Sweden issues global warrant for Assange
Published: 20 Nov 10 12:00 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/30332/20101120/
Despite an appeal filed Friday by Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer, Sweden has issued an international arrest warrant for the Wikileaks founder, who is wanted on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation.
- International warrant for Assange 'on its way' (19 Nov 10)
- WikiLeaks' Assange to challenge arrest order (19 Nov 10)
- Arrest warrant issued for WikiLeaks founder (18 Nov 10)
"The prosecutor had already decided to issue an international arrest warrant, we made sure that all the police forces in the world would see it," Kangasvieri explained.
Interpol, based in Lyon in eastern France, later said it had received an arrest warrant for the extradition of Assange.
The Stockholm district court on Thursday ordered an arrest warrant for Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, for questioning on "probable cause of suspected rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion" in Sweden in August.
The court order allowed prosecutor Marianne Ny, who had requested Assange's detention, to prepare an international arrest warrant for the head of the whistleblowing website, who is believed to be in Britain.
Ny insisted Thursday that arresting Assange was the only way she could be sure of questioning him about the allegations, which he has denied.
Assange's Swedish lawyer Björn Hurtig on Friday filed an appeal against the arrest warrant court order, but the appeal did not suspend the Swedish order or delay the international warrant.
However, Swedish media reported the petition would likely be treated quickly by the appeals court, which could rule on the warrant's legitimacy in days.
Assange has been accused of raping one woman in Sweden and sexually molesting another.
He has strongly denied the charges and hinted that they could be part of a "smear campaign" against his whistleblower website for publishing classified US documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
WikiLeaks last month published an unprecedented 400,000 classified US documents on the Iraq war and posted 77,000 secret US files on the Afghan conflict in July.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
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This whole thing is very strange to say the least. I smell a rat.....
If someone is raped in Sweden, the police usually send a letter to the victim a few months afterward, stating there is no evidence anything happened, drop the case and go back to eating pizza.
So why have they suddenly decided to actually issue a warrant for this guy, if they usually never even bother to investigate rapes.
This stinks.
He is good people in my book!
As many stated here: this stinks like rotten fish. The bad thing is: the most of the population won't even suspect this and point their finger at this "bad criminal" clapping the government for the "great sense of justice and protection of the Homeland security".
put yourself back together, Sweden.
US is not worth sacrificing the truth.
Is there any *evidence* that this is the case ?
Poor guy. I think he regrets now publishing the documents.
Forty year olds don't commit sexual offences ? Do you believe that he did it on the same night ? I don't think this was ever alleged.
As far as I'm aware, the reports were made soon after the alleged offences.
That said, as I'm sure you're aware (or maybe not) its not uncommon for rape victims to wait some time before going to the police. Its a well known phenomenon.
Why do you think JA is more trustworthy than the women who complained ? Do you know any of the protagonists ?
You write that this is "US work". How do you know this? I must have missed something big since I don't see any evidence at all that the US is behind this. Can someone, anyone, please provide the evidence.
NB An assertion on a discussion forum does not equal evidence. Lots of assertions on a discussion forum also do not constitute evidence
If Washington controls the Swedish government, then why are the Swedes running the embassy spying allegation up the flag pole?
Or is it just possible that this megalomaniac actually did what his son suggested he is capable of doing, mistreating women and all people who he sees as inferior to himself?
Is the US behind the claim? Perhaps, Who cares ? If they are, then they are idiots. This type of BS backfires and makes the accused into martyrs. If they are not, then why should an alleged pervert get off? (pun intended).
The proper response is to come back and disprove the claim. Once its dropped or set aside Wikileaks can make considerable funds for the "smear campaign." It would also play well with the conspiracy addicts who might then actually do something useful and donate to Wikileaks rather than simply spend their time typing rants on the web.
H ehehe.... thanks for the laugh man, you are so right, you reminded me of the musician that plays the music box on the streets and with him a small monkey dancing. He heheheh....
Dance Sweden.... Dance......
A group of immigrants who gang-rape a Swedish girl, were any of them sent back to their homelands with their Swedish citizenship revoked? Compare this with the white dude whom is as of yet unproven in his guilt, it was not violent, (i.e. he did not smash the girls face after he slaked his supposed lust), and there were no international warrants for their arrests.
I also notice The Local does not allow anyone to comment on the storey about the African footballer who plays for Sweden accused of rape, as well as the 'honour killing' (a contradiction in terms), by a man slaying his own kin.
The timing is definitely fishy in this storey.
I do wish my tax money wasn't spent on Europen bullshit.
What we do know now is that this matter is not being handled in the normal way. Why not?
This Marianne Ny character apparently doesn't have anything sensible to occupy here time, and wasn't there some law enforcement individual in Malmo that happened to escape her attention who was recently either found guilty of something or convicted of something in her realm?
To allow Mr. Assange to depart Sweden, THEN to issue an international warrant for his arrest is the height of legal (or illegitimate) absurdity!
I've yet to see any indication of evidence, they simply keep repeating the want to question Mr. Assange.
But the question is the "who" and "what" of those questions? (As in who really wants to question him and exactly WHAT do they want to question him about?)
Sounds like predatory jurisprudence to me....
From the Financial Times,
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f40e12e2-b5b7-11...l#axzz15rrsQCiz
"Sven-Erik Alhem, former chief prosecutor for the city of Malmo, said the case had been mishandled from the moment officials confirmed Mr Assange’s identity to the media – in contravention of usual practice.
He said it was hard to imagine a rape conviction being secured when a senior prosecutor had previously announced publicly that there was no evidence of such a crime. “This is a case where you would want to be a defence lawyer,” he said."
And think that pretty well sums it up...
That seems to be the nub of it. Remember the fuss about the Swedish press revealing the identity of the alleged shooter in Malmoe? Or, most famously, Lisbeth Palme being told, by police, before the identity parade that the main suspect was an alcoholic, thereby destroying the possibility of convicting the man she pointed out as the murderer of Olof Palme?
This rule about not revealing a suspect's identity to the media can cut both ways in terms of legal effect. But earlier in the Olof Palme murder investigation, journalists were told who the main suspects were - and there were a few. So my journalist friends would proudly announce, as though they were members of an elect club, that they 'knew' who had murdered Olof Palme. Until that case crumbled and another suspect was pushed to the front of the queue. In other words, the various instances of legal authority are perfectly capable of breaking their own rules to suit their own purposes, and the Swedish media are perfectly capable of letting them get away with it. (In the Palme case, the foreign correspondents were the ones putting the key questions.) This case looks as shambolic as the mismanagement of the Olof Palme case. Whatever the outcome after investigation, I just hope the Swedish media aren't as supine as they were in the 1980s.
Is there any evidence that this is a conspiracy ?
The fact they have actually issued a warrant for an alleged rapist, is unusual.
It is a subject I am well versed on.
3 years ago a man tried to rape me literally in front of the front door of the police station, fracturing my leg in the fight he clearly did not expect. The police interviewed him and asked him if he tried to rape me. Just that one question. He said no and the police sent me a letter stating there was no evidence of an incident. It would have been obvious when they interviewed him, that he had been in a serious fight, for a few weeks afterwards. They did not knock on one door of the many people looking out the window from there apartments at me fighting with him, or talk to the two Swedish men who came out of there homes, to help me get home, due to my fractured leg.
From speaking to several women I know in Sweden it is normal for the police to only glance over at best a rape allegation.
That is why when I see a warrant out for an alleged rapist in Sweden I seriously question what is going on. It is way out of character for the police and prosecutors who normally don't believe the victims and think the rapists are wonderful people.
Enjoy.
1- U.S started war against Afganistan (Taliban) for an unclear reasons (9/11??), no proof till now that Taliban had anything to do with it.
2- U.S started war against Iraq because Iraq had nuclear or biological weapons, as usual nothing was found till now.
3- U.S bombed a medicine factory in Sudan claiming that there is a nuclear factory beneith it and after the bombing, it was proven that it was just a medicine factory.
U.S in all these matters tried to shift the goals to justify the mistakes they did and sadly most of western countries are helping without questioning, Unluckily in this case the guy exposed their actions, so what better way to strip this guy from his credibility????
I leave the rest to your imagination. By the way isn't he innocent until proven guilty????
Your case showed apparent police indifference to the issue of rape. The Tito rape case showed the opposite..It really isn't surprising that the authorities would be more vigorous in investigating a complaint if the alleged rapist is a public figure (if this is what happened/is happening). Furthermore, different prosecutors will treat the issue of rape (and attempted rape) in different ways depending on their own priorities.. Do these priorities change if complaints are made by more than one person about the same person ? I would imagine yes.
Where is the evidence that this is a conspiracy ??????
All I want is information. Given the whole JA-wikileaks openness thing I would have thought that you guys would be very keen to (a ) pass on the detailed information you think you have which shows a conspiracy (b ) open it up to scrutiny and debate and (c ) arrive at an informed conclusion.
If you wish to compare cases then you need to make sure they are directly comparable.
One case was Sweden responding to a request from another country. Country-to-country affairs *always* take time. The other case concerns Sweden driving the investigation. Why *should* the time scales by the same ?
Furthermore, a legal process proceeds at a pace determined by a number of different factors, eg resources, availability of witnesses and evidence, expert reports etc. etc. Can you confirm that these factors carried exactly the same weight in the JA and the Polish case ? If so, prove it.
Its simply asinine to compare the two and use the comparison as evidence of a conspiracy.
To Revenge, #35, I am afraid you are either woefully misinformed, or ignorant, of what has been transpiring with regard to America's foreign policy in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There was NOTHING MISTAKEN ABOUT THOSE ACTIONS: oil from southern Iraq flows into China, to keep those factories and production facilities humming for the multinationals.
Afghani copper is mined by Chinese mining companies, under the protection of the US military, while Indian Hindu construction companies build the roads to those mines, and elsewhere, under the protection of Indian paramilitary outfits in Afghanistan.
And gas and oil pipelines now run across Afghanistan, ending in India, to supply those factories and production facilities there for the profit of the multinationals.
No mistakes; get the picture???????
Rather than repeating your rhetoric, show that you have that detailed knowledge and prove me wrong by quantitatively disproving my point.
This is done by showing that you understand which factors played a role in determining the length of each case ? I can think of resources, the soliciting expert opinion (which experts were consulted and when), availability and further interviewing of witnesses (when did this happen), different priorities which individual prosecutors may quite legimitately assign to these cases, consultation with Poland (in the Polish case) etc. etc.. After you have considered all of this show that the differences in time-lines for the cases shows a conspiracy for the JA case.
What happened to you is unforgivable, and sadly common across Europe, both in cases of rape, attempted rape and violence against women. I sat on a jury recently in a similar case and observed close up the perceptions of women who are trying to get justice.
But back to Wkileaks. I just heard the Prosecutor in this case on the BBC World Service explaining why she'd issued this warrant. She said two things which surprised me. 1) naming the suspect for the whole world (otherwise discouraged in Sweden) and 2) said she'd been trying to speak to Assange 'for months'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Assange stay in Sweden so that he could be questioned, but was then told he was free to travel?
And on the question of conspiracy theorists, a very little history will show that all countries go after those who threaten their national interests. They also do deals with citizens of other countries in order to achieve that. Whether it's happened in this case may never be known - or will be when the US opens up the record (which they tend to do earlier than European govts) .
Interesting question. If anyone wanted to smear Assange, what would be the most effective slur? That he was a womaniser? Or gay? A tax dodger? Or a rapist? All those slurs used to work in the past. Perhaps only one, possibly two, work these days. The more liberal or neo-liberal people become the harder it is to undermine their credibility. Fortunately for the US, there is one charge that still definitely works.
Will the slur be effective? Probably yes. Will it have the desired effect? Well, in my case, it provoked me to donate to WikiLeaks.
Hopefully, a whistle blower will soon provide documentary proof of the frame-up, which can then appear on WikiLeaks in due course.
If this is a typical day at the prosecutor's office, I'm a monkey's uncle. The prosecution have to get a result here. If JA is found not guilty at trial, they are going to have some seriously embarrassing questions to answer.
Regarding the prosecutors office, its no great surprise that the Swedish justice system is inefficient and bureaucratic. It would be expected that charges change as more evidence, witness statements, expert opinions become available. Can someone please show that the revision of charges/allegations is in fact evidence of a conspiracy against him ?
@Trowbridge - I'm afraid my questions were valid. You used the different timelines from different cases to postulate a conspiracy. I asked you to justify that reasoning by discounting normal non-conspiracy-related variables which could give a different time line. This you failed to do. The questions weren't gibberish. They were perfectly valid. They went to the heart of the matter i.e. what is the extent of the evidence base you use in order to draw conclusion ? From your lack of response, it appears your evidence base is shallow. Related to this is your belief that I'm a SIS agent. This alone implies that you don't apply rigorous evidence-based standards to your reasoning.
Furthermore, with regard to your final point, rather than preventing a real discussion, I'm actually doing just that i.e. demanding evidence and questioning assumptions.
I know what you mean.
I was asked by a friend to sit in on a case she took against a priest who raped her as a child in Ireland. I could not believe it when a psychiatrist suggested that a young girl may have sexually led on a priest. She had to have stitches in vagina and anus after the rape, yet in court he was treated with respect and her with complete disrespect. There is to much of it all over Europe.
As its so clear cut you should send in your expert legal report to the prosecutor's office since whatever went on is clearly being interpreted as a possible rape... It is quite a stretch, even by conspiracy theory standards (which are generous), to imagine that there are no grounds under which whatever went on can't be interpreted under the rape legislation.
I did ask you for details of the rape legislation. However, I note you failed to provide any - instead you repeat yourself.
I'll therefore take the opportunity to repeat myself. Were you there at the alleged rapes ? Have you read the detailed allegations and legal arguments ? Are you, in fact, arguing from a position of near complete ignorance ?