People do, from time to time, stupid things. There is no reason to come up with crazy conspiracy theories. The jury’s out. (Although they probably don’t have juries in Sweden.)
I don’t really know, though, how this is supposed to change my opinion of Wikileaks in any way. What they do is valuable, no matter what Assange did or did not do.
if this was a one time occurrence I might have agreed with you...but 2 rapes within a couple of days? no way.
as far as changing opinion, it's just so that reporters would report on wikileaks as "a whistle blower website whose founder is on the run from the law after being accused of rape" and to report on the guy as "founder of Wikileaks and accused rapist"
Just because there are nuts out there with insane conspiracy theories don't mean there are no such thing as a conspiracy. It's very open what Wikileaks is doing and it's very obvious that a lot of powerful people want it stopped. If you always take everything at face value you're never going to understand politics.
I just don’t think there is any good evidence for this being a conspiracy. Hence crazy conspiracy theory. That’s all.
Just take a moment and think about what would be necessary to frame someone. That doesn’t seem like a simple task to me. We are talking about Swedish police and prosecutors here, police and prosecutors who know that they would be in the spotlight and under intense scrutiny the moment they decided to prosecute Assange. Sweden is not exactly known for its corrupt police and prosecutors, taking that route seems like a stretch.
How do you get two completely normal women (and not any random women, women which have some, however torturous, connection to Assange) to lie to the police? They, too, must know that they would be under intense scrutiny the moment they talked to the police. Lying to the police is no joke, it’s a crime. It’s also a risk for the briber. Who’s to say that one of those women doesn’t break under the intense scrutiny and reveal the conspiracy? If there ever is a trial it will be public and intense stress for the two women. They will also be evaluated, probably several times, by a psychologist. Those two women are not professionally trained super agents.
>I just don’t think there is any good evidence for this being a conspiracy.
For us, there's no evidence for anything. All we know is that someone powerful governments don't like has been accused of some very suspicious sounding charges right before releasing some kind of potentially sensitive document.
>Just take a moment and think about what would be necessary to frame someone. That doesn’t seem like a simple task to me.
It's very simple in the case of things like rape. You just get someone to make a claim and sit back and wait. Did you read the article? The women simply asked advice of the police and the police filed charges without any evidence from them. This is how rape is handled in Sweden (among other places) since women are often afraid to come forward. There is nothing to go on but the word of two anonymous women.
>They, too, must know that they would be under intense scrutiny the moment they talked to the police.
So far it appears that they've only talked over the phone (that's all it takes). As far as I understand they haven't even given a statement or any evidence.
> Lying to the police is no joke, it’s a crime.
If you can prove it. How are you going to prove they're lying? Even if you could prove they didn't have sex that wouldn't prove they didn't believe what they told the police. You would have to prove they were never alone with him.
Long interviews. Psychological evaluation. Media inquiries. Maybe a trial. That’s what those two women will face. And if they were indeed bribed they know that they were bribed even if they don’t know who bribed them. Seems awfully risky to me, both for the women and the briber. To me there doesn’t seem to be a rational reason to do it.
Then why is it done if there's no reason? There is a huge risk for certain people to leave wikileaks alone. I'd say that if there is a briber there is virtually no risk for him/her what-so-ever.
2. Whether or not the validity of the accusations can be proven or not, this is slanderous and a well-timed smear. It is a huge shame that it has been leaked to the media.
3. Regarding Julian Assange, at the very least I admire his resolve against incredible mounting pressure.
4. If he is found guilty does that mean the afghanistan war logs are fake and the government are right? ;)
5. For now this is just a baseless accusation. I would prefer to only traffic in facts.
Just for people questioning whether this is a dirty trick or not:
1) From what I know, there hasn't been any mentionable cases where the Swedish police has been either bribed or done something questionable. At least not in recent time.
2) The two women went to the police for consulting about the two claimed events. The police looked at both cases, and decided that both cases were serious enough to prosecute Assange. The two women did apparently not want to prosecute Assange due to his "position of power". (From expressen.se - Whether that's reliable or not)
The most reasonable to guess if Assange has not raped them, is that the girls are lying. However, I'm questioning whether it's easy to make a horrible foolproof lie so bad that the police wants to prosecute him.
No, I'm not going to guess on anything at the current moment. I'm going to wait until all the facts have been laid on the table. Much easier that way.
On what do you base this first claim? Because a little Google search on the subject of Swedish police and corruption turns up quite a number of (recent) hits.
Not to mention the legally dubious raids by the Swedish police on the hosters of the Piratebay, that seemed to have been bought and paid for by Hollywood.
By the way, is it normal police procedure in Sweden to tell the world's media that some dude is wanted for rape within a few hours of the accusation?
My first claim was rather weak: It was just from my own knowledge and experience with Swedish police and the lack of news regarding corruption with them involved. If a Google search says otherwise, then I must have missed those corruption-cases. Sorry!
> By the way, is it normal police procedure in Sweden to tell the world's media that some dude is wanted for rape within a few hours of the accusation?
I would suppose that the media would sniff out as much information as fast as possible regarding Assange, because of his position. Also Expressen claimed certain things other media channels couldn't. E.g. all Norwegian newspapers cited Expressen.se for the information, and whenever they tried to get a confirmation from the Swedish police, they only got things such as "I can confirm that he is indicted. But since this is a delicate matter, I can not comment on the investigation beyond that."
Rape victims have to go through an incredible amount of bullshit to actually get their rapists put behind bars. This includes:
1) Talking about and reliving the experience over and over and over to police, prosecutors, judges, juries, family and friends, delaying your ability to "move on".
2) Being mercilessly attacked by legal challenge from your rapist, including attempts to defame your character (defense attorneys trying to prove you are a "slut"), and whatever else they can throw at you to try and make your life miserable so you'll drop the charges.
3) Significant legal expenses.
The fortitude required to actually see a rape case through is immense. Assuming that because someone dropped the charges they must have been lying is just as bad as assuming that because someone had charges brought against them that they are guilty.
Our legal system is better than most, but it's far from perfect. Have some compassion.
If I’ve understood correctly, the warrant was issued by an on-duty prosecutor and overturned by a chief prosecutor. It could be a simple revaluation of whether or not the accusation falls within the legal definition of rape, whether or not there were sufficient grounds for a warrant, etc.
Why do you think the police would need to be bribed or anything to record a claim & decide to prosecute ? I wouldn't be surprised if they were bound to investigate/prosecute (by law) in such cases.
Only thing I don't get is how on earth you'd be able to argue that Assange has a "position of power" or that you fear him - is he some kind of uber-rich tycoon or politically connected kingpin or something ? Or did they fear he'd wikileak their private facebook ?
To me it's textbook character assassination - even if the claims are withdraws (maybe especially if they are without an investigation or trial), people will vaguely remember this and Assange will be 'tainted' forever.
I'm not saying well-known people don't do bad shit (Polanski ?) but some kind of hard evidence (a rape-kit confirmed DNA match) would have / would be most welcome in this spooks-rich context.
I'm glad to see an actual news organization checking into this story by talking to Swedish police. It's a nice change from the thousand blogs reposting that single Swedish tabloid article and Twitter post.
Mr Assange is innocent until proven guilty. There's nothing else to say about this. Nothing.
And I don't think this particular accusation should be anymore newsworthy than any other rape accusation.
What matters concerning wikileaks is the authenticity of the leaked documents.
Not the various crimes that the founder may or may not have committed.
And a lots and lots of people were innocent until proven innocent.
Why you'd bring Reiser of all people in this is beyond me... Is it because Assange is kind of a geek and Reiser a programmer ? If this seems like a valid connection to you, I wonder how much persuading you'd need before agreeing with throwing, say, all muslims in jail right away.
Yes, and then he was proven guilty and sent in jail.
What you said is completely pointless. You could just as well have typed a meaningless random word like dgedfgrdgjlkdfgjdflg.
If you want to draw a comparison, to make a point, to disagree with what I say, do so, instead of merely implying something, and letting your readers fill in the blanks.
There's an interesting problem here. Any criminal accusations against him are going to be presumed false by virtually everybody. Imagine if he'd been arrested for possession of drugs. Would you believe that? No way. So he's pretty much alright to smuggle drugs, because if he gets caught it'll look so much like a setup that any jury will struggle to convict.
"Chief prosector Eva Finné has come to the desicion that Julian Assange is not suspected of rape. Considering that, Assange is no longer arrested in his absence."
Is there anywhere a quick summary of the most extreme lies [edit: made by the US] that Assange has uncovered?
As far as I've seen (and I've only really read stories about Assange that have been posted here) what he's demonstrated is "war is horrible, and it's not going very well". That's important for us to know, but it's hardly ground-breaking.
Those who downvoted, and the other replies to this have missed the point.
I know what Wikileaks has done. None of it fits the description "fac[ing] the most powerful government in the world [and] uncover[ing] their lies" any more than the most banal of broadsheets does.
Because we assume he is innocent until found guilty. And because many powerful people want to get rid of him one way or another. This is not to say that he didn't do it, just that it's fairer to assume that he is innocent until conclusively proven otherwise.
Only it’s more a presumption of conspiracy until proven otherwise. And there really isn’t a way of proving otherwise, any such proof will likely be dismissed as yet another part of the conspiracy.
If we didn't have the "innocent until proven guilty" principle I would agree. That's the main point. The fact that there is a strong motif to discredit him only adds, even if slightly only, to the probability that he is not guilty.
I speak for myself, because this is my approach in regards to accusations; others may defend him solely for the presumption of conspiracy and would be quick to label a different guy as a rapist.
Interesting. Now: will there be any documents about this case leaked and appear on wikileaks? Variaton: will there be any documents appearing on wikileaks if they are incriminating against Assange?
"Disappointing of Sweden"? Really? Are you saying that the Swedish police should NOT investigate when rape is reported? Or are you saying that you are disappointed by Sweden as a whole because you suspect that a couple of Swedish women lied about rape?
But somewhere this story was made to go, and if it wasn't the women talking to the press and it wasn't Assange then it must have been some person working for the Swedish authorities that broke the story first in such a way that the Swedish press knew to go fishing.
CNN is just following up.
There is a bit of information in how this story first made its way in to the world.
It made it’s way in to the world after an arrest warrant was issued. There has been some debate in Sweden over the choice of publishing names or not, this is hardly a unique case.
just to throw a cog in the "dirty trick" reasoning...why wouldn't they simply use child porn? it's a much more effective effective accusation for this sort of thing and much harder for outsiders to call bullshit on.
It would have to be planted in a way that it could not be proven to be planted.
Now I don't know Julian Assange personally, but I do know one dutch hacker that he hangs out with and if there is anybody that I'd be very wary of when pulling such tricks that would be the guy.
That is quite clever. You can't just arrest him. You can't just kill him either because then we all would know who dun it, but rape is well, anyone can be accused of rape, it would be your word against the "victim".
It would be quite a circus show though. We would get to learn about every little detail. In this kind of case, it should not be a sample of the public, that is the jury of 12 ordinary people of the public who decide, but the entire public. Have the entire trial in public, in front of the cameras, and let the public know everything the jury does.
But anything that damages the man that can not be directly traced back to the source will do fine. In that case, the obvious choices are either possession of child porn or rape. And the first would be hard to pull off with a paranoid tech-savvy guy.
Which leaves accusing him of rape, which is the perfect crime to frame someone with, since you can take it all the way to court without a shred of physical evidence.
None of this excludes the possibility that he actually did it, but it is the perfect scenario for a frame-job.
Don't think it will come that far though. I would put my money on the following scenario:
1) Assange turns himself in.
2) He is led away in front of the cameras in an unnecessarily humiliating and public way, making him look like a criminal, which is a very powerful image.
3) The victim mysteriously disappears, making sure there will always be lingering doubts.
Damage done, operation successful. Even if it won't stop Assange, it will scare the crap out of anyone thinking of helping him.
To do it twice within a few days?
And to do it to women who both know each other?
This just doesn't pass the smell test.