Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is expected to appear in a UK court tomorrow!

[Magda Hassan]

More irregularities in the conduct of the 'rape' investigation against Assange. Naomi Wolf is a prominent feminist activist in the US.

Something Rotten in the State of Sweden: 8 Big Problems with the Case' Against Assange
by Naomi Wolf
Exclusive to News from Underground
Now that Andrew Kreig, of the Justice Integrity Project, has confirmed Karl Rove's role as an advisor to the Swedish government in its prosecution of Julian Assange on sexual misconduct charges, it is important that we note the many glaring aberrations in the handling of Assange's case by the authorities in Sweden.
Dr. Brian Palmer, a social anthropologist at Uppsala University, explained on Kreig's radio show last month that Karl Rove has been working directly as an advisor to the governing Moderate Party. Kreig also reported, in Connecticut Watchdog, that the Assange accusers' lawyer is a partner in the law firm Borgström and Bodström, whose other name partner, Thomas Bodström, is a former Swedish Minister of Justice. In that office, Bodström helped approve a 2001 CIA rendition request to Sweden, to allow the CIA to fly two asylum-seekers from Sweden to Egypt, where they were tortured. This background compels us to review the case against Assange with extreme care.
Based on my 23 years of reporting on global rape law, and my five years of supporting women at rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters, I can say with certainty that this case is not being treated as a normal rape or sexual assault case. New details from the Swedish police make this quite clear. Their transcript of the complaints against Assange is strikingly unlike the dozens of such transcripts that I have read throughout the years as an advocate for victims of sex crimes.
Specifically, there are eight ways in which this transcript is unusual:
1) Police never pursue complaints in which there is no indication of lack of consent.
Ask Sweden to produce ANY other police report in which any action was taken in a situation in which there is no stated lack of consent or threat of force. Police simply won't act on a complaint if there is no indication of a lack of consent, or of consent in the face of violence. The Assange transcripts, in contrast to any typical sex crime report, are a set of transcripts in which neither of the women has indicated a lack of consent. (There is one point at which Miss W asserts she was asleep in which case it would indeed have been illegal to have sex with her but her deleted tweets show that she was not asleep, and subsequent discussion indicates consent.)
The Assange transcript is therefore anomalous, as it does not suggest in any way that either woman was unconsenting, or felt threatened. On this basis alone, therefore, the Assange transcript is completely aberrant.
2) Police do not let two women report an accusation about one man together.
The transcripts seem to indicate that the police processed the two accusers' complaints together.
This is completely unheard-of in sex crime procedures; and the burden should be on Clare Mongomery, QC, or Marianne Ny, to produce a single other example of this being permitted.
Never will two victims be allowed by police to come in and tell their stories togethereven, or especially, if the stories are about one man.
Indeed, this is a great frustration to those who advocate for rape victims. You can have seven alleged victims all accusing the same guy and none will be permitted to tell their stories together.
It doesn't matter if they coordinated in advance as the Assange accusers did, or if they are close friends and came in together: the police simply will not take their complaints together or even in the same room. No matter how much they may wish to file a report together, their wishes won't matter: the women will be separated, given separate interview times and even locations, and their cases will be processed completely separately.
The prosecutor, rather than being able to draw on both women's testimony, will actually have to struggle to get the judge to allow a second or additional accusation or evidence from another case.
Usually other such evidence will NOT be allowed. Miss A would have her case processed and then Miss W with absolutely no ability for the prosecutor to draw form one set of testimony to the next.
The reason for this is sound: it is to keep testimony from contaminating separate trialsa source of great frustration to prosecutors and rape victim advocates.
Thus the dual testimonies taken in this case are utterly atypical and against all Western and especially Swedish rape law practice and policy.
3) Police never take testimony from former boyfriends.
There's another remarkable aberration in this transcript: the report of a former boyfriend of "Miss A," testifying that she'd always used a condom in their relationship.
Now, as one who has supported many rape victims through the reporting process, I have to say that the inclusion of this utterly atypicaland, in fact, illegalnote will make anyone who has counselled rape victims through the legal process' feel as though her head might explode.
There's a rape shield law in Sweden (as there is throughout Europe) that prevents anyone not involved in the case to say anything to the police, whether it be positive or negative, about the prior sexual habits of the complainant. No matter how much a former or current boyfriend may want to testify about his girlfriends' sex practices even if that woman wants him to the courts will, rightly, refused to hear it, or record it, or otherwise allow it in the record.
4) Prosecutors never let two alleged victims have the same lawyer.
Both women are being advised by the same high-powered, politically connected lawyer. That would never happen under normal circumstances because the prosecutor would not permit the risk of losing the case because of contamination of evidence and the risk of the judge objecting to possible coaching or shared testimony in the context of a shared attorney.
So why would the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, allow such a thing in this case? Perhaps bearing in mind the threat that Assange will be extradited to the US once he is in Sweden because she does not expect to have a trial, let alone have to try to win one.
5) A lawyer never typically takes on two alleged rape victims as clients.
No attorneyand certainly no high-powered attorney would want to represent two women claiming to have been victimized by the same man, for the reasons above: the second woman's testimony could be weaker than the other one's, thus lessening the lawyer's chances of success.
There also is a danger that the judge may well object to the potential cross-contamination of the women's stories.
Again, the only reason why a lawyer would thus weaken his own clients' cases us that s/he does not expect the case to come to trial.
6) A rape victim never uses a corporate attorney.
Typically, if a woman needs a lawyer in addition to the prosecutor who is pursuing her case (as in the Swedish system) she will be advised by rape victim advocates, the prosecutor and the police to use a criminal attorney someone who handles rape cases or other kinds of assault, who is familiar with the judges and the courts in these cases. She will never hire a high-powered corporate attorney who does not specialize in these cases or work with the local court that would be hearing her sex crime case if it ever got to trial. Given that a law firm such as this one charges about four hundred euros an hour, and a typical rape case takes eight months to a year to get through the courts given that legal advice will cost tens of thousands of euros, which young women victims usually do not have access to it is reasonable to ask: who is paying the legal bills?
7) A rape victim is never encouraged to make any kind of contact with her assailant and she may never use police to compel her alleged assailant to take medical tests.
The two women went to police to ask if they could get Assange to take an HIV test.
Sources close to the investigation confirm that indeed Assange was asked by police to take an HIV test, which came back negative. This is utterly unheard of and against standard sex crime policy. The Police do not act as medical mediators for STD testing, since rapists are dangerous and vindictive. A victim is NEVER advised to manage, even with police guidance, any further communication with her assailant that is not through formal judicial channels. Under ordinary procedures, the women's wishes for the alleged assailant to take medical tests would be discouraged by rape victim advocates and deterred and disregarded by police.
First, the State normally has no power to compel a man who has not been convicted, let alone formally charged, to take any medical tests whatsoever. Secondly, rape victims usually fear STD's or AIDS infection, naturally enough, and the normal police and prosecutorial guidance is for them to take their own battery of tests you don't need the man's test results to know if you have contracted a disease. Normal rape kit processingin Sweden as elsewhereincludes such tests for the alleged victim as a matter of course, partly to help prevent any contact between the victim and the assailant outside legal channels.
8) Police and prosecutors never leak police transcripts during an active investigation because they face punishment for doing so.
The full transcripts of the women's complaints have been leaked to the US media. The only people who have access to those documents are police, prosecutors and the attorneys. Often, frustratingly, rape victims themselves cannot get their own full set of records related to their cases. In normal circumstances, the leaking of those transcripts would be grounds for an immediate investigation of the police and prosecutors who had access to them. Any official who leaks such confidential papers faces serious penalties; lawyers who do so can be disbarred. And yet no one in this case is being investigated or facing any consequences. It seems quite likely that the Assange documents were leaked by the police or prosecutors because they got a signal from higher-ups that they could do so with impunity.
Indeed, these are all major aberrationssuggesting that somebody at the top has interfered.
And who is at the very top in Sweden? Players working with Karl Rove, who was a party to the Swedish government's collusion in the Bush regime's rendition/torture program. As Britain holds its hearings into Julian Assange's fate, we must take careful note of that connection.

[Peter Lemkin]

Great summary by Wolf, from a few months back...but just as true today. Who IS paying the legal bills of the two women.....would be very interesting to know! That these points do NOT make it into the US MSM [let alone UK or even much into the Swedish] says a lot about controlling the parameters of the discussion - i.e. the propaganda/PR line.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

At least some Swedes see the deeply troubling state of the judicial system and the actions of prosecutor Marianne Ny, and do something about it:

The Assange Case goes to JO,the Swedish Ombudsmen for Justice

To The Swedish Ombudsmen for Justice (JO)


Gothenburg and Stockholm August, 2, 2012




We most urgent requires that the ombudsmen for justice investigates the Swedish handling of the case of Julian Assange, by the prosecutor Marianne Ny, Director of the Public Prosecution Authority Development Center in Gothenburg.
1. Mr. Assange could have been investigated by the Swedish police before he left the country on September 27, 2010, and with the knowledge of the prosecutor Marianne Ny. At that date Mr. Assange had been available for an interwiev during five weeks.
2. Since Mr. Assange arrived in London, he has on several occasions offered to give his own version of what happened in Stockholm in August 2010, at the Swedish embassy, or being questioned by video link.
3. In late July, Mr. Assange offered to talk to the Swedish prosecutor, now at the embassy of Ecuador, where he has asked for asylum.
The prosecutor, Ms. Ny has at all different occasions neglected or rejected Mr. Assanges proposals.
Between August 13, and August 16 Mr. Assange had consensual sex with two different women.
On August 20, 2010, the two women went to a local police station in Stockholm in order to urge Mr. Assange to undergo an HIV-test. At that point the police choosed to start an investigation about rape, without the consent of the two women.
On the same day a prosecutor decided to issue an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange. At the time the newspaper Expressen, headlined a front page article "Assange accused of rape".
The next day another prosecutor decided that there was no reason for the warrant.
On August 30, interrogates Julian Assange for the first time by the Swedish police, and denies all allegations.
The day after the lawyer of the two women, Mr. Claes Borgström, who also was a former Swedish Ombudsman for equality, requested that the case should be reopened by the prosecutor in Gothenburg, Marianne Ny.
Julian Assange is now again accused of rape, molest, and sexual harassment.
Mr. Assange stayed in Sweden until September 27 for further questioning.
We are, like his lawyer, Mr. Baltasar Garzón, serious concerned, regarding the lack of safeguards and transparency with which actions are being taken against Julian Assange, and the harassment he is being subjected to which has irreparable effects on his physical and mental wellbeing.
The threats against his person are further aggravated by the complicit behavior of the Swedish governmental authorities.
This has implied that Mr. Assanges civil rights, and his rights according to the European Convention have been violated.
Helene Bergman, journalist
0707 31 23 33
helenebergman@me.com


Anders Carlgren, journalist
072 32 33 102
anderscarlgren@hotmail.com

[Carsten Wiethoff]

As a reminder: The letter of Assanges barrister James Catlin:

Assange Case: Ny Knows the Girls Made it Up but Doesn't Care

Revelations by Assange's Australian barrister James Catlin.
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STOCKHOLM/MELBOURNE (Rixstep) The charges against Julian Assange were indeed trumped up. Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén planned it all. They went to the police station asking for advice, knowing the police would turn it into an accusation of rape. They're also the ones who leaked the story to the tabloid Expressen.

This was revealed in a letter written by Assange's Australian barrister to the website Crikey.

Recap

A bit of a recap first.

Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén approached the Klara police station in Stockholm on the afternoon of Friday 20 August 2010 to ask questions of the police, purportedly about forcing someone to submit to STD/HIV tests.

The policemen on duty rang up prosecutor on duty Maria Kjellstrand even before the formal interrogation had begun. Kjellstrand - working with no paperwork at all at this point - issued an 'APB' for Assange and had the police search the Stureplan district of Stockholm for Assange, ostensibly to bring him in for questioning (and a tour of Swedish isolation cells).

The formal interrogation of Sofia Wilén was only concluded hours later and the interrogation of Anna Ardin didn't take place until the day after - by telephone.

As seen from Anna Ardin's SMS history, Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén made the whole thing up - and even decided to leak the story to notorious Swedish tabloid Expressen. The story reached Niklas Svensson and others at Expressen at 19:52.

A colleague of Svensson's rang up Maria Kjellstrand to find out if the story was true - and Kjellstrand, violating the rules of her office, told the reporter that it was.

All of which closely follows Anna Ardin's notorious 'seven step plan for revenge' and is based directly on it.

A lot of the above has been inferred by pundits and researchers but it is only now that people finally learn the truth.

Case Dismissed

Expressen did their damnedest - all three of the reporters working overtime on Twitter from the wee hours of Saturday morning - to give the story legs. They truly didn't have much of a story: all they had was the leak by Ardin and Wilén that charges would be filed.

This is something Ardin and Wilén couldn't even have known at the time: they purported to ask the police questions only and it's the prosecutors and not the police who file charges and decide what the crime (if any) is to be - and Kjellstrand still hadn't seen any paperwork at all.

The case caused such a furore that Eva Finné was asked by her boss to look into it. Finné was at the time out in her sommarstuga for the weekend and had the case documents sent to her by messenger. Finné quickly concluded there was no rape charge there whatsover and essentially dismissed the whole thing.

Enter Claes Borgström

But Claes Borgström knew better. He and his friend and colleague Marianne Ny had been working on expanding the legal concept of rape in Sweden. They were interested in two sweeping changes to current legislation, whereof the most important one is that people themselves no longer decide when they've been raped - their governments do.

The other second change is relatively unimportant - but perhaps more shattering worldwide: almost anything can be considered rape - even and especially nonviolent and consensual acts.

Consensual sex can be rape, according to Borgström and Ny - but the alleged victims don't decide - they do.

The new laws which establish these 'precedents' are not yet on the books - but it's Marianne Ny's intention to make the Assange affair into a test case for that purpose.

In other words: Marianne Ny wants to try Julian Assange for a something that wasn't a crime when it took place.

SMS & Twitter

The designs of Ardin and Wilén were revealed by their SMS traffic (of which Catlin seems to only have seen those on Ardin's phone) and by Ardin's tweets after the supposed 'rape'. Most likely on advice from Claes Borgström, Ardin tried to remove all those tweets but didn't succeed all too well.

Not that it matters to Marianne Ny and Claes Borgström who've both seen the same evidence and are fully aware the girls made the whole thing up.

But as Borgström already said of Ardin (somewhat incorrectly): 'she's not a jurist'. Borgström and Marianne Ny can namely find rape where there is none. And for this nonsense there's today an international red notice out in 188 countries.

The mind boggles.

But then neither Ardin nor Wilén complained to the police but rather 'sought advice', a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid just punishment for making false complaints. They sought advice together, having collaborated and irrevocably tainted each other's evidence beforehand. Their SMS texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand in order to maximise the damage to Assange.
- James Catlin

Ramifications

The above doesn't affect the Assange case at all. Ardin and Wilén could both be convicted for bringing false accusations - all the evidence needed is already there - but that's not likely to happen. Women who make up rape charges get sent to prison in Britain but the feminist sisters usually protect their own in Sweden - their crime in this case carries a sentence of two years in prison but Wilén's been swallowed up by the earth and Ardin's in the middle east.

Julian Assange is being harassed for slighting the feelings of two groupies who worshipped him before and after the alleged rapes and he's being hunted for something that's definitely not rape and not even a crime yet.

Something that probably didn't even happen as the girls are known to have made the whole thing up.

But don't expect such trivialities to affect Marianne Ny, Claes Borgström, the Swedish courts, or the Swedish feminists.

The prosecutor could achieve this broadening of the law during Assange's trial so he can be convicted of a crime that didn't exist at the time he allegedly committed it. She would need to. There is no precedent for this. The Swedes are making it up as they go along.
- James Catlin
Julian Assange will surely learn that considering what WikiLeaks has published, he's got a few enemies in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the White House. Sweden began an investigation into rape which was later dismissed. Assange was even denied residence in Sweden. One can only speculate to what extent the security agencies of the US were involved. And considering the obvious interest of the US to silence WikiLeaks, is it likely Assange will have an accident of the 'Boston brakes' kind in the coming years? Or will he be snared with compromising information of the 'honey trap' kind?
- 'Drozd' at Flashback 23 October 2010

[Magda Hassan]

I am so pleased to hear that some Swedes are taking the judicial system to task over their appalling management of this whole event and makes a mockery of all women who have been raped. Helene Bergman has been great and a real feminist alternative to what has been projected in the media. Thre is a ton of interesting stuff on the Flash back forum. Now running a couple of thousand pages on the Assange thread.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Ah, by the way, if you want to see a famous swedish rapist, look here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug...rime-palme

The article talks in its second half also about Olof Palme. Not that I share the Guardian's view in this case...

[Magda Hassan]

I found this quite insightful of the Swedish situation not just in regards to the Assange matter.

But Gunnar Pettersson, a Swedish writer and commentator who lives in London, had a different take on the problem Lindberg represents. "Sweden has two elites," he told me. "The political elite is internationalist and neutralist in outlook, whereas the other elite, the military-industrial, is essentially nationalist and west-supporting. The two have left each other alone very largely, especially throughout the 20th century when the Swedish model was built up. The thing about Lindberg is that he adopted the rhetoric of the political elite but he belonged by nature and biology to the military-industrial elite, where these things are just horseshit. You just say it to get on in your career."

[Magda Hassan]

Googlish translation from Spanish.
I don't know for sure but expect it is the transcripts of the text messages between the Swedish women. I have heard they are very revealing and not in a way that supports the prosecutions case.

Garzón announces key facts about the accusations against Assange in Sweden(AFP) - 1 hour ago
SYDNEY - The lawyer for the founder of the page WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, Spanish Baltasar Garzon, said Thursday it has key information on allegations in Sweden of rape against his client to cause surprise when they are revealed.
Garzon, who met for hours with Assange on Sunday to establish a legal strategy, said the defense has requested that a Swedish prosecutor moves to London to take statements WikiLeaks founder.
"I think it will be a very good option," said Garzon, quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Australian, 41, fled to Ecuador's embassy in London for two months, is accused in Sweden of rape and sexual assault, which he denies and sees in this an excuse extradition request to be sent to America to trial for distributing hundreds of thousands of confidential diplomatic cables.
Garzon, known worldwide for trying to sit on the bench in 1998 to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, said the defense has some key elements about the charges, which will cause "a big surprise" when they are revealed.
"We can not disclose it immediately, but prosecutors have requested to make a statement that Assange" Garzon said UNCA press conference in Brisbane.
The lawyer criticized Australia, saying that Canberra has ignored requests for Assange to have diplomatic support, including a letter sent 15 days ago.
He said the Australian Government's response has been "completely negative".
"At no time consular officials have visited Assange. And I have understood that it is an obligation for every citizen with Australian," Garzon said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/art...442e169.41

[Magda Hassan]

This is very interesting legally. Basically, the EAW are no longer valid because he has left the UK and is now on Ecuadorian territory. More Spanglish and googlish.

Assange Swedish lawyer: "When granted asylum, the European arrest warrant can not be done"

According to T Per Samuelson, Ecuadorian decision marks the end of the Swedish extradition request from British territory.

by DPA - 16/08/2012 - 10:36

Ecuador's decision to grant asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, is the end of the extradition request from British territory of Sweden for questioning over allegations of a sexual nature, said today in Stockholm Swedish lawyer Per Samuelson T.

Samuelson said that Assange is not afraid to answer outstanding questions in Sweden, but sought asylum because "If you fear that if you come here end in imprisonment in the United States." "Not afraid of Sweden, but of what might happen in the United States. Not opposed to research in Sweden," Samuelson said.

"The prosecution (Swedish) will have to accept the new situation and question Assange in Ecuador's embassy in London," he added. Samuelson, one of two lawyers for Assange in Sweden, said that previously requested that the Swedish prosecutors interviewed him in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but she refused. Ecuador had consented.

"Now the investigation is entering a new phase. Could not be extradited here," he said. "When granted political asylum, the European arrest warrant can not be done."

Hence, affected women are interested also be questioned Assange in London as soon as possible so that the Swedish police to advance research. Samuelson spoke a few days ago with Assange and maintains regular contact with him by email and phone. "We'll have to wait and see what happens," he added.

A spokesman said the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny attorney general would not comment for now, but said Ny had already rejected a previous offer to interview Assange in London.

http://www.latercera.com/noticia/mundo/2...a-no.shtml

[Peter Lemkin]

Google translations DO have their problems!.....but it is usually possible to wade through them to find the approximate meaning of the original. In short, IMO, the Swedes fucked-up royally legally and don't have a leg [first, second or third] to 'stand upon'. But this is not a legal matter now - it is political and highly political within each jurisdiction and between them. Klein outlined only SOME of the many 'irregularities' of the case, legally. I have private information about back-channel PR/intel work to 'get' Assange at any cost. It is not secret, but I have to ask permission to post it. It has been in oblique form, but what I got was stronger and made more direct connections between certain forces in the USA and those who are pursuing Assange in Sweden. It includes the usual suspects of so MANY ongoing black ops. I can't get enough information in the above that Garzon has the same information, but it seems that he likely does; and if he doesn't, I'll send what I have to him. It comes from an impeccable source.
The most egregious part, IMO, is Australia's total abandonment of Assange...not even going through the motions. English speakers certainly seem at great risk of neo-fascist governments at this time.. Things change and yet they don't.