In the case of S, her testimony was later altered without her knowledge, in highly dubious circumstances that have never been explained (p139-41). The original text is redacted so it is impossible to know what was altered.
Stranger still, a criminal report of rape was logged against Assange on the police computer system at 4.11pm, 11 minutes after the initial meeting with S and 10 minutes before a senior officer had begun interviewing S - and two and half hours before that interview would finish (p119-20).
In another sign of the astounding speed of developments, Sweden's public prosecutor had received two criminal reports against Assange from the police by 5pm, long before the interview with S had been completed. The prosecutor then immediately issued an arrest warrant against Assange before the police summary was written and without taking into account that S did not agree to sign it (p121).
Almost immediately, the information was leaked to the Swedish media, and within an hour of receiving the criminal reports the public prosecutor had broken protocol by confirming the details to the Swedish media (p126).
The constant lack of transparency in the treatment of Assange by Swedish, British, US, and Ecuadorian authorities becomes a theme in Melzer's book. Evidence is not made available under freedom of information laws, or, if it is, it is heavily redacted or only some parts are released - presumably those that do not risk undermining the official narrative.
For four years, Assange's lawyers were denied any copies of the text messages the two Swedish women sent - on the grounds they were "classified". The messages were also denied to the Swedish courts, even when they were deliberating on whether to extend an arrest warrant for Assange (p124).
It was not until nine years later those messages were made public, though Melzer notes that the index numbers show many continue to be withheld. Most notably, 12 messages sent by S from the police station - when she is known to have been unhappy at the police narrative being imposed on her - are missing. They would likely have been crucial to Assange's defence (p125).
Similarly, much of the later correspondence between British and Swedish prosecutors that kept Assange trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy for years was destroyed - even while the Swedish preliminary investigation was supposedly still being pursued (p106).
The text messages from the women that have been released, however, suggest strongly that they felt they were being railroaded into a version of events they had not agreed to.
Slowly they relented, the texts suggest, as the juggernaut of the official narrative bore down on them, with the implied threat that if they disputed it they risked prosecution themselves for providing false testimony (p130).
Moments after S entered the police station, she texted a friend to say that "the police officer appears to like the idea of getting him [Assange]" (p117).
In a later message, she writes that it was "the police who made up the charges" (p129). And when the state assigns her a high-profile lawyer, she observes only that she hopes he will get her "out of this sh*t" (p136).
In a further text, she says: "I didn't want to be part of it [the case against Assange], but now I have no choice" (p137).
It was on the basis of the secret amendments made to S's testimony by the police that the first prosecutor's decision to drop the case against Assange was overturned, and the investigation reopened (p141). As Melzer notes, the faint hope of launching a prosecution of Assange essentially rested on one word: whether S was "asleep", "half-asleep" or "sleepy" when they had sex.
Melzer write that "as long as the Swedish authorities are allowed to hide behind the convenient veil of secrecy, the truth about this dubious episode may never come to light" (p141).
'No Ordinary Extradition'These and many, many other glaring irregularities in the Swedish preliminary investigation documented by Melzer are vital to decoding what comes next. Or as Melzer concludes "the authorities were not pursuing justice in this case but a completely different, purely political agenda" (p147).
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