicial system is completely devoid of controversial cases (Sweden included), as a whole Sweden has one of the world's highest rankings on judicial fairness according to the peer-reviewed World Justice Project. They actually use it as an example of fairness when discussing how other countries can improve.
6) Assange himself thought so much of Sweden that he was applying for a residence permit there and repeatedly called Sweden his "shield". Funny how Sweden instantly became evil US lackeys the instant he was investigated for rape, isn't it?
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
A couple minor issues.
1) Waiting for a girl to fall asleep so that you can F* her in a way that she repeatedly stopped you from doing and told you not to do while she was awake (charge #4 on the EAW, the one that's still open) falls under my standard of "heinous", but to each their own.
I'm not sure what you mean by "they dropped". Eva Finne (who ironically Assange fans used to rail against but now apparently love) only closed part of the investigation (never the whole thing), and this in response to the backlash of her earlier bungling (filing an arrest warrant for Assange when he had never at that point refused to cooperate).
2) The partial closure itself was itself some pretty heavy bungling in that it involved victim statements that hadn't even gone into the computer yet and without having interviewed Assange on the topic either - which is some pretty fundamental stuff. Sweden has a strong victims' rights process which allows accusers to appeal the closure of a case that they feel was handled incorrectly. This brings it before a review board; about 20% of such cases are reopened. The women's (then-mutual) legal representative, Claes Borgström, filed such a request for them, and it was approved.
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
There was a time when you could take pride in your country, and think that "your" intelligence agencies were working for freedom.
That time is long past. Long, long past. Intelligence agencies are, simply, the enemies of decent people everywhere. Those who expose them do humanity a service, and those who join them are traitors to any concept of freedom.
Since when, and in what two-bit penny ante legal system, does a statute of limitation come into effect while the subject is a FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE?
Sweden as impartial now as it was during WW2 when it did business with Nazis and took stolen gold as payment and prevented others from getting help against Russia. Don't trust sweden.
I skimmed this overview of Swedish criminal procedure and their reasoning with regards to custody appears valid. Indictments come late Swedish criminal procedure. As part of the preliminary investigation, they have to question the suspect, who can speak in his defense. It's not like in the US where "anything you say can and will be used against you" and never to help you. In Sweden the investigator can actually listen to your explanations and you can request they investigate some other thing which may exonerate you. So, they have to talk to you before they indict. But once they indict, there are "right to a speedy trial" rules, so if they interview with no way to put him in custody if they indict, that defeats the purpose. So that's valid.
But what's not is the UK spending something like 12 million pounds to make sure he doesn't leave the Ecuadorian embassy. Look, I get it, serious crime and all. But I cannot believe they would spend 12 million to capture any old rapist. Sweden's just following their rules. The UK's made it personal.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
No, the Swedish investigation (first became public Aug. 20) came before the "Cablegate" releases (Nov. 28), not after. Assange controlled the timing of the Cablegate releases, it was his choice to have the come immediately after the Swedish issue came up (even while Wikileaks volunteers were expressing concerns about the rushed release - which ultimately led to a mass exodus of volunteers from Wikileaks). And after Cablegate blew up big, when being shown all of the headlines, he smiled big (on camera) and said "I'm untouchable now in this country."
As for everything else, see here.
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
Here's an overview of Swedish criminal procedure. He can't be charged until he's been questioned. Unlike the US where anything you say can and will be used to hurt you and never help you, Swedish investigators can listen to the accused and then decide whether or not his story holds up, or can be requested by the accused to investigate something else that might help them. However, once the questioning happens, the indictment would come soon after (there'd be nothing stopping it assuming they wanted to indict) and once that happens the "right to a speedy trial" rules kick in. So if you can't take someone into custody, there's no point questioning them.
Sweden is properly following their laws. It's the UK's actions, spending 12 million pounds to keep the embassy surrounded that's the smoking gun it's malicious prosecution. I cannot believe they would spend that kind of money on any old person wanted for rape in a foreign country.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
A statute of limitations is there so you don't spend more of your life in hiding and being paranoid than you would have spent in jail.
Best Slashdot Co
You can bet any rapist who sought refuge in a foreign embassy to escape prosecution would result in prosecutors going through unusual lengths, if not for any other reason than that they don't want this sort of thing to become commonplace.
"I would also point out, that the fear of extradition to the US is a little baseless, he hasn't actually broken any US laws".
I do hope that was meant as a joke. Surely there isn't anyone left who believes the US government gives a flying fuck about laws? The salient fact is that they hate Assange because he disobliged them and annoyed them. They certainly could create a new law specifically to make him illegal, or retroactively reinterpret some old laws to do the same... but history shows that they mostly just kidnap, torture and kill whomever they want, without any concern for laws.
In case you doubt any of that, ask yourself what laws the people in Guantanamo Bay broke. And then ask yourself, if they did break any American laws, why they weren't brought to trial in a US court of law. You might then graduate to asking yourself what US laws were broken by the thousands or millions of dead civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen... etc., etc. to merit the summary capital punishment that was visited on them.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
'When asked about this the prosecution said "Ah, but they're not lawyers"'.
You mean there are people so degenerate they'd rape a LAWYER???
Ewwww.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
"Does anyone actually care about this guy's legal troubles?"
Yes, like Socrates and Jesus Christ he got into trouble with the authorities for telling the truth in public and upsetting people. (Please don't twist that into any implication that Assange is as good a person generally as Socrates or Jesus Christ). And he is currently getting the same treatment. Certainly, he hasn't yet been crucified or made to drink poison. (Indeed, if he were ever to find his way to the good ol' USA I'm willing to bet he would soon be begging for some hemlock). Nor has he been sodomized with a bayonet like Colonel Qadafi, or hanged like Saddam Hussein. But that's not for want of trying.
What continues to amaze me is how eager many ordinary people are to see all those things done to someone whose main crime has been revealing the filthy tricks of their government, in the vain hope that this might help to moderate that government's appalling conduct. I suppose there will always be a lot of human beings who simply want to be led by someone who seems authoritative, which saves them the trouble and pain of thinking or standing up for themselves.
(Jesus got into trouble for consorting with publicans and sinners - more or less equivalent to government officials and prostitutes. Luckily for him he never consorted with Swedish women).
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
3) Sweden was so mad at the US extradition program ignoring their ban on use of their airspace for extradition flights that they caused a diplomatic rift with the US in 2006 by disguising their special forces soldiers as airport workers to sneak aboard a suspected extradition plane. And how do we know about this event? Why, Wikileaks of course!
On one hand they are mad, on the other hand it continues to happen. It is very unlikely that it happens without high level consent from the swedes. This being a major problem.
Also both the women are now uncooperative, one of them has even fled to Australia.
I am not supporter of Assange, and consider him a megalomaniac, but his concerns are quite valid.
Multiple aspects of the argument "It would be easier from the UK" are discussed here: https://justice4assange.com/ex... (Disclaimer: Not exactly an unbiased source)
This guy spent 3 years in a building unable to leave? Sounds an awful lot like prison to me. Think of the tax dollars Sweden just saved!
I've wondered if at the top levels of the US government if they may not really have a desire to get Assange extradited to the USA to face charges that a good lawyer will at the minimum will argue aren't a violation of US law because he's not a US citizen and he was working in another country at the time. I'm not saying such a defense would definitely work but I'm also not saying it has no chance either. Consider the case of former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer. Fischer, who apparently had a really tenuous grip on sanity apart from being a genius at playing chess, violated US law by agreeing to a 20th anniversary rematch with Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992. The violated a Bush executive order on economic activities in Yugoslavia. In July 2004 Fischer was arrested in Japan before boarding a plane at a US request and was imprisoned for about 6 months while Japan offered various excuses for continuing to hold him. In the end he was deported to Iceland and basically the US, Japan and Iceland agreed to let Fischer renounce his US citizenship and become a citizen of Iceland. The US had little desire to bring him to the USA and was quite content to have him stay in jail in Japan to send a message. Similarly, it may well be that the US doesn't really want to go to the trouble of bringing Assange here and is content to have him confined to the Ecuadorian embassy for a few more years to come, at which point it may quietly back away or even announce that he's not the subject of any possible US extradition request. Even if the US said that, I have a feeling that Assange would still refuse to leave. He may well stay there for the rest of his life.
He hasn't been in the UK since this whole thing blew up. He's been in Peru.
Sure, he's been in a building in the middle of England, but diplomatic conventions are that an accredited embassy is legally speaking the native soil of the country being represented and will remain so until the embassy either voluntarily relinquishes it or the host nation ceases to recognize it as such. To send in US or UK police or military officials to drag him out would be no more acceptable than if they'd sent an unauthorized squad to Lima. Effectively, an act of war.
Assange may be a thorn, but he's not a big enough thorn to warrant that. Even some of history's worst former dictators haven't been considered worth that.
This is not exactly correct. The embassy is the sovereign territory of the country in which it is physically located (British Embassy in Peru is not British soil)...however the Vienna Convention states that the local government foreswears the right to enter an embassy, and provides diplomatic immunity for the diplomats inside.
If I live in Peru and I break into the British Embassy and commit a crime, I will be punished in Peru by the Peruvian police and law. It is not up to the brits to come and get me, and I get off scott-free once I walk out the front door without some kind of extradition treaty.
You're trying to mislead slashdot readers, and, given your comments under this article, it isn't because you don't know what went on, but purposefully. Most likely you're, like cold fjord, a sad fuck whose job is to feed us propaganda about the case. Who's paying you, the US or Sweden?
The facts are as follows:
1. Wikileaks released a video from a US helicopter murdering unarmed Iraqi journalists in April 2010, which made a huge news splash.
2. Then in July 2010, they released the Afghan War Diary and announced the imminent release of the Iraqi War logs. This made an even hugher news splash.
3. The US immediately began an investigation and a smear campaign against Assange. It had nothing to do with Cablegate.
There were, for example, allegations that the Afghan War diaries contain names of people who will 'face danger' for co-operating with the US. Of course, as of today there is no information of anyone hurt because of that release. There were also calls for him to be assassinated by US senate members and so on.
4. Alongside with the investigation under the very modern US Espionage Act of 1917 , and together with the smear campaign, the US began to pressure various governments to help US apprehend Assange.
This is the prequel to the Sweden's investigation.
5. The complaints by the two women in Sweden were made in the end of August, months after the US effort to discredit and arrest Assange began in earnest.
Now, why are you lying when all this can easily be checked and confirmed?
I wish you blind assange supporters would at least stick to the truth. But of course this has never been about the truth.
http://www.theguardian.com/med...
Because a conviction for violating some US secrecy law would make him a martyr. A conviction for rape is much better for destroying his legacy.
Don't pretend they can just show up and ask questions.
Obviously not, but firstly, Assange was in the UK since August 2010 when the case was already open, and he only entered the Ecuadorian embassy in June 2012. That makes nearly two years to question him in London without the complications to ask Ecuador for permission, and then they had three years to ask Ecuador for permission and only did so this year in June when the time for three of the allegations started to run out.
Multiple government officials here... including at least one who is currently running for president and another who was previously a vice-presidential nominee... have publicly called for Assange to be kidnapped and/or murdered. We have a recent history of "extraordinary rendition": ie. kidnapping people we don't like and sending them off to third-world crapholes to be tortured and murdered by the CIA so it doesn't technically happen on our own soil. And we operate our own modern gulag in Cuba, also so that technically holding people indefinitely with no trial or other due process isn't happening on our own soil.
I agree that he *shouldn't* have to be worried about being extradited to the US. But there are more shenanigans available than extradition.
Imagine all the people...
Sweden can not be trusted, and sadly the law just doesn't come into it:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/...