Swedish resolution to drop rape probe on account of no sturdy proof comes too late to assist Assange

The Swedish prosecutors’ resolution to finish the investigation of Julian Assange—for the third time—confirms that the sexual-misconduct accusations had been at all times a cynical ploy to entice the writer in a Kafkaesque authorized continuing.

Swedish prosecutors as we speak introduced they had been closing their practically 10-year-old sexual-misconduct investigation of Julian Assange. The rationale? The “proof has weakened significantly as a result of lengthy time period that has elapsed because the occasions in query.” Nevertheless, the prosecutor tendentiously added, “the criticism was credible” however that corroborating proof was not sturdy sufficient to pursue the case.

Let’s deal with the verbiage. Notice first using the phrase “investigation.” This is essential, as a result of opposite to what innumerable media shops have reported throughout the previous decade, the Swedes by no means charged Assange with something, least of all “rape.” Following Assange’s arrest on April 11 of this yr, there was a plethora of media tales informing us that there are excellent rape prices pending in opposition to Assange in Sweden. Human Rights Watch chimed in, saying that Assange was dealing with a “rape cost” in Sweden. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Get together feminists urged the UK authorities to extradite Assange to Sweden to face “rape prices.” 

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Notice additionally the legalese: “the proof has weakened significantly.” No, the proof hasn’t “weakened”  — there was no sturdy proof from the start! 

The Swedish case was a fraud. The prosecutors’ aim all alongside was to make use of their highly effective coercive instruments so as to entice Assange inside a slow-moving authorized continuing from which he could be unable to flee, whereas the US ready its prison prices in opposition to him. Sadly, regardless of as we speak’s announcement, the Swedes’ mission has been completed.

The Swedish case started in Aug. 20, 2010, when two ladies with whom Julian Assange had had temporary sexual relations went to the police to ask that he be examined for HIV. Swedish prosecutors responded by ordering the arrest of Assange, claiming he was a rape suspect, although neither lady had made any such allegation. Nevertheless, on Aug. 25, Swedish prosecutor Eva Finné introduced that “the conduct alleged…disclosed no crime in any respect.” Furthermore, the “forensic examination of a condom submitted as proof, supposedly worn and torn” by Assange throughout sexual activity with one of many ladies concerned revealed no proof of Assange’s DNA.

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As for the opposite lady, in response to UN Particular Rapporteur on Torture Niels Melzer, “she didn’t need to report any prison offence, however was pressured into doing so by the Swedish police.” As well as, she “refused to signal her assertion, suspended her questioning and left the police station as quickly as she was knowledgeable that the prosecution supposed to make use of her testimony so as to arrest Mr. Assange on suspicion of rape.” 

Following the closure of the case, Assange, having been given permission by prosecutors to depart Sweden, headed for London. Nevertheless, a brand new prosecutor, Marianne Ny, took over the case, and in November 2010, she obtained a European Arrest Warrant, demanding that Assange be detained so that he be questioned in relation to the sexual offense allegations. She additionally obtained an Interpol “pink discover” for wished fugitives. Ny insisted that Assange may very well be questioned in particular person and, solely in Sweden.

Assange fought the extradition request, suspecting that—coming because it did three months after the closure of the case in opposition to him—it was a ruse. The aim was to get him to Sweden, from the place he could be swiftly extradited to america, which, in all probability had ready a secret indictment in opposition to him. The British courts constantly dominated in opposition to Assange and in favor of the Swedish extradition request, although he had been charged with nothing. On June 15, 2012, following the British Supreme Courtroom’s dismissal of his problem to the Swedish extradition request, Assange walked into the Ecuador embassy and requested for political asylum.

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From 2010 to 2015, Ny refused to come back to London to interview Assange within the embassy; she additionally refused to conduct the interview by way of video hyperlink, though as Melzer has identified, “the questioning of suspects or witnesses within the [UK] was reportedly commonplace observe utilized by Sweden in dozens of contemporaneous prison investigations beneath the Mutual Authorized Help settlement” with the UK. Lastly, in March 2015, the Swedish prosecutor agreed to come back to London to interview Assange within the embassy. She did so, not out of any humanity or frequent decency, however out of worry that the Swedish courts would raise her detention order in opposition to Assange on the affordable floor of proportionality. Nevertheless, even now, Ny procrastinated, and it wasn’t till November 2016 that she lastly confirmed up within the Ecuador embassy. We discovered subsequently from e-mail change between her and the UK Crown Prosecution Service, that the British had been encouraging this procrastination. Neither she nor the CPS wished any decision of the Assange case.

On Might 19, 2017, Ny introduced that she was discontinuing the investigation of Assange. The rationale she supplied was that “there was no purpose to consider the choice to give up [Assange] to Sweden could be executed within the foreseeable future.” 

This was now the second time Swedish prosecutors had dropped their investigation into sexual allegations in opposition to Assange. Nevertheless, this did him no good. Though he had now been trapped contained in the Ecuador embassy for 5 years, the British nonetheless had an excellent arrest warrant in opposition to him for bail-jumping. Consequently, Assange was to be imprisoned contained in the embassy for 4 extra years.

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On April 11, 2019, the Ecuador authorities withdrew Assange’s asylum standing (with out in fact allowing him to problem this resolution in court docket) and invited the British authorities to enter the embassy and seize Assange. Inside minutes, america confirmed what Assange had mentioned all alongside. The USA introduced that it could search his extradition on the premise of a secret indictment that had been ready a yr earlier. The cost was that Assange had conspired with Chelsea Manning to hack right into a safe laptop system. A month later, america introduced 17 further prices in opposition to Assange beneath the Espionage Act. Ought to the US extradition request succeed—and there’s each probability that it’s going to—Assange may very well be imprisoned for 175 years.

At this time’s resolution by the Swedish prosecutor, sadly, comes too late to make the slightest little bit of distinction to the destiny of Assange. 

The US extradition software will go ahead regardless. The UK courts will virtually definitely show their subservience to the US authorities by ruling in opposition to Assange. 

Nevertheless, what occurred as we speak confirms what has been obvious for years: The costs in opposition to Assange, whether or not these emanating from Sweden, Ecuador, the UK or america, had been introduced for no purpose aside from to persecute and in the end destroy a person who had dedicated no crime –  aside from to publish details about governmental abuses and conflict crimes. What is especially shameful is that the very individuals who ought to have been defending Julian Assange—the journalists—had been those most wanting to smear him by giving credence to lurid and false allegations.

By Dr. George Szamuely, Senior Analysis Fellow on the World Coverage Institute and creator of Bombs for Peace: NATO’s Humanitarian Warfare on Yugoslavia