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Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation (cnn.com) 187
rmdingler writes: "Sweden is dropping its investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on rape allegations, according to a prosecution statement released Friday," reports CNN. "Assange, who has always denied wrongdoing, has been holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, in an effort to avoid a Swedish arrest warrant." Despite Friday's announcement, he's unlikely to walk out of the embassy imminently. There is no apparent change in the risk of being detained in the west, particularly in the U.S., but it's definitely a win for Assange.
Joshua.Niland adds: The pressure on Julian Assange may have lifted ever so slightly with Swedish prosecutors dropping their investigation into the allegations of rape. A brief statement ahead of a press conference by the prosecutor later on Friday said: "Director of Public Prosecution, Ms Marianne Ny, has today decided to discontinue the investigation regarding suspected rape (lesser degree) by Julian Assange." This will not likely deter the United States from pursuing their own charges against him for publishing tens of thousands of military documents leaked by Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
After describing the development as "an important victory," Assange said, "[...] it by no means erases seven years of detention without charge under house arrest and almost five years here in this embassy without sunlight. Seven years without charge while my children grow up without me. That is not something I can forgive. It is not something I can forget."
Slashdot can't be bothered to post the statement? (Score:5, Informative)
Guess I'll have to do it. [aklagare.se] Boldfacing the interesting parts, which for some reason Slashdot didn't bother covering in the summary.
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"You should respect BeauHD's authoritah!"
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You should respect Slashdot by not posting chatspeak comments.
This isn't twitter. The character limit is huge.
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U should respect Slashdot for all it gives u - so if we didn't post the content & u did & got karma points, whats the big deal ?
Water's wet. Sky's blue. Women have secrets. When you're cliff-diving, the judges award you extra points for degree of difficulty.
When you're posting on Slashdot, bonus points are awarded for deserved condemnation of the editor, and occasionally the OP.
Re:Slashdot can't be bothered to post the statemen (Score:5, Insightful)
He's always been available-- they could come to talk to him at the embassy, interview him on the phone, or whatever. He just won't go where it's easy for the US to grab him, which is not at all an unrealistic fear at this point.
A modest proposal: if we're the good guys, we shouldn't go around acting like the bad guys in a cold war spy novel.
Victory redefined? (Score:2, Interesting)
Trying to imagine how Assange can see "victory" in any part of his situation. While he started with nice ideals, at this point he has been transformed into a "useful idiot", though it would still make a lot of powerful people quite happy to see him punished well beyond indefinite imprisonment in an embassy.
Still seems to me to be an economic problem at heart. Largely based on a couple of books about WikiLeaks, I think it was the lack of a viable economic model that led them (though mostly just Assange) to w
Re:Victory redefined? (Score:4, Informative)
Wikileaks had a working "economic model" (it was financed by donations), until their accounts got frozen.
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While I have direct reservations about charity business models, both for large and small donors, in this case the use of a charity business model in the WikiLeaks case would require consideration of how to make sure the accounts would not get frozen. From the perspective of the powerful people with secrets to hide, what WikiLeaks wanted to do could seem as threatening as a terrorist attack. From what I've read, I think that Assange started with that perspective, but didn't really think it through.
The fact t
Re: Public masturbation of 974911 (Score:2, Troll)
You [974911] are a flaming troll and must be using a herd of sock puppets to self-moderate your own incoherent tripe.
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As additional evidence, I note the sudden horde of negative mods on the branch. Just par for the brokenness of Slashdot, unfortunately.
He should have transitioned... (Score:1)
If Assange was seriously worried about US prosecution for leaking national security secrets, he should have transitioned genders during the previous administration. That strategy has always (n=1) resulted in a pardon.
Re: He should have transitioned... (Score:1)
So does that mean Hillary should get a sex change?
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That strategy has never (n=1) resulted in a pardon. Chelsea Manning had her sentence commuted, letting her out of jail early, but still guilty of the crime.
Assange should hold his promise (Score:5, Interesting)
and surrender to the US. https://www.usnews.com/news/na... [usnews.com]
Manning is free. That was the condition. Please Mr Assange, honor your own words.
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Assange already gave some bullshit excuse as soon as the pardon was announced months ago.
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Assange already gave some bullshit excuse as soon as the pardon was announced months ago.
It was reasonable, even prudent, to wait until Manning is actually released from the prison. Who knows, a pardon decision may get reversed and overridden. That wasn't in Assange's bullshit excuse months ago, but anyway. He has had time to think this through in these months. Now Assange must turn himself in to the US authorities, as he promised.
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Here's the actual quote: If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition...
Besides I don't see a practical difference between pardon, commutaiton of sentence, etc. in this case.
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Manning was not pardoned
And Assange never made that a requirement. Please go read his statement yourself.
The US isn't after him (Score:2)
At least not at this point. It's an empty pledge, which is why he made it. The UK is who wants him. Regardless of the status or validity of the original rape charge, he fled bail (and is still fleeing) in the UK so they have a criminal case against him. Skipping bail is illegal, even if the court later determines the charge that lead to the arrest and subsequent bail is complete BS.
Given that he's been flaunting it for quite some time, they are very likely to pursue it as well.
Assange deserves the benefit of a doubt (Score:1)
Re:Assange deserves the benefit of a doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
because US went off the reservation in pursuit of those guys (him and Snowden). And since that part was very publicly proven [wikipedia.org], it throws some serious shade on the whole accusation thing.
The US going after Assange is pure, unadulterated, extra-legal revenge for the public political embarrassment WL has caused the US government by exposing their wrongdoing. Assange no more broke US laws than Woodward & Bernstein did in printing the Pentagon Papers, and W & B are US citizens and were on US soil when they printed the PPs, totally unlike Assange.
But then, if we've learned anything over the past 10 years, it's that those in power believe themselves above the law and think they can do whatever they want and to whomever they want with little consequences.
Strat
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...the USA has never laid any charges against him nor made any formal requests about him to any government
That's how you know the US wants someone badly but doesn't have any legal/constitutional basis to do so. If it were me in Assange's place, I'd feel far better if the US did actually pursue a legal path through the courts by filing charges, etc against me. Too many of the extra-legal options are impossible to appeal, especially the ones where the subject dies.
Strat
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If Assange 'blindy released information', then Wikileaks would just be another Infowars.com or dailykos style operation. The problem for 'the authorities' is that the information on Wikileaks is NOT blindly released. They work for the credibility they have.
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Yes, Snowden shoulda let 'em through him uin solitary for years just like Bradley Manning.
Call them cowards if you like, the actual question is did they tell us something we deserved to know about what our own government was hiding from us?
(It's always fun having an "anonymous coward" call someone a coward.)
Sweden finally did the right thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's put this in a less charged context than rape. Suppose a woman did some lines of cocaine with a man and the claims "he forced me to do that last line of cocaine!" In a system that isn't based on presumed guilt, you know what the court and/or jury are going to see?
1. She was there of her own free will.
2. She did cocaine with him freely, by her own admission, for most of that time.
3. She lacks signs of coercion.
4. Police have found not traces of evidence to plausibly back up her sudden change of mind.
5. Another line of cocaine made it into her system.
Now, if you are a judge or jury who is not a psychopath, you are probably going to weigh that evidence and conclude that you have a non-trivial chance of being the implement of someone's revenge. You are a decent person who doesn't want to throw someone in prison on a "maybe" or a "it looks bad, but I don't know." You're going to side with Assange here.
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Let's put this in a less charged context than rape. Suppose a woman did some lines of cocaine with a man and the claims "he forced me to do that last line of cocaine!" In a system that isn't based on presumed guilt, you know what the court and/or jury are going to see?
1. She was there of her own free will.
2. She did cocaine with him freely, by her own admission, for most of that time.
3. She lacks signs of coercion.
4. Police have found not traces of evidence to plausibly back up her sudden change of mind.
5. Another line of cocaine made it into her system.
Now, if you are a judge or jury who is not a psychopath, you are probably going to weigh that evidence and conclude that you have a non-trivial chance of being the implement of someone's revenge. You are a decent person who doesn't want to throw someone in prison on a "maybe" or a "it looks bad, but I don't know." You're going to side with Assange here.
Lets fix your "change of context"
1. They did cocaine
2. He asked if she wanted to do heroin, she refused.
3. So he waited till she was asleep, and then he gave her heroin.
Of course my change of context still doesn't perfectly capture the scenario, but at least it doesn't ignore the major features of the complaint!
You didn't fix a damn thing (Score:2)
First off, let me say that you have won the Internet for the next hour for this spectacular display of intellectual posturing while managing to be utterly clueless that you have said absolutely nothing of legal relevance to my points.
Now then, I have shocking news for you. Her complaint isn't worth a bucket of warm piss in an honest court room. Do you want to know w
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1. She admits she had sex with him with informed consent of what she was doing.
2. She admits she invited him to spend the night with her, in her bed.
Agreed.
3. Fornication is legal, rape is not. Chant that a 1000 times before proceeding if you have to, to understand why we're about to run into problems.
Also agreed, though I'm not sure why you think I don't understand or agree with this.
4. She claims she was asleep, but we have no proof she was asleep.
5. She claims she did not consent to this act, but consented to having sex with him hours earlier.
6. She has no evidence that can concretely back up another claim of coercion.
4-6 Is just a simple way of saying it was a case of he said/she said, and you wouldn't expect to find concrete evidence of coercion in a case like that, though an investigation can sometimes come up with real evidence. Such as Assange having bragged to a friend, or Assange forgetting his fabricated story during questioning and admitting guilt, or Assange simply admitting under questioning because he's a human who in
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Troll bait: own free will, freely, by her own admission, most of, traces of, signs of coercion, plausibly, sudden, change of mind, made it into.
The thing about trolling, is that it needs to somewhat mimic the structure of
"pursuing their own charges against him" link (Score:2)
*alleged* charges. There is nothing formal, only rumors at this point. There is nothing they could actually charge him of other than anything any other journalist has done in publishing same information.
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https://www.theguardian.com/me... [theguardian.com]
For news about democracy (Score:2)
Watch RT: Where we tell you what your state run news won't.
Poor Assange (Score:2)
Assange said, "[...] it by no means erases seven years of detention without charge under house arrest and almost five years here in this embassy without sunlight. Seven years without charge while my children grow up without me. That is not something I can forgive. It is not something I can forget."
I wonder why he was detained for seven year years?
Oh yeah, because he was dodging an arrest warrant for a crime (he allegedly) committed.
If he was concerned about being extradited to the US over wikileaks this doe
Re:Blame it on Trump? (Score:5, Informative)
No. See the explanation for the dropping of the investigation [slashdot.org] which for some reason Slashdot didn't bother to mention. The short of it: They dropped it because Moreno won the Ecuadorian election, and he's refused to negotiate on handing over Assange, so there's no realistic possibility that he'll be surrendered before the statute of limitations runs out. Swedish law mandates that when all possibilities to resolve an investigation have been exhausted, the prosecutor is obliged to discontinue it.
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Well, that's the official reason. But it was always a long shot that Ecuador would hand over Assange anyway. They could easily have justified dropping the investigation many years ago.
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That this whole things would be a conspiracy honey pot in order to extradite Assange to USA is beyond stupid. First of all there are no extradition agreement between USA and Sweden which i.e is why we harbour quite a few American draft resisters from the Vietnam war (they knew that they could live here in peace and not be extradited to USA for their crimes).
If this would have been a honey pot operation then Assange would have been woke by armed police with the woman in bed screaming "rape, rape!" and not li
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First of all there are no extradition agreement between USA and Sweden
https://internationalextraditionblog.com/2011/06/15/sweden-extradition-treaty-with-the-united-states/
I don't know if that's real. But the first hit on Google shows a treaty in place, since the '60s.
If this would have been a honey pot operation then Assange would have been woke by armed police with the woman in bed screaming "rape, rape!" and not like how it was now that a few days later the women goes to the police, the police questions Assange, lets him go, lets him travel to the UK and then a new prosecutor decides to open the investigation again.
Julian Assange is arrested. He is questioned. Some agency thinks "great, he'll be in trial for months, and we can work out a diplomatic solution to the extradition. Charges dismissed. Assange goes to the UK. Oh,fuck. They don't ever try anyone for rape there? CIA calls someone ,and the prosecutor on the
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Its unreasonable because when the case was dropped the first time he was told that he could travel to another country. I.e that prosecutor completely dropped the case. So yes of course some agency here (CIA) could be stupid enough to believe that he would be detained for months as you muse but this is far to uncertain and "loose" to be a though out honey pot operation. If it would have been a real honey pot I will still argue that he would have been arrested at the night of the rape (since the rape was plan
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Re:Blame it on Trump? (Score:5, Interesting)
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It is just an attempt to get him into custody so he can be extradited to the US. Why not extradite him from the UK? The UK have a special agreement and never refuse to extradite. The only difference being that if extradited from Sweden the US does not have to agree not to execute him.
This is a load of bullshit. Neither Sweden nor Norway will extradite anyone facing capital punishment, this was also directly confirmed by the Swedish minister of justice William Hague. That is to say we'll certainly extradite to countries that have the law on the books, but in that particular case we'll insist you can at most get life without parole. If they executed him it'd lead to a huge diplomatic incident and the end of any future EU-US extraditions, that would never happen. The only semi-valid accusa
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Wouldn't their minds better be put at rest by taking their own STD test? Why the concern over Assange's well-being?
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Yes the women wanted to force Mr. Assange to have a test. How is that relevant? Even if neither of the women involved in this case wanted to press rape charges (not true!) the circumstances as described were consistent with two counts of rape and therefore the Police had the duty to investigate the case as a rape case rather than a sexual misconduct case.
The rest of your post isn't worth answering in particular as you post anonymous.
Re:Blame it on Trump? Maybe... (Score:2)
It seems far more likely a request from President Trump would be for Swedish prosecutors to:
"Stop the Witch hunt. Leave Assange alone. He's a good man."
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>Wikileaks clearly hindered the Democratic candidate to the benefit of the Republican.
The DNC and Hillary hindered the Democratic Candidate to the benefit of the Republican.
1. "I'm with her" instead of "I'm with you" as a campaign slogan - it could not be more fitting a campaign slogan for Hillary.
2. I'm not Trump - a ham sandwich is not Trump. It's not some great accomplishment.
3. Castigate and insult Bernie voters *continually* as if they're not needed to win the election.
4. Not have any real plat
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#4 was incomplete and the last sentence typoed "party"
I'm slipping.
--
BMO
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You didn't care to complete #4 the first time, or when you posted again nothing how it was incomplete.
You're just stating the obvious shit we all know, anyway. Hillary and the DNC are corrupt and incompetent and their actions, when exposed, resulted in America rejecting the fuck out of her. (Someone will come along and talk about the popular vote.)
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The thing I regret most of all is that Rand Paul ran as a Republican.
If he had been the Libertarian Candidate he might be sleeping in the White House tonight.
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Nah, you'd be blamed as one of the people who took votes away from Hillary.
Trust me on this.
--
BMO
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It was so pathetic that even tollbooth guy - unfit for trust in any office - was a leading contender for a while.
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You do realize that any other candidate would have nuked Trump by double digits? Yes? Bernie would have annihilated him.
--
BMO
I'm not so sure about that. Trump annihilated the entire GOP slate without saying 2 coherent sentences in a row and there were some heavyweights - and I'm not making a sly remark about Chris Christie. Hillary's campaign has a great many problems including carrying Bill's baggage and 30 years of being smeared by rightwing media but this election was all about angry people who thought everyone but them is getting ahead.
"I can't get a job or afford medication but all my elected reps are doing is finding a safe
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USA USA USA: "It's safe to come out now, we now know you're innocent of the charges we helped fabricate"
Assange: "uhh, ok"
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Perhaps. I see Trump and all the crap that is happening as a good and necessary thing. The timing is perfect- the GOP has a solid and incontestable hold on the House, Senate, and Presidency.
There has been rot and corruption deep in American politics for a while, and that rot has abscessed in a huge way the last couple of decades. If Hillary had won, it would just continue to grow and infect. Trump winning, and the resulting criminal behavior- coupled with the implicit AND active efforts of the rest of the G
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That's how it would go in a movie.
Sadly writing that way about reality just comes across as naive.
Just because you can't see it getting worse (and it's going to get a LOT worse before Trump is dragged out, probably in eight years) doesn't mean that deeply entrenched systemic corruption is going to be almost completely cleaned up after a few ringleaders are jailed.
Re: Obama (Score:1)
You... realize he's no longer president, right?
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You... realize he's no longer president, right?
He is still president. That's a perpetual title. He just doesn't hold office anymore, except as an emissary in potentia, and his powers are rather limited.
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You... realize he's no longer president, right?
He is still president. That's a perpetual title. He just doesn't hold office anymore, except as an emissary in potentia, and his powers are rather limited.
Is this what they teach little millennials now? He holds no office. The US has no titles of nobility that he could hold. Former presidents are given security details, ambassador assignments, etc. because they know things and are potential targets, because they hold popular influence, etc. They've got less official power than the spouse of the president.
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You have a fucking King in all but name who is above the law in every way so long as half the Senate like him.
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No.
WTF is it with people giving lectures to "correct" an opinion when they are basing it on nothing but gut feeling?
Re: Obama (Score:3)
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You need a new Russian-English translator, comrade.
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He is still president. That's a perpetual title. He just doesn't hold office anymore, except as an emissary in potentia, and his powers are rather limited.
Barack Obama is a former president. He is not the president. He no longer has the power to pardon anyone. That's what the topic is. That's what we are discussing. Why you think posting irrelevancies is contributing to the conversation is far beyond my understanding.
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I was quoting Obama's response when he was asked about pardoning Snowden.
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I know slashdotters love to hate assange but now we know it was fake charges all along
We know no such thing. The European arrest warrant was dropped because there was no way to execute it, but prosecution can be continued if he becomes available before 2020.
His claim that he has been imprisoned for seven years without a trial is of his own doing - he would have received either a trial or the charges dropped if he had presented himself. He chose to avoid to cooperate with the investigation, and jumped bail.
Not only is he wanted for fleeing while on bail, but there are civil suits pending fr
Re:See slashdot he's not so bad... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:See slashdot he's not so bad... (Score:5, Informative)
He did present himself to Sweden, and Sweden refused.
No, he did not. He agreed to do an interview from the embassy to an Ecuadorian intermediary, but not to present himself. The "interview" took place last year, but was worthless in that none of questions asked were answered, and instead deflected to a pre-written statement. It was a farce. As a result, the Swedish prosecutors upheld the charges.
The investigation is now dropped, mainly because after the election in Ecuador, there seems to be no way to negotiate an extradition. With no way to bring the investigation to a conclusion, the investigation has to be dropped. But if he presents himself, the charges can be brought forward, and he will have a chance to defend himself and actually answer the questions given.
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No, he did not.
Going back further he did, when he was in Sweden.
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Going back further he did, when he was in Sweden.
When he was in Sweden, he was not yet wanted as a person of interest in a rape case. The charges changed as more information was brought forward.
(Which, incidentally, goes a long way to squash the conspiracy theory about the charges being phony and intended to get him extradited to the US. If that was the purpose, they would have brought full charges to start with, and not added to them after more details surfaced, giving him an opportunity to leave.)
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No, he did not.
He presented himself multiple times in person in Sweden. He was told he could travel, and did.
He agreed to do an interview from the embassy to an Ecuadorian intermediary, but not to present himself.
You are twisting the words "present himself" to imply "surrender". He did not surrender, but he offered many times to a phone, videoconference and in-person interview. Sweden has done all of those with other people, but refused for Assange. Why?
But if he presents himself, the charges can be brought forward,
If he's suspected of being in a jurisdiction with extradition, the charges will be brought forward without him presenting himself. Then he'll be arrested.
he will have a chance to defend himself and actually answer the questions given.
Ah, presumed g
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He presented himself multiple times in person in Sweden. He was told he could travel, and did.
That was before enough details had come out to turn it into a rape case. They could not question him about rape or issue a detention order before there was a rape case.
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He did present himself to Sweden
No, he gave Sweden an offer to do something that is not part of a normal process while hiding outside their jurisdiction knowing that whatever Sweden decide will not have any bearing on his current predicament.
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With the Swedish extradition request, the UK could not have legally extradited Assange to the US. He was safer from the US because of the extradition request.
Assange voluntarily traveled to Sweden, and then to the UK. Going to the UK is a very strange thing to do for someone who fears a US extradition request.
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The timing is based off the presidential elections of Equador, not the elections of the US.
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Sweden has chosen to not pursue a legal conviction since before Assange "escaped" to Ecuador. Sweden has only acted to get him back in custody. It's inconsistent and suspicious.
Proof of his innocence is calls from the "victims" to drop the case.
A crime that isn't a crime almost anywhere else. Essentially Sexual Fr
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I don't understand the Swedish justice system in any detail, and I distrust accounts from people who aren't authorities and don't cite sources. Trials in absentia are abominations. I see no inconsistency in Sweden's waiting until they can get custody of a suspect to proceed with a case.
Every so often, rape victims call for charges to be dropped, for various reasons. That doesn't mean innocence.
I'm not taking any position on the accuracy of the statements, but one woman accused Assange of holding her
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Actually if you knew anything about suspected rape cases in Sweden you would realize that this case is in fact very odd.
Re: See slashdot he's not so bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing "fishy" about this case to start with was that Assange decided to run and hide in the embassy rather than face his day in court, spouting this blatant nonsense about a US extradition scheme.
Yet America refused to say that they would not ask Sweden to extradite if Assange agreed to testify.
And then they got Bolivian president's Evo Morales' plane rerouted by spreading rumors that Snowden was aboard and demanding extradition
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Yet America refused to say that they would not ask Sweden to extradite if Assange agreed to testify.
You're complaining that someone doesn't give legal guarantees about a case that hasn't even been brought to the prosecutor. In other news the USA hasn't decided it won't go after me for murder charges. I haven't committed murder and I'm not in the USA but the point is the same. If you're expecting anyone to provide a legally binding comment on a charge that hasn't even been laid you're delusional.
And then they got Bolivian president's Evo Morales' plane rerouted by spreading rumors that Snowden was aboard and demanding extradition
They also killed Osama Bin Laden, and now Trump is president. Let that sink in for a moment. Why? Because just l
Re: See slashdot he's not so bad... (Score:3)
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Re-read my post. It has nothing to do with your response.
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No you got that backwards. What doesn't matter is the state of the case, it's the legal guarantee that's the issue. The same reason why you don't ever comment to the public when you're in a court battle.
Anything you say can be used against you. Giving legal immunity against something without having actually defined that something (i.e. no case means he hasn't actually been even accused of a crime let alone a specific crime, and even then if you read about what's going on no one is 100% certain about which i
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Who says that the UK are not going to extradite him to the USA? After all if he steps out of the embassy he will still be arrested for breaking bail and seeking refuge.
It looks like Theresa May the coming UK Conservative Prime Minister will be the one to hand him over to Jeff Sessions for execution.
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That is the bit they will use to justify sending him off to the US for execution. They will say that he wasted millions of tax payers money and that is why he is being sent off to face the death sentence. The tabloid newspapers will publish anything you like if the owners agree and the people believe any old shit they are told.
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Chelsea Manning was not pardoned, her sentence was shortened. She is still guilty of the charges.
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erm. There are a lot of happy parents that would disagree with you on this.
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-=Beau=-
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Your mom didn't say anything about rape when she gave me a condom too.
Does that mean we're eskimo brothers?
Was Assange manipulated or set up? (Score:3)
erm. There are a lot of happy parents that would disagree with you on this.
Eh? Where did that come from?
Oh. Found it. Per my settings, I mostly don't see the ACs. Not all of them are trolls, but even when they aren't, they tend to be wasting my time. Having dug up the actual parent of your reply, I'll just say I think you [Cederic] are just wasting your time by feeding an obvious troll. No detectable interest in a rational discussion there.
Quite serendipitously and tangentially, there is an actual issue touched there. After all these years, I'm still wondering if Assange was set u
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No, if you start fuck a sleeping girl to work around her previous refusal to consent to your preferred form of sex, that's rape.
Which was charge #4 on the EAW, the one marked rape. The other three charges were 2x molestation and 1x unlawful sexual coersion.
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SW (the only person there was a rape charge concerning - there were only lesser charges concerning AA, and the statute of limitations has expired on them) did indeed only seek to force Assange to get an STD test - but she was telling people (including before going to the police, including before she met AA) that she had been raped. According to the witness statements, she didn't want to become embroiled in some big public mess with the public heaping negative attention on her (like, by the way, the vast maj
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Funny how neither one of the alleged "victims" in this case wanted Assange charged with anything. They just wanted him to get tested for STDs.
I don't find that funny at all. Going through a sexual assault trial against a major public figure (full of extremely personal questions and constant character assassination), wanting justice but not necessarily prison time, etc, etc. There is a lot of stuff between fully consensual sex and forcible rape, and the legal system does not handle it well.
I think there's a couple things most people can agree on here:
1) Assange was in the wrong.
2) As sexual offences go there are far worse ones, and not everyone is
Re: (Score:2)
Except both of them were groupies and only claimed rape, after each other found out about the other.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh and one is suspected to be CIA operative or payed by the CIA. Wikileaks came months before the consensual sex and false rape charges, that even the women said they weren't raped.
Re: (Score:1)
I guess the Ecuadorian embassy got their internet back! Congrats!
Re:Detention? (Score:5, Informative)
He was actually under house arrest at one point in the UK, while the UK court cases were playing out - although said "house" was a luxurious country mansion. He had to cut his tracking bracelet before fleeing to the embassy.