Based on what was said to the police, the on-call prosecutor, Marie Kjellstrand, decided to issue an arrest warrant on charges of rape and molestation, and the next day the story hit the Swedish paper Expressen and newspapers all over the world.
Kjellstrand's decision was overruled the following day by a higher-level prosecutor, Eva Finne, who withdrew the arrest warrant and said she did not see any evidence for rape allegations.
Then, on Sept. 1, a third prosecutor, [Marianne] Ny, re-opened the rape investigation, implying that she had new information in the case.
...
Assange arrived in Sweden on Aug. 11 to speak at a weekend seminar sponsored by the Social Democratic Party and arranged to stay at a Stockholm apartment belonging to the event organizer, a member of the branch of the party who would become one of Assange's two accusers.
According to a police report obtained by the Daily Mail in August, she and Assange had sex, and at some point the condom broke. While she was apparently not happy about the condom breaking, the two were seen the next day at the seminar, and nothing appeared amiss.
...
The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.
...
That further evidence hasn't been confected to make the charges less absurd does Sweden no credit because it has no choice in the matter. The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilen boasting of their respective conquests after the "crimes".
In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange's honour at her flat after the "crime" and tweeted to her followers that she is with the "the world's coolest smartest people, it's amazing!". Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilen's mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Neither Wilen's nor Ardin's texts complain of rape.
...
But it is pretty clear that Marianne Ny is not acting for the law in Sweden - she is using the law and the Interpol process on the flimsiest pretext. It is clear that you can't call this rape despite what the prosecutors in Sweden say, and what has been blasted all over the US media.
Sure, Assange should probably answer more questions - if only to get this on again, off again, on again accusation settled. But there is no reason that cannot be done in the relative safety of the embassy in London. Since the charges do not carry a custodial sentence, there should be no reason to put Assange in prison to answer questions. That just makes him an easy-to-get-at target for the various groups that are proposing to kill or imprison him on trumped up charges from countries like the US to which he owes no duty.
Bearing in mind the US policies of grabbing suspects from friendly states with poor legal systems and throwing them into concentration camps like Guantanamo Bay for interrogation, I can see why Assange would not want to put in the control of a show trial prosecutor like [Marianne] Ny.
Marianne Ny is just making an ar*e of Swedish law and holding it up as a laughing stock to the rest of the world.
LPrent, The Standard , New Zealand
STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Rixstep) -- The 'skeleton argument' released yesterday by FSI provides a devastating condemnation of Marianne Ny and Sweden. Yet the Swedish media refuse to even link to the document, much less intimate its contents or comment on it.
(The link to the skeleton argument from the Radsoft site is not working any more (strange, isn't it?), but the one given here is working - so far.)
...
The salient - and most interesting - points are:
Kjellstrand's decision was overruled the following day by a higher-level prosecutor, Eva Finne, who withdrew the arrest warrant and said she did not see any evidence for rape allegations.
Then, on Sept. 1, a third prosecutor, [Marianne] Ny, re-opened the rape investigation, implying that she had new information in the case.
...
Assange arrived in Sweden on Aug. 11 to speak at a weekend seminar sponsored by the Social Democratic Party and arranged to stay at a Stockholm apartment belonging to the event organizer, a member of the branch of the party who would become one of Assange's two accusers.
...
The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.
...
That further evidence hasn't been confected to make the charges less absurd does Sweden no credit because it has no choice in the matter. The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilen boasting of their respective conquests after the "crimes".
In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange's honour at her flat after the "crime" and tweeted to her followers that she is with the "the world's coolest smartest people, it's amazing!". Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilen's mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Neither Wilen's nor Ardin's texts complain of rape.
...
But it is pretty clear that Marianne Ny is not acting for the law in Sweden - she is using the law and the Interpol process on the flimsiest pretext. It is clear that you can't call this rape despite what the prosecutors in Sweden say, and what has been blasted all over the US media.
Sure, Assange should probably answer more questions - if only to get this on again, off again, on again accusation settled. But there is no reason that cannot be done in the relative safety of the embassy in London. Since the charges do not carry a custodial sentence, there should be no reason to put Assange in prison to answer questions. That just makes him an easy-to-get-at target for the various groups that are proposing to kill or imprison him on trumped up charges from countries like the US to which he owes no duty.
Bearing in mind the US policies of grabbing suspects from friendly states with poor legal systems and throwing them into concentration camps like Guantanamo Bay for interrogation, I can see why Assange would not want to put in the control of a show trial prosecutor like [Marianne] Ny.
Marianne Ny is just making an ar*e of Swedish law and holding it up as a laughing stock to the rest of the world.
LPrent, The Standard , New Zealand
STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Rixstep) -- The 'skeleton argument' released yesterday by FSI provides a devastating condemnation of Marianne Ny and Sweden. Yet the Swedish media refuse to even link to the document, much less intimate its contents or comment on it.
(The link to the skeleton argument from the Radsoft site is not working any more (strange, isn't it?), but the one given here is working - so far.)
...
The salient - and most interesting - points are:
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