We speak to Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters on the arrest of Julian Assange. He calls on the UK to rise up to oppose Assange’s extradition, labels the UK a satellite state of US empire for arresting Assange and attacks the government of Lenin Moreno for revoking his asylum LIKE Going Underground http://fb.me/GoingUndergroundRT
A joint investigation by Four Corners, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reveals fresh and compelling evidence of covert Beijing-backed political activity taking place in Australia.
After taking political asylum for seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Julian Assange was removed by British police. Assange was shackled and taken into custody. There was a warrant in the U.K. for skipping bail in 2012, but the United States had also charged the Wikileaks founder with conspiring to hack a classified government computer, back in 2010. He faces extradition, and if convicted, could be sentenced to five years in prison. Anand Naidoo interviewed former technical director of the U.S. National Security Agency William Benny about Assange's arrest.
Julian Assange is out: The WikiLeaks founder was arrested at Ecuador's embassy in London on Thursday.
Seven years later: Assange sought refuge there in 2012 while facing sexual assault allegations in Sweden, which he denied.
Asylum "no longer viable": Ecuador said it had run out of patience with Assange's behavior and withdrew his asylum.
Arrested "on behalf of US": UK police ended years of speculation about Assange's fate by confirming that the US wants to extradite him.
Ecuador's ex-President says the country's ab
Ecuador's former president Rafael Correa said the revocation of Julian Assange's asylum is "incredible," in an interview with CNN's Richard Quest today.
"It’s incredible. We cannot imagine something like this. It’s against international law; it’s against the institution of asylum; it’s against the Ecuadorian constitution, especially because since last year, Julian Assange has had Ecuadorian citizenship," Correa said.
Correa was in power when Assange requested asylum. He told CNN he agreed to shelter the Australian WikiLeaks founder "not because we agree with what he did" but because "it was very clear that he didn’t have the opportunity to have a fair lawsuit, a fair process in the US."
“They are lies. They’re a justification for trying to justify this betrayal. It’s the biggest betrayal perhaps in Latin American history,” Correa said.
Correa added that Moreno has never seen eye to eye with Assange since assuming the presidency in 2017.
In addition to allowing UK police to enter the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador also announced his citizenship had been suspended effective from Wednesday, according to foreign minister Jose Valencia at a press conference.
How long did Assange spend in Ecuador's embassy?
File photograph of Assange peering through the balcony window of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London on February 5, 2016.
In case you're wondering WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stayed in his self-imposed exile at Ecuador's London embassy for six years, nine months and 24 days.
Or 2,488 days from start to end.
He entered his diplomatic bolthole on June 19, 2012.
(Perfectly useless knowledge unless it crops up at a trivia night.)
Assange reacts to possible US extradition: "I told you so"
Speaking to journalists in a scrum outside Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon, Jennifer Robinson, a member of Julian Assange's legal team, said they had been proven right in regards to their previous warnings that Assange would face extradition to United States for his "publishing activities" since 2010.
“I've just been with Mr Assange in the police cell, he wants to thank all of his supporters for the ongoing support, and he said - 'I told you so.' "
Robinson added her client was formally notified his asylum would be revoked by the Ecuadorian Ambassador this morning.
More charges expected against Assange in US hacking case
From CNN's Evan Perez
US Justice Department officials expect to bring additional charges Assange, according to a US official briefed on the matter. It is unclear when officials would bring such charges.
The years-long FBI investigation into Assange transformed in recent years with the recovery of communications that prosecutors believe shows Assange had been been a more active participant in a conspiracy to hack computers and violate US law, officials say.
The Justice Department had struggled for years with the question of whether Assange and WikiLeaks should be treated as journalists and publishers. News organizations similarly published stolen classified documents, some even worked with WikiLeaks to get access to documents and publish stories.
The view among prosecutors began changing late in the Obama administration, in part due to new evidence the FBI believed showed Assange was not entitled to journalistic protections.
In 2017, the WikiLeaks publication of stolen CIA hacking codes helped propel the case against Assange, according to current and former US law enforcement officials.
Washington (CNN)WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged with helping the former Army intelligence specialist Chelsea Manning access Defense Department computers in 2010 in an effort to disclose secret government documents, the US Justice Department announced Thursday morning, hours after Assange was forcibly removed by authorities from the Ecuadoran embassy in London.
More than a year ago, a federal grand jury indicted Assange for one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
The case had been kept under seal until Thursday, and its unveiling marks a new chapter in the US government's high-profile efforts to discourage classified document leaks and to pursue Assange.
It's not clear yet whether or how Assange's claims as a journalist under the First Amendment, which his organization, supporters and lawyers have pushed, will factor into this case. He and WikiLeaks also play a role in separate allegations that Russian military intelligence hackers illegally accessed Democratic Party servers during the 2016 election, but special counsel Robert Mueller did not charge Assange or WikiLeaks with any related crimes.
The Justice Department Thursday said Assange's charge Thursday relates to "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."
Assange will be brought to the Eastern District of Virginia federal court once in the US, according to the indictment. Authorities and his lawyer said the US is seeking to extradite him.
He has not entered a plea in US court
Barry Pollack, an attorney for Assange, says the allegations against Assange in the indictment made public "boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identify of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges."
Assange was found guilty Thursday in London of breaking his bail conditions and ordered to appear on May 2 for an extradition hearing. Until then, he will remain in custody.
The charge announced Thursday is against Assange, though Manning is a named conspirator in the case. Manning has been held in jail in recent weeks for refusing to testify against Assange before a grand jury this year.
Allegations detailed
Assange's alleged crime dates to 2010, when he agreed to help Manning, then a US Army intelligence analyst, "in cracking a password" on Defense Department computers to access a secure network of US government classified documents, according to the indictment.
This allowed Manning to use a different username than her own to log onto the government network. Manning and Assange discussed their ploy in real time, prosecutors said.
Assange had encouraged Manning to get the records, the indictment alleges, and both took steps to obscure Manning's identity as Wikileaks' leaker.
At one point, in March 2010, Assange asked Manning about information on the password, and said he had "no luck so far" in cracking it, the indictment said.
"At the time he entered this agreement, Assange knew that Manning was providing WikiLeaks with classified records containing national defense information of the United States," the indictment says. "Assange was knowingly receiving such classified records from Manning for the purpose of publicly disclosing them on the WikiLeaks website."
Assange and Manning spoke to one another over the chat service "Jabber," the indictment says.
If found guilty, the charge Assange faces carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
More charges expected in future
Justice Department officials expect to bring additional charges Assange, a US official briefed on the matter said. It is unclear when such charges would be brought.
The years-long FBI investigation into Assange transformed in recent years with the recovery of communications that prosecutors believe show Assange had been been a more active participant in a conspiracy to hack computers and violating US law, law enforcement officials say.
The Justice Department had struggled for years with the question of whether Assange and WikiLeaks should be treated as journalists and publishers. News organizations similarly published stolen classified documents, some even worked with WikiLeaks to get access to documents and publish stories.
The view among prosecutors began changing late in the Obama administration, in part due to new evidence the FBI believed showed Assange was not entitled to journalistic protections.
In 2017, the WikiLeaks publication of stolen CIA hacking codes helped propel the case against Assange, according to current and former US law enforcement officials.
The FBI also weighed the organization's role in the 2016 publication of documents hacked by Russian intelligence agencies. But investigators for months struggled to connect Assange directly to the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign officials. Investigators had access to monitoring of multiple communications methods that Assange used during that period. It's not clear whether that eavesdropping eventually turned up evidence that can be used in a case against Assange.
Signs of indictment
Signs that the US was moving on the case emerged in recent weeks when prosecutors subpoenaed Manning to testify before a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia. She remains detained because she has refused to testify before a grand jury about her disclosure of military and diplomatic secrets to WikiLeaks.
On Thursday, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, an attorney for Manning, said Assange's arrest does not offer a "foregone conclusion" that her client will be released.
"Were (Assange) to be extradited we hope it would signal her release but that is not, unfortunately, a foregone conclusion," Meltzer-Cohen said.
Longtime pursuit
Manning previously faced charges related to the same leak that ensnared Assange on Thursday.
In Assange's case, prosecutors note how Manning downloaded four "nearly complete" databases from US agencies, largely regarding documents about the war in Afghanistan, briefs on Guantanamo Bay detainees and diplomatic cables, and Wikileaks published the documents online in 2010 and 2011.
The leaked files that underpin Assange's charge Thursday include the diplomatic cables and the pursuit of Guantanamo Bay detainee records, prosecutors said in the indictment.
Manning had told Assange in March 2010 she was "throwing everything [she had] on JTF GTMO at [Assange] now," according to Thursday's indictment. "After this upload, that's all I really have got left," Manning said.
"Curious eyes never run dry in my experience," Assange allegedly replied.
Manning was arrested in 2010 and later charged with leaking thousands of classified files. After an eight-week military trial in 2013, she was found guilty of several counts, including violations of the Espionage Act, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. That sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017.
Assange's arrest Thursday was precipitated by mounting tensions between Assange and his long-time Ecuadoran hosts, and executed through a treaty between the UK and US to extradite defendants.
The US Department of Homeland Security issued a "red notice" for Assange on the worldwide law enforcement network Interpol as early as March 2011, according to a diplomatic source with first-hand knowledge of the document.
The source said the red notice did not mention any charges in particular at the time.
A red notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action, according to Interpol. It is not an arrest warrant.
CNN's Nina dos Santos and David Shortell contributed
Julian Assange indicted in US for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in 2010
Washington (CNN)WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged with helping the former Army intelligence specialist Chelsea Manning access Defense Department computers in 2010 in an effort to disclose secret government documents, the US Justice Department announced Thursday morning, hours after Assange was forcibly removed by authorities from the Ecuadoran embassy in London.
More than a year ago, a federal grand jury indicted Assange for one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
The case had been kept under seal until Thursday, and its unveiling marks a new chapter in the US government's high-profile efforts to discourage classified document leaks and to pursue Assange.
It's not clear yet whether or how Assange's claims as a journalist under the First Amendment, which his organization, supporters and lawyers have pushed, will factor into this case. He and WikiLeaks also play a role in separate allegations that Russian military intelligence hackers illegally accessed Democratic Party servers during the 2016 election, but special counsel Robert Mueller did not charge Assange or WikiLeaks with any related crimes.
The Justice Department Thursday said Assange's charge Thursday relates to "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."
Assange will be brought to the Eastern District of Virginia federal court once in the US, according to the indictment. Authorities and his lawyer said the US is seeking to extradite him.
He has not entered a plea in US court
Barry Pollack, an attorney for Assange, says the allegations against Assange in the indictment made public "boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identify of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges."
Assange was found guilty Thursday in London of breaking his bail conditions and ordered to appear on May 2 for an extradition hearing. Until then, he will remain in custody.
The charge announced Thursday is against Assange, though Manning is a named conspirator in the case. Manning has been held in jail in recent weeks for refusing to testify against Assange before a grand jury this year.
Allegations detailed
Assange's alleged crime dates to 2010, when he agreed to help Manning, then a US Army intelligence analyst, "in cracking a password" on Defense Department computers to access a secure network of US government classified documents, according to the indictment.
This allowed Manning to use a different username than her own to log onto the government network. Manning and Assange discussed their ploy in real time, prosecutors said.
Assange had encouraged Manning to get the records, the indictment alleges, and both took steps to obscure Manning's identity as Wikileaks' leaker.
At one point, in March 2010, Assange asked Manning about information on the password, and said he had "no luck so far" in cracking it, the indictment said.
"At the time he entered this agreement, Assange knew that Manning was providing WikiLeaks with classified records containing national defense information of the United States," the indictment says. "Assange was knowingly receiving such classified records from Manning for the purpose of publicly disclosing them on the WikiLeaks website."
Assange and Manning spoke to one another over the chat service "Jabber," the indictment says.
If found guilty, the charge Assange faces carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
More charges expected in future
Justice Department officials expect to bring additional charges Assange, a US official briefed on the matter said. It is unclear when such charges would be brought.
The years-long FBI investigation into Assange transformed in recent years with the recovery of communications that prosecutors believe show Assange had been been a more active participant in a conspiracy to hack computers and violating US law, law enforcement officials say.
The Justice Department had struggled for years with the question of whether Assange and WikiLeaks should be treated as journalists and publishers. News organizations similarly published stolen classified documents, some even worked with WikiLeaks to get access to documents and publish stories.
The view among prosecutors began changing late in the Obama administration, in part due to new evidence the FBI believed showed Assange was not entitled to journalistic protections.
In 2017, the WikiLeaks publication of stolen CIA hacking codes helped propel the case against Assange, according to current and former US law enforcement officials.
The FBI also weighed the organization's role in the 2016 publication of documents hacked by Russian intelligence agencies. But investigators for months struggled to connect Assange directly to the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign officials. Investigators had access to monitoring of multiple communications methods that Assange used during that period. It's not clear whether that eavesdropping eventually turned up evidence that can be used in a case against Assange.
Signs of indictment
Signs that the US was moving on the case emerged in recent weeks when prosecutors subpoenaed Manning to testify before a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia. She remains detained because she has refused to testify before a grand jury about her disclosure of military and diplomatic secrets to WikiLeaks.
On Thursday, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, an attorney for Manning, said Assange's arrest does not offer a "foregone conclusion" that her client will be released.
"Were (Assange) to be extradited we hope it would signal her release but that is not, unfortunately, a foregone conclusion," Meltzer-Cohen said.
Longtime pursuit
Manning previously faced charges related to the same leak that ensnared Assange on Thursday.
In Assange's case, prosecutors note how Manning downloaded four "nearly complete" databases from US agencies, largely regarding documents about the war in Afghanistan, briefs on Guantanamo Bay detainees and diplomatic cables, and Wikileaks published the documents online in 2010 and 2011.
The leaked files that underpin Assange's charge Thursday include the diplomatic cables and the pursuit of Guantanamo Bay detainee records, prosecutors said in the indictment.
Manning had told Assange in March 2010 she was "throwing everything [she had] on JTF GTMO at [Assange] now," according to Thursday's indictment. "After this upload, that's all I really have got left," Manning said.
"Curious eyes never run dry in my experience," Assange allegedly replied.
Manning was arrested in 2010 and later charged with leaking thousands of classified files. After an eight-week military trial in 2013, she was found guilty of several counts, including violations of the Espionage Act, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. That sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017.
Assange's arrest Thursday was precipitated by mounting tensions between Assange and his long-time Ecuadoran hosts, and executed through a treaty between the UK and US to extradite defendants.
The US Department of Homeland Security issued a "red notice" for Assange on the worldwide law enforcement network Interpol as early as March 2011, according to a diplomatic source with first-hand knowledge of the document.
The source said the red notice did not mention any charges in particular at the time.
A red notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action, according to Interpol. It is not an arrest warrant.
CNN's Nina dos Santos and David Shortell contributed
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Washington (CNN)WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged with helping the former Army intelligence specialist Chelsea Manning access Defense Department computers in 2010 in an effort to disclose secret government documents, the US Justice Department announced Thursday morning, hours after Assange was forcibly removed by authorities from the Ecuadoran embassy in London.
More than a year ago, a federal grand jury indicted Assange for one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
The case had been kept under seal until Thursday, and its unveiling marks a new chapter in the US government's high-profile efforts to discourage classified document leaks and to pursue Assange.
It's not clear yet whether or how Assange's claims as a journalist under the First Amendment, which his organization, supporters and lawyers have pushed, will factor into this case. He and WikiLeaks also play a role in separate allegations that Russian military intelligence hackers illegally accessed Democratic Party servers during the 2016 election, but special counsel Robert Mueller did not charge Assange or WikiLeaks with any related crimes.
The Justice Department Thursday said Assange's charge Thursday relates to "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."
Julian Assange removed from Ecuadorian embassy in London - video
David Crouch
Elisabeth Massi Fritz, lawyer for the Swedish woman whose case against Assange remains outstanding, has given the Guardian a longer statement:
My client and I have today received the news that Assange has been arrested in London. It did understandably come as a shock to my client that what we have been waiting and hoping for since 2012 has now finally happened. We are going to do everything we possibly can to get the Swedish police investigation re-opened so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape. No rape victim should have to wait nine years to see justice be served.#
I have requested an urgent procedure [from the prosecutor to extradite Assange].
Assange’s lawyers have been speaking outside Westminster Magistrates court.
BBC News (UK)✔@BBCNews
"This sets a dangerous precedent... any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the US for having published truthful information about the US" Julian Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson confirms Wikileaks co-founder will fight extraditionhttp://bbc.in/2Kv9R1e
Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been commenting on today’s events in the House of Commons. “Ecuador’s actions recognise that the UK criminal justice system is one in which rights are protected and in which, contrary to what Mr Assange and his supporters claim, he and his legitimate interests will be protected,” he said.
He said that proceedings would now begin according to the court timetable. Full extradition papers would need to be received by a judge within 65 days, said Javid, and a full extradition request certified by the Home Office. Said he would not discuss the accusations against Assange.
I am pleased that the situation in the Ecuadorian embassy has finally been brought to an end. Mr Assange will now have the opportunity to contest the charge against him in open court and to have any extradition requests considered by the judiciary.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid reading a statement on Julian Assange to the House of Commons. Photograph: BBC/ BBC
Diane Abbott responded to Javid’s statement by saying she was pleased to hear that Assange would now have access to medical care “because there have been worrying reports about his ill health”
On this side of the house, we want to make the point that the reason we are debating Julian Assange this afternoon – even though the only charge he may face in this country is in relation to his bail hearings – ... is entirely to do with the whistleblowing activities of Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
It is this whistleblowing activity into illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale that has put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US administration. It is for this reason that they have one more issued an extradition warrant against Julian Assange.
She added: “Julian Assange is not being pursued to protect US national security, he is being pursued because he has exposed wrongdoing by US administrations and their military forces.”
Diane Abbott responds to the Home Secretary’s statement on Julian Assange in the House of Commons. Photograph: BBC/ BBC
Speaking outside Westminster magistrates court after this afternoon’s hearing, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, said:
Anyone who wants the press to be free should consider the implications of this case. If they will extradite a journalist to the US then no journalist will be safe. This must stop. This must end.
David Crouch
This is from journalist David Crouch in Sweden:
One of the Swedish women who made the 2010 allegations against Assange, whose rape case was closed by Swedish prosecutors in 2017, told the Guardian she was opposed to his extradition to the US. “I would be very surprised and sad if Julian is handed over to the US,” she said via email, asking for her name not to be used.
“For me this was never about anything else than his misconduct against me and other women, and his refusal to take responsibility for this. Too bad my case could never be investigated properly, but the arrest will not change this, the case cannot be opened. I am prepared to testify if the other case opens up again.”
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Our model enables people to support us in a way that works for them. Readers’ support safeguards our essential editorial independence.
While Assange waited for his legal team to arrive he sat in the dock reading Gore Vidal’s “history of the national security state”. He also waved and gave a thumbs up to a supporter in the public gallery clad in a yellow vest.
Simon Murphy✔@murphy_simon
Assange shouted “this is unlawful” as police officers struggled to drag him from the Ecuadorian embassy this morning, the court heard. “This is unlawful, I’m not leaving,” he said.
The court heard police officers arrived at the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge at about 9.15am and were met by the ambassador. “He indicated he was preparing to serve upon Assange documentation revoking his asylum,” James Hines, representing the US government, said.
“Officers tried to introduce themselves to him in order to execute the arrest warrant before he barged past them, attempting to return to his private room. He was eventually arrested at 10.15am. He resisted that arrest, claiming ‘this is unlawful’ and he had to be restrained.
Officers were struggling to handcuff him. They received assistance from other officers outside and he was handcuffed saying, ‘this is unlawful, I’m not leaving’. He was in fact lifted into the police van outside the embassy and taken to West End Central police station.”
Assange’s lawyer, Liam Walker, said the defence of reasonable excuse partly relied on his claims the chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot, who has previously dealt with the case, was biased against him.
He alleged her husband, Lord Arbuthnot, was directly impacted by the activities of WikiLeaks and Assange. But the judge told Walker it was unacceptable for him to air the claim in front of a packed press gallery.
“This is grossly unfair and improper to do it just to ruin the reputation of a senior and able judge in front of the press.
He has chosen not to give evidence, he has chosen to make assertions about a senior judge not having the courage to place himself before the court for the purpose of cross-examination.
Those assertions made through counsel are not evidence as a matter of law. I find they are not capable of amounting to a reasonable excuse.
Dan Collyns
In a tweet, Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, said: “We strongly condemn the detention of Julian Assange and the violation of freedom of speech. Our solidarity with this brother who is persecuted by the US government for revealing its human rights violations, murders of civilians and diplomatic espionage.”
Evo Morales Ayma✔@evoespueblo
Condenamos enérgicamente la detención de #JulianAssange y la violación a la libertad de expresión. Nuestra solidaridad con este hermano que es perseguido por el gobierno de #EEUU por revelar sus violaciones a los derechos humanos, asesinatos de civiles y espionaje diplomático
Guardian reporter Simon Murphy has been at Westminster magistrates court, where Julian Assange was found guilty of skipping bail after spending nearly seven years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Justice Michael Snow described Assange as a narcissist. Snow told the court: “His assertion that he has had not had a fair hearing is laughable. And his behaviour is that of a narcissist who cannot get past his own self-interest.”
Assange, who pleaded not guilty, has been remanded in custody due to face sentencing at Southwark crown court at a date yet to be set. He is due to appear in May in relation to the United States’ extradition charge.
Justice Michael Snow said Assange’s claim that he had not had a fair hearing was “laughable” as he appeared bedraggled in the dock at Westminster Magistrates’ court.
Simon Murphy✔@murphy_simon
Justice Snow told the court: “His assertion that he has had not had a fair hearing is laughable. And his behaviour is that of a narcissist who cannot get past his own self-interest.”
At a press briefing, Downing Street said that the prime minister and the government were aware in advance that the Ecuadorians intended to revoke Julian Assange’s asylum status, allowing him to be arrested earlier today.
A number 10 spokeswoman said: “There has been a dialogue with [the] Ecuadorian government from the onset. The decision to revoke asylum was one for them entirely. They have set that out.”
When pressed whether the UK had lobbied Ecuador, she repeated that the decision was “taken entirely by them”. Downing Street did not respond directly when asked if Assange’s arrest raised any questions for freedom of speech. The spokesman said the WikiLeaks founder would now be subject to “an ongoing legal process, and we need to let that run its course”.
Dan Collyns
Speaking at a press conference in the Ecuadorian capital Quito just after 7am local time, the country’s interior minister María Paula Romo said a person with links to WikiLeakshas been detained in the country.
She alleged the person had worked alongside Ricardo Patiño, the former foreign minister, in attempts to “destabilise” the government. Patiño granted Assange asylum in 2012 and was a close confidante of ex-president Rafael Correa.
She also said that Assange had smeared faeces on the walls of the embassy in London.
In the same press conference, the country’s foreign minister José Valencia said Assange’s Ecuadorean citizenship had been suspended due to the “innumerable problems, breaches of international accords” and his “interference in external matters”.
Cancillería Ecuador✔@CancilleriaEc
Compartimos la intervención del Canciller @ValenciaJoseEc en la rueda de prensa ofrecida esta mañana sobre el retiro del asilo diplomático al señor Julian Assange. #EcuadorSoberano.
Julian Assange has been found guilty of breaching bail in 2012 after being arrested at the Ecuadorean embassy in London on Thursday. Judge Michael Snow said he will be sentenced next month at Southwark Crown Court. He said Assange had shown the “behaviour of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest”.
The United States has requested the extradition of Assange and charged him with involvement in computer hacking with Chelsea Manning. The Metropolitan police said the arrest was made on behalf of the US authorities.
The US justice department said Assange faces up to five years in jail if convicted. It said extradition request is being handled by its office of international affairs.
Theresa May welcomed Assange’s arrest saying it showed “no one is above the law.”She told MPs Assange was arrested for breach of bail after nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy and in relation to an extradition request from the United States’ authorities.
Police were videoed forcibly removing Assange from the embassy at around at around 10.50am. Police had been invited into the building by the Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange had take refuge for almost seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation.
The president of Ecuador, Lenín Moreno, said he secured guarantees from the UK that Assange would not face the death penalty or torture. Justifying the move of handing him over to the British police, Moreno said: “In a sovereign decision, Ecuador withdrew the asylum status to Julian Assange after his repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life- protocols.”
Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a lawyer for one of the two women who accused Assange, welcomed the arrest. The Swedish prosecution authority is expected to issue a statement later.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hoped that Assange’s rights would not be violated. A spokeswoman for the foreign ministry accused the UK of strangling freedom.
The arrest was welcomed by the UK government. The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, thanked Ecuador, saying: “Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law. He has hidden from the truth for years.” The home secretary, Sajid Javid, is due to update parliament later on Thursday.
Assange’s supporters have condemned the arrest. Rafael Correa, who was Ecuadorian president when Assange was granted asylum, accused his successor of treachery.
The judge said the assertion that Assange had not had a fair hearing earlier was “laughable”, PA reports.
Judge Michael Snow said Assange will face another hearing by video link on 2 May.
A crown court will decide what sentence Assange will face for skipping bail.
He faces up to 12 months in jail, according to PA.
Press Association✔@PA
#Breaking Julian Assange has been found guilty of breaching his bail at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and faces a jail sentence of up to 12 months when he is sentenced at Crown Court
District Judge Michael Snow tells the defence it is “unacceptable in front of a packed press gallery to traduce the reputation of the senior District Judge”. He says it is “grossly unfair”
Daniel Sandford✔@BBCDanielS
District Judge Michael Snow finds Julian Assange guilty of failing to surrender
The book Assange was pictured holding during his removal from the embassy this morning – and later read in the dock at Westminster Magistrates Court – was Gore Vidal: History of The National Security State.
It’s a strange little book – not written by Vidal as much of the media have reported – but a series of interviews with Vidal conducted over two years by Paul Jay, editor of non-profit news organisation The Real News Network, who self-published the book on Amazon.
It sees Vidal, then in his eighties and keeping a beady eye on the US from his Italian villa, in a ponderous mood as he considers his imminent return stateside. (Hewould die in the Hollywood Hills in 2012 at the age of 86). Considering his future, he tells Jay: “I’m a battleship ... I’m meant for war. But I don’t know if I can do it any more.”
Vidal was a vocal critic of American society and politics, particularly the monopoly of wealth poured into its military and its history of foreign policy. Jay describes Vidal as “a genuine class traitor. [He] could have lived an easier and more celebrated life if he just kept his mouth shut.”
In conversation with Jay, Vidal pulls apart US foreign policy, vote-rigging and corruption in the media.
“I think everybody should take a sober look at the world about us, remember that practically everything that you’re told about other countries is untrue, what we’re told about ourselves and our great strength and how much loved we are – forget it. Our strength is there, but it’s the kind of strength that blows off your hand while you hold up the grenade; it’s a suicidal strength as well as a murderous one.”
Assange pleads not guilty
The BBC’s Daniel Sandford is tweeting updates from Westminster magistrates court.
Officers tried to introduce themselves but he barged past them. He resisted and shouted “this is unlawful”. He had to be restrained and officers struggled to handcuff him. He shouted again “This is unlawful, I am not leaving” as he was led to the police van
Julian Assange is told that one charge he faces is that he failed to surrender on 29th June 2012. He pleads “not guilty”
Assange is sitting in the dock at Westminster magistrates court reading the Gore Vidal book on the security state (see earlier) that he was seen clutching when he was arrested.
Mark White✔@skymarkwhite
Julian Assange sitting in the dock, waiting for proceedings to get underway in court, reading Gore Vidal book.. first time I've seen any accused reading any form of book in the dock, other than their legal documents
The indictment against Assange has now been unsealed by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, just across the Potomac river from Washington DC.
It alleges Assange was involved in a computer hacking conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former army intelligence analyst, to crack a defence department password. Cracking that password allowed Manning to log on to a secret government computer network under another username and so cover her tracks when she leaked a vast trove of military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.
Assange is accused of “actively encouraging” Manning to provide more information. According to the indictment, when Manning told him that she had sent WikiLeaks all she had, Assange replied: “Curious eyes never run dry in my experience.”
This has been in the works for a few months at least. The eastern Virginia prosecutors, who are likely to be taking the lead because theirs is the nearest federal court to the Pentagon, let slip that Assange had had been criminally charged under seal in November, when they wrote his name on the wrong court docket.
Lawyer Susan Hennessey says the US charges present the UK authorities with an interesting dilemma.
Lauri Love ruling ‘sets precedent’ for trying hacking suspects..
Rights Group and lawyers for 33-year-old welcome landmark judgement against extradition to the US TheGardian.com
WikiLeaks says that its editor, Kristinn Hrafnsson, and Assange’s UK lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, will be making a statement outside Westminster magistrates court after Assange’s hearing.
WikiLeaks✔@wikileaks
Announce: WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson and UK lawyer for Assange Jennifer Robinson will be making a statement outside Westminster Magistrate's Court after Assange's hearing has concluded
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van, after he was arrested by British police in London Thursday. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van, after he was arrested by British police in London Thursday. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
Julian Assange has been charged by the US with conspiring to hack into a secret Pentagon computer network, in a criminal indictment unveiled soon after the WikiLeaks founder’s arrest in London.
Assange is accused of working with Chelsea Manning, then a US army intelligence analyst, to break into the defense department network in March 2010 to obtain classified documents.
Julian Assange: US justice department says Julian Assange faces five years in jail in the USA -
Assange, 47, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted.
US prosecutors allege Assange helped Manning crack an encrypted password to gain access to the computer network under a username that did not belong to her, making it more difficult for authorities to trace the source of leaked documents.
“Assange, who did not possess a security clearance or need to know, was not authorised to receive classified information of the United States,” they said.
Manning had by then given WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of secret government records, including logs from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She went on to give them a huge cache of secret diplomatic cables. Some of the files were published by WikiLeaks in partnership with news organisations including the Guardian.
The indictment cited online discussions between the two in which Assange was seen “actively encouraging Manning to provide more information”, the justice department said.
“After this upload, that’s all I really have got left,” Manning was said to have told Assange in one message. Assange allegedly replied: “Curious eyes never run dry in my experience.”
Assange was secretly indicted in March last year by a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, according to the documents released on Thursday. The charge remained a secret until it was partly revealed by the justice department in a mistaken court filing last November.
By charging Assange with hacking rather than for publishing classified information, US prosecutors avoided having to directly challenge the press freedoms guaranteed under the first amendment of the US constitution.
The charge accuses Assange of conspiring to “knowingly access a computer without authorisation” in order to obtain secret information whose release “could be used to the injury of the United States and the advantage of any foreign nation”.
But allies of Assange said the US was prosecuting a publisher by the back door.
Barry Pollack, an attorney for the WikiLeaks founder, condemned what he called “an unprecedented effort” to “extradite a foreign journalist to face criminal charges for publishing truthful information”. Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, described Assange’s arrest as “a dark moment for press freedom”.
Barack Obama’s administration was known to have investigated WikiLeaks in the years following the release of Manning’s document haul. But Eric Holder, Obama’s first attorney general, reportedly decided against bringing charges out of concerns that a precedent could be set for prosecuting publishers.
The grand jury in Virginia has continued investigating Assange in recent months, indicating he may yet face additional criminal charges from the US. WikiLeaks has come under scrutiny for publishing leaked spying tools taken from the CIA, and for releasing emails hacked from the accounts of senior Democrats during the 2016 election campaign.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said in response to the charges that Assange had become “a direct participant in Russian efforts to undermine the west” and should be punished.
The US confirmed it would seek the extradition of Assange from the UK. He was arrested on Thursday morning at the embassy of Ecuador, where he had been staying since 2012 after being granted asylum. He was then under investigation by authorities in Sweden for allegations of sexual assault, which he denied.
Attorneys for Assange said they would fight the extradition process, which could result in a lengthy legal dispute in the British courts system.
Manning was convicted in 2013 under the Espionage Act for stealing classified government records. In May 2017 she was released from a military prison in Kansas after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence. Barack Obama granted Manning clemency during his final days in office.
Manning has been jailed in Virginia for the past month after being found in contempt of court for refusing to testify to the grand jury investigating Assange. She was held in solitary confinement for part of that time.
Watch soon: Assange's lawyer expected to give a statement after arrest
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things' Subscribe to the Guardian HERE: http://bitly.com/UvkFpD The source behind the Guardian's NSA files talks to Glenn Greenwald about his motives for the biggest intelligence leak in a generation. Watch the first second of the exclusive interview with Edward Snowden HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_qdn... Read the Guardian's full NSA files coverage HERE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-n... More on the NSA leaks and Edward Snowden from the Guardian HERE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/...
Documentary about Saudi Prince Nayef Al-Shaalan, who was sentenced in absentia to ten years in jail on charges of involvement in a cocaine-smuggling gang. The prince was one of ten people handed jail terms in connection with an operation which landed two tonnes of cocaine outside Paris in 1999. He was accused of using his diplomatic immunity to smuggle drugs to France on board a private jet. Was the grandson of founding Saudi monarch Abdulaziz, and son-in-law to the Saudi deputy defence minister, trying to covertly raise money for black operations? #SaudiArabia#cocaine#monarchyhttp://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news....http://www.williambowles.info/venezue...http://www.thedossier.infohttps://twitter.com/theDossier_info
Edward Snowden has tweeted again, describing the “weakness of the US charge” as shocking.
Edward Snowden✔@Snowden
The weakness of the US charge against Assange is shocking. The allegation he tried (and failed?) to help crack a password during their world-famous reporting has been public for nearly a decade: it is the count Obama's DOJ refused to charge, saying it endangered journalism.
Glenn Greenwald✔@ggreenwald
Replying to @ggreenwald
The DOJ says part of what Assange did to justify his prosecution - beyond allegedly helping Manning get the documents - is he encouraged Manning to get more docs for him to publish. Journalists do this with sources constantly: it's the criminalization of journalism
Can Julian Assange be charged with additional offences once he has been extradited to the United States? The Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent, Owen Bowcott, has this answer.
Normal practice is that anyone extradited can only be prosecuted in the country that sought them for the offences specified on the extradition indictment. That restriction is known as the Rule of Specialty. But there are two possible but difficult to use exemptions.
The first is that if it could be argued new information had come to light since his extradition, extra charges could conceivably be brought. “That almost never happens,” said Nick Vamos, the former head of extradition at the Crown Prosecution Service who is a partner at the London law firm peters and Peters. “American prosecutors would also have to seek the consent of the UK to bring in further charges.”
The second exemption covers what happens after someone has been extradited, convicted and then chooses to remain in the country. Essentially the extraditing country has to allow the prisoner time to run away after they have served their sentence.
“After a short period, however, usually two months,” Vamos explained, “anyone who remained in the same country would be deemed to be treated like a local citizen and could be charged for other offences.”
Neither conditions are likely to be met in Assange’s case. “The US has only put one charge on the indictment and it carries the maximum term of five years in prison. Assange has the opportunity to assent to it. It’s relatively light sentence by US standards,” said Vamos.
Here’s a bit more of the statement by Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, outside court today.
“Since 2010 we’ve warned that Julian Assange would face prosecution and extradition to the United States for his publishing activities with Wikileaks. Unfortunately today we’ve been proven right …
“We’ve today received a warrant and a provisional extradition request from the United States alleging that he has conspired with Chelsea Manning in relation to the materials published by Wikileaks in 2010. This sets a dangerous precedent for all media organisations and journalists in Europe and elsewhere around the world. This precedent means that any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the United States for having published truthful information about the United States.”
David Crouch
Elisabeth Massi Fritz, lawyer for the Swedish woman whose case against Assange remains outstanding, has given the Guardian a longer statement:
My client and I have today received the news that Assange has been arrested in London. It did understandably come as a shock to my client that what we have been waiting and hoping for since 2012 has now finally happened. We are going to do everything we possibly can to get the Swedish police investigation re-opened so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape. No rape victim should have to wait nine years to see justice be served.
I have requested an urgent procedure [from the prosecutor to extradite Assange].
Assange’s lawyers have been speaking outside Westminster magistrates court.
BBC News (UK)✔@BBCNews
"This sets a dangerous precedent... any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the US for having published truthful information about the US" Julian Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson confirms Wikileaks co-founder will fight extraditionhttp://bbc.in/2Kv9R1e
The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has been commenting on today’s events in the House of Commons. “Ecuador’s actions recognise that the UK criminal justice system is one in which rights are protected and in which, contrary to what Mr Assange and his supporters claim, he and his legitimate interests will be protected,” he said.
He said that proceedings would now begin according to the court timetable. Full extradition papers would need to be received by a judge within 65 days, said Javid, and a full extradition request certified by the Home Office. He said he would not discuss the accusations against Assange.
“I am pleased that the situation in the Ecuadorian embassy has finally been brought to an end. Mr Assange will now have the opportunity to contest the charge against him in open court and to have any extradition requests considered by the judiciary.”
Javid reads a statement on Assange to the House of Commons. Photograph: BBC
Diane Abbott responded to Javid’s statement by saying she was pleased to hear that Assange would now have access to medical care “because there have been worrying reports about his ill health”.
“On this side of the house, we want to make the point that the reason we are debating Julian Assange this afternoon – even though the only charge he may face in this country is in relation to his bail hearings – is entirely to do with the whistleblowing activities of Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
It is this whistleblowing activity into illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale that has put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US administration. It is for this reason that they have once more issued an extradition warrant against Julian Assange.”
She added: “Julian Assange is not being pursued to protect US national security, he is being pursued because he has exposed wrongdoing by US administrations and their military forces.”
Abbott responds to the Javid’s statement on Assange. Photograph: BBC
Speaking outside Westminster magistrates court after this afternoon’s hearing, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief,Kristinn Hrafnsson, said:
“Anyone who wants the press to be free should consider the implications of this case. If they will extradite a journalist to the US then no journalist will be safe. This must stop. This must end.”
David Crouch
This is from journalist David Crouch in Sweden:
One of the Swedish women who made the 2010 allegations against Assange, whose rape case was closed by Swedish prosecutors in 2017, told the Guardian she was opposed to his extradition to the US. “I would be very surprised and sad if Julian is handed over to the US,” she said via email, asking for her name not to be used.
“For me this was never about anything else than his misconduct against me and other women, and his refusal to take responsibility for this. Too bad my case could never be investigated properly, but the arrest will not change this, the case cannot be opened. I am prepared to testify if the other case opens up again.”
More fromSimon Murphy at Westminster magistrates court:
While Assange waited for his legal team to arrive he sat in the dock reading Gore Vidal’s “history of the national security state”. He also waved and gave a thumbs up to a supporter in the public gallery clad in a yellow vest.
Simon Murphy✔@murphy_simon
Assange shouted “this is unlawful” as police officers struggled to drag him from the Ecuadorian embassy this morning, the court heard. “This is unlawful, I’m not leaving,” he said.
The court heard police officers arrived at the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge at about 9.15am and were met by the ambassador. “He indicated he was preparing to serve upon Assange documentation revoking his asylum,” James Hines, representing the US government, said.
“Officers tried to introduce themselves to him in order to execute the arrest warrant before he barged past them, attempting to return to his private room. He was eventually arrested at 10.15am. He resisted that arrest, claiming ‘this is unlawful’ and he had to be restrained.
Officers were struggling to handcuff him. They received assistance from other officers outside and he was handcuffed saying, ‘this is unlawful, I’m not leaving’. He was in fact lifted into the police van outside the embassy and taken to West End Central police station.”
Assange’s lawyer, Liam Walker, said the defence of reasonable excuse partly relied on his claims the chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot, who has previously dealt with the case, was biased against him.
He alleged her husband, Lord Arbuthnot, was directly impacted by the activities of WikiLeaks and Assange. But the judge told Walker it was unacceptable for him to air the claim in front of a packed press gallery.
“This is grossly unfair and improper to do it just to ruin the reputation of a senior and able judge in front of the press.
He has chosen not to give evidence, he has chosen to make assertions about a senior judge not having the courage to place himself before the court for the purpose of cross-examination.Those assertions made through counsel are not evidence as a matter of law. I find they are not capable of amounting to a reasonable excuse.”
Dan Collyns
In a tweet, Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, said: “We strongly condemn the detention of Julian Assange and the violation of freedom of speech. Our solidarity with this brother who is persecuted by the US government for revealing its human rights violations, murders of civilians and diplomatic espionage.”
Evo Morales Ayma✔@evoespueblo
Condenamos enérgicamente la detención de #JulianAssange y la violación a la libertad de expresión. Nuestra solidaridad con este hermano que es perseguido por el gobierno de #EEUU por revelar sus violaciones a los derechos humanos, asesinatos de civiles y espionaje diplomático.
Guardian reporter Simon Murphy has been at Westminster magistrates court, where Julian Assange was found guilty of skipping bail after spending nearly seven years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Justice Michael Snow described Assange as a narcissist. Snow told the court: “His assertion that he has had not had a fair hearing is laughable. And his behaviour is that of a narcissist who cannot get past his own self-interest.”
Assange, who pleaded not guilty, has been remanded in custody due to face sentencing at Southwark crown court at a date yet to be set. He is due to appear in May in relation to the United States’ extradition charge.
Justice Michael Snow said Assange’s claim that he had not had a fair hearing was “laughable” as he appeared bedraggled in the dock at Westminster Magistrates’ court.
Simon Murphy✔@murphy_simon
Justice Snow told the court: “His assertion that he has had not had a fair hearing is laughable. And his behaviour is that of a narcissist who cannot get past his own self-interest.”
At a press briefing, Downing Street said that the prime minister and the government were aware in advance that the Ecuadorians intended to revoke Julian Assange’s asylum status, allowing him to be arrested earlier today.
A number 10 spokeswoman said: “There has been a dialogue with [the] Ecuadorian government from the onset. The decision to revoke asylum was one for them entirely. They have set that out.”
When pressed whether the UK had lobbied Ecuador, she repeated that the decision was “taken entirely by them”. Downing Street did not respond directly when asked if Assange’s arrest raised any questions for freedom of speech. The spokesman said the WikiLeaks founder would now be subject to “an ongoing legal process, and we need to let that run its course”.
The seven-year itch: Assange's awkward stay in the embassy
The WikiLeaks founder’s visit became uncomfortable for both him and his hosts
Thu 11 Apr 2019 14.26 BSTFirst published on Thu 11 Apr 2019 14.25 BST
Julian Assange in a police van in London after his arrest. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
When Julian Assange, disguised as a motorcycle courier, first walked up the steps of Ecuador’s small embassy behind Harrods in central London and asked for asylum, few people – including, surely, Assange himself – could have imagined it would be almost seven years before he next exited the front door.
It was mid-June 2012, and as Britain expectantly awaited the opening of the Olympics just over a month later, the WikiLeaks publisher had exhausted every legal avenue in his attempts to avoid extradition to Sweden, where two women had made allegations of rape and sexual assault during a visit by Assange to Stockholm in 2010.
Julian Assange removed from Ecuadorian embassy in London - video
Assange, who had been briefly imprisoned and then on bail for more than a year, argued that Swedish prosecutors should interview him in London. But as well as resisting extradition to Sweden, he also feared being handed over to the US for potential prosecution over the so-called Cablegate documents (published in the Guardian and elsewhere) and other releases. The WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning was already in custody on espionage charges (she would be sentenced to 35 years in prison, later commuted by President Obama. Manning was reimprisoned last month).
Q&A
Why was Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy?
An arrest warrant for Assange was issued in August 2010 for two separate sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Police questioned him in Stockholm, where he denied the allegations. After returning to the UK, he feared that if he were extradited to Sweden he might be extradited on to the US, where he could face charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret US government files.
Ecuador offered Assange almost his last option to avoid extradition, his last appeal having failed at the supreme court. The country’s then president, the leftwinger Rafael Correa, was sympathetic and Assange was granted asylumtwo months later.
It was never a very comfortable arrangement at the poky embassy, however. An office was repurposed as a bedroom and workspace, but he was forced, initially at least, to sleep on a mattress on the floor, sharing a bathroom and with access only to a tiny basic kitchen.
Chelsea Manning has recently been reimprisoned on espionage charges. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
With the Swedes determined to extradite him, however, and a US grand jury hearing into WikiLeaks already under way, the Australian resolved to stay put. High-profile visitors came and went – Vivienne Westwood, Lady Gaga and the footballer Eric Cantona among them – and a small group of supporters maintained a periodic vigil outside. But still Assange remained.
Much has happened in the time he has been inside the embassy. WikiLeaks has continued to publish, exposing details of US tactics intrade negotiations, of the country’s surveillance of other governments, and of CIA hacking methods, among other revelations. A WikiLeaks staff member accompanied the whistleblower Edward Snowden to Moscow after he leaked classified NSA documents about US surveillance programmes to newspapers including the Guardian.
More significantly for the Australian’s legal position, after years of torturous wrangling, his Swedish problem appeared to go away, thanks simply to the passage of time. An investigation into one of the Swedish women’s accusations, of sexual assault, was discontinued in 2015 after the statute of limitations expired, and in 2017, Sweden’s chief prosecutorsaid she was dropping her investigation into the outstanding allegation of rape after concluding there was no practical way of continuing. She gave herself the option of reopening the case if he later “made himself available”.
But even the apparent resolution of that seven-year legal standoff did not persuade Assange to leave the embassy, despite reports that the Obama administration had concluded it would not be able to prosecute him without pursuing the newspapers that had published WikiLeaks releases, including the New York Times and potentially the Guardian.
And, now that he has been removed from the embassy, the outstanding allegation of rape could be raised again if prosecutors decide to reopen the case. Elisabeth Massi Fritz, who represents his unnamed accuser, on Thursday told the Associated Press that “we are going to do everything” to have the case reopened “so Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape”.
Assange’s Ecuadorian stay may have spanned two UK general elections (and two major referendums), but successive British governments have remained resolute, insisting that he would be subject to arrest if he left for alleged breaches of his bail conditions when he first sought asylum.
Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange in a scene from the biopic The Fifth Estate. Photograph: Frank Connor/A
A finding by a UN panel in 2016 that Assange’s continued confinement in the embassy amounted to “arbitrary detention” was dismissed by the UK Foreign Office, which maintained that his presence there was voluntary.
Two significant things changed, however – both of them presidential elections.
Donald Trump was initially a great fan of Assange, praising WikiLeaks repeatedly during the 2016 presidential campaign after emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and his rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign were published by the website. But other US Republicans have remained hostile, and following Trump’s election to the presidency, his administration has vowed to attempt to prosecute Assange.
In February 2017 the then attorney general Jeff Sessions said arresting Assange was a priority, while a mistake in a document filed last Novembersuggested criminal charges had been secretly filed against him. Trump and Sessions’s successor, William Barr, now have the yet-to-be-published report by special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump’s links to Russia, including allegations that the DNC releases published by WikiLeaks were obtained by Russian hackers.
The Guardian has reported that Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Assange inside the embassy and visited him around the time he joined Trump’s campaign. Both Manafort and Assange emphatically denied the report after it was published.
But aside from events in the US, Assange has also had an increasing Ecuadorian problem. WikiLeaks’s DNC publications in 2016 prompted Ecuador’s discomfort at its sometimes troublesome houseguest to flare into irritation, and it temporarilycut off the Australian’s internet access saying he was using it to interfere in the US election.
Julian Assange speaks to reporters and supporters on a balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy, London, May 2017. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Imag
The relationship between Assange and his hosts deteriorated further after Lenín Moreno was elected to the Ecuadorian presidency in 2017. Moreno had described Assange as a “stone in the shoe”, but said before his election that he could remain in the embassy if he agreed to abide by certain conditions.
In January 2018 it emerged that the country had made Assange an Ecuadorian citizen in a bid to resolve the impasse (its request to have him recognised as a diplomat was dismissed by the UK).
But the Ecuador-Assange relationship remained strained, and last year the country cut off his internet access again, saying he had breached an agreement not to interfere with other states. Assange had tweeted in support of the Catalan independence movement, causing a rift between Quito and Madrid, and challenged the UK’s accusation that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of a Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
Moreno later ordered the removal of an additional multimillion-pound security operation set up by his predecessor to protect Assange. In July last year the president said that Assange would ultimately have to leave the embassy, and by October the Australian was suing his hosts, saying their conditions for his stay violated his “fundamental rights and freedoms”. On Wednesday, WikiLeaks held a press conference to say it had uncovered a surveillance operation against him in the embassy, leading to private legal and medical information being offered for sale in what it said was an extortion attempt.
On Thursday morning, finally, Ecuador’s patience had “reached its limit”, Moreno said in a statement justifying his decision to revoke Assange’s asylum status. He is now, once again, in British custody.
Julian Assange: key dates in the WikiLeaks founder's case
How Assange went from being questioned in Sweden to living for years in Ecuador’s embassy
Julian Assange: key dates in the WikiLeaks founder's case
How Assange went from being questioned in Sweden to living for years in Ecuador’s embassy
19 June: Assange enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London, requesting political asylum. Scotland Yard confirms he is subject to arrest for breaching his bail conditions.
16 August: He is granted political asylum by Ecuador.
Assange speaking from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in August 2012. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA
2013
18 June: Assange tells journalists he will not leave the embassy even if sex charges against him are dropped, due to fears he will be extradited to the US.
2014
16 July: A judge in Stockholm upholds the arrest warrant against him for alleged sexual offences against two women. He later loses an appeal.
2015
13 March: Swedish prosecutors ask to question him at the embassy.
13 August: Investigations into some of the sex allegations are dropped due to time restrictions. The investigation into suspected rape remains active.
16 August: The UK Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire says Ecuador’s decision to harbour Assange in its embassy has prevented the proper course of justice. He restates the UK’s legal obligation to extradite him to Sweden.
The Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren arrives to interview Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in November 2016. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
11 January: The UK Foreign Office turns down a request from the Ecuadorian government to grant Assange diplomatic status. Ecuador confirms it granted citizenship to Assange in December at his request.
13 February: Westminster magistrates court upholds Assange’s arrest warrant for skipping bail. A judge urges him to show the “courage” to appear in court.
28 March: The Ecuadorian embassy suspends Assange’s internet access, complaining he interfered with other states’ affairs. 9 August: The US Senate committee asks to interview Assange as part ofits investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. 19 October: Assange accuses Ecuador of violating his “fundamental rights and freedoms”.
16 November: The US Department of Justice inadvertently names Assange in a court document, suggesting he may have been charged in secret.
2019
23 January: Lawyers for Assange say they are taking action aimed at making President Donald Trump’s administration reveal “secretly filed” charges.
5 April: There are conflicting reports over whether Assange is to be expelled from the embassy.
11 April: Assange is arrested at the embassy in London after his diplomatic status is revoked.
Former CIA Operative Reveals Media’s Agenda- Kris "Tanto" Paronto
In this interview with Kris Paronto, Patrick talks about the movie 13 hours the life as a US Army Ranger and on covers some of the truths about the Benghazi events. Visit the official Valuetainment Store for gear: https://www.valuetainmentstore.com/ About Kris Paronto: Kris "Tanto" Paronto is an American author and speaker as well as a former U.S. Army Ranger and CIA security contractor. Order The Ranger Way: https://amzn.to/2HOjyRR About Valuetainment: Founded in 2012 by Patrick Bet-David, our goal is to impact entrepreneurs around the world through value and entertainment. We are the #1 channel for entrepreneurs because of the best interviews, best how to videos, best case studies and because we defend capitalism and educate entrepreneurs. To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: marketing@patrickbetdavid.com Follow Patrick on social media: Website: http://www.patrickbetdavid.com Snapchat: betdavid19 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PatrickBetDa... Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/patrickbetd... Twitter:https://twitter.com/patrickbetdavid Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-b...
The secret US prisons you've never heard of before | Will Potter
TED
Published on Nov 9, 2015
Investigative journalist Will Potter is the only reporter who has been inside a Communications Management Unit, or CMU, within a US prison. These units were opened secretly, and radically alter how prisoners are treated — even preventing them from hugging their children. Potter, a TED Fellow, shows us who is imprisoned here, and how the government is trying to keep them hidden. "The message was clear," he says. "Don’t talk about this place." Find sources for this talk at willpotter.com/cmu TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more. Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate Follow TED news on Twitter: //www.twitter.com/tednews Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED Subscribe to our channel: //www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksD...
Episode 10 Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiCKf... 45 mins of Bonus Features Right Here: https://goldsilver.com/blog/hsom-epis... Translate this video and submit your captions here: //www.youtube.com/timedtext_vide... In episode 9 of Hidden Secrets of Money, Mike Maloney draws eerie parallels to the misguided leaders and monetary policies that doomed civilizations from Ancient Rome to modern-day America. Can President Trump save America? Will the Federal Reserve Board be able to pull off yet another round of extremist interference and postpone a crisis? Find out how Mike he believes it will play out. Want more? Don't miss episode 9 & 10 exclusive bonus features Click here to watch eight bonus feature videos, kicking off with a 39-minute Director's Cut feature from Mike himself! If you enjoyed watching this video, be sure to pick up a free copy of Mike's bestselling book, Guide to Investing in Gold & Silver: https://goldsilver.com/buy-online/inv... (Want to contribute closed captions in your language for our videos? Visit this link: //www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_p...)
When an elite team of American special forces stormed a compound in Pakistan and killed the world's most wanted terror target it was the high point of Barack Obama's presidency. But as more and more information emerges, the doubts about the official account of Osama Bin Laden's death have been raised - to the point where veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has now alleged that the whole story was fabricated. For the BBC's award winning This World strand, Jane Corbin examines the evidence for this supposed conspiracy and uses a treasure trove of newly released documents to reconstruct Bin Laden's life in his secret compound.
Julian Assange's lawyer in Britain has accused Swedish authorities of
secretly planning to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States, in an
interview with a German newspaper to appear on Thursday.
Lawyer Mark Stephens told the weekly Die Zeit that he believed Swedish
officials were cooperating with US authorities with an eye to extraditing
Assange as soon as the Americans have built a criminal case against him.
'We are hearing that the Swedish are prepared to drop the rape charges
against Julian as soon as the Americans demand his extradition,' he said, citing
sources in Washington and Stockholm.
Stephens called the Swedish charges against his client a 'holding case' to
buy time until the United States can prosecute him themselves over WikiLeaks'
mass release of classified US documents.
He said Assange did not believe he would receive a fair trial in Sweden which
was why he was fighting his extradition from Britain.
The Australian has been living at a supporter's country estate in England
since being released on bail on December 16 after his arrest by British police
on a Swedish warrant.
Stephens said that he believed the 'last station' of an extradition to Sweden
would be 'a high-security prison in the United States'.
Assange's lawyers released documents on Tuesday saying that if the Australian
is extradited to Sweden there is a 'real risk' he will face extradition or
illegal rendition to the United States where he could be detained at Guantanamo
Bay or elsewhere and subject to the death penalty.
A British judge ruled on Tuesday that Sweden's bid to have him extradited
would be heard in full on February 7-8.
Swedish authorities want to question Assange about charges brought by two
women that he sexually assaulted them, but the 39-year-old says the extradition
attempt is politically motivated and linked to WikiLeaks' activities.
The whistleblowing website has released classified documents about the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan and from US diplomats stationed around the world.
A US court has reportedly subpoenaed the Twitter accounts of four WikiLeaks
supporters as part of a widening criminal investigation into the
leaks.
Alex Massie wrote an article in The Spectator called "Yes,Julian Assangeis a journalist", but acknowledged that "newsman" might be a better description of...
22 May 2010...Julian Assange, the man behind the world's biggest leaks, believes in total openness and transparency - except when it comes to himself.... www.theage.com.au ›Technology›Technology News
Julian Assangehas become a cause celebre, as evidenced by the signatories to this open letter, a who's who of sorts, from Noam Chomsky to Helen Garner... www.abc.net.au/unleashed/41914.html-Cached
Julian Assangesaid today that the "insurance files" he promised to release should any harm come to him or WikiLeaks should worry more than just diplomats...
23 Dec 2010...Julian Assange'slegal team is on very strong ground and English courts have in recent years repeatedly shown a robustness that the... www.crikey.com.au/topic/julian-assange/-Cached-Similar
Julian Assange; From: The Australian; December 08, 2010 12:00AM....Julian Assangeis the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks.... www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/.../story-fn775xjq-1225967241332
7 Dec 2010...Wikileaks founderJulian Assangewrote this Op-Ed for The Australian today:....Julian Assangeis the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks.... blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mediadiary/index.php/.../julian1/
10 Dec 2010...SENDJULIAN ASSANGEYOUR EMAILS OF SUPPORT - We are trying to set this up so Julian can recieve our emails of support.... www.helpjulianassange.net/-Cached
6 Dec 2010...APPARENTLY having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for Rape. www.heraldsun.com.au/...julian-assange.../story-e6frfhqf-1225965772832
In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate"."Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies.
In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate"."Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies. Speaking in Brussels, where Medvedev was attending a Russia-EU summit yesterday , the source went on: "Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate."Russia's reflexively suspicious leadership appears to have come round to WikiLeaks, having decided that the ongoing torrent of disclosures are ultimately far more damaging and disastrous to America's long-term geopolitical interests than they are to Russia's.
Of course, the leaked cable did also call Russia a "mafia state" and I can see why Putin was not amused. But unfortunately for Putin, that descriptor is hardly inacccurate.
The secret life of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
May 22, 2010
Setting knowledge free ... Julian Assange, the only self-identified employee of the Wikileaks website. Photo: Mark Chew
Julian Assange, the man behind the world's biggest leaks, believes in total openness and transparency - except when it comes to himself. Nikki Barrowclough tracked him down.
Julian Assange has never publicly admitted that he's the brains behind WikiLeaks, the website that has so radically rewritten the rules in the information era. He did, however, register a website, Leaks.org, in 1999. ''But then I didn't do anything with it.''
WikiLeaks appeared on the internet three years ago. It acts as an electronic dead drop for highly sensitive or secret information: the pure stuff, in other words, published straight from the secret files to the world. No filters, no rewriting, no spin. Created by an online network of dissidents, journalists, academics, technology experts and mathematicians from various countries, the website also uses technology that makes the original sources of the leaks untraceable.
In April the website released graphic, classified video footage of an American helicopter gunship firing on and killing Iraqis in a Baghdad street in 2007, apparently in cold blood. The de-encrypted video, which WikiLeaks released on its own sites as well as on YouTube, caused an international uproar.
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The Baghdad video has been WikiLeaks' biggest coup to date, although an extraordinary number of unauthorised documents - more than a million - have found their way to the website. These include a previously secret, 110-page draft report by the international investigators Kroll, revealing allegations of huge corruption in Kenya involving the family of the former president Daniel arap Moi; the US government's classified manual of standard operating procedures for Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, which revealed that it was policy to hide some prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross; a classified US intelligence report on how to marginalise WikiLeaks; secret Church of Scientology manuals; an internal report by the global oil trader, Trafigura, about dumping toxic waste in the Ivory Coast; a classified US profile of the former Icelandic ambassador to the US in which the ambassador is praised for helping quell publicity about the CIA's activities involving rendition flights; and the emails leaked from the embattled Climate Research Unit at East Anglia in Britain, last November, which triggered the so-called ''climategate'' scandal.
That's one leak which might have bemused those conservatives convinced that WikiLeaks was run by ultra-lefties. In the blogosphere, meanwhile, conspiracy theories abound that WikiLeaks is a CIA cyber-ops plot.
Two years ago a Swiss bank in Zurich, Julius Baer, succeeded in temporarily closing down the website with a US District Court injunction after WikiLeaks published documents detailing how the bankers hid their wealthy clients' funds in offshore trusts (the banned documents reappeared on WikiLeaks ''mirror'' sites in places such as Belgium and Britain).
The Australian government, too, has made noises about going after the website, after the Australian Communications and Media Authority's list of websites it may ban if the Rudd government goes ahead with its proposed internet censorship plan turned up on WikiLeaks last year.
To say that the list of rattled people in high places around the world is growing because of WikiLeaks is an understatement. The fact that the website has no headquarters also means the conventional retaliatory measures - phones tapped, a raid by the authorities - are impossible. Intense interest in Julian Assange began well before the Baghdad video was released, and viewed 4.8 million times by the end of its first week. The former teenage hacker from Melbourne, whose mystique as an internet subversive, a resourceful loner with no fixed address, travelling constantly between countries with laptop and backpack, constitutes what you might call Assange's romantic appeal.
But then there's the flip side: a man who believes in extreme transparency, but evades and obfuscates when it comes to talking about himself in the rare interviews that he gives. In the past, at least, these have hardly ever been face to face.
The secretiveness extends to those close to him. One woman who speaks to me on the condition of total anonymity lived in the same share house in Melbourne as Assange for a few months in early 2007, when WikiLeaks was in its incubation period. The house was the hub, and it was inhabited by computer geeks.
There were beds everywhere, she says. There was even a bed in the kitchen. This woman slept on a mattress in Assange's room, and says she would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to find him still glued to his computer. He frequently forget to eat or sleep, wrote mathematical formulas all over the walls and the doors, and used only red light bulbs in his room - on the basis that early man, if waking suddenly, would see only the gentle light of the campfire, and fall asleep again. He also went through a period of frustration that the human body has to be fed several times a day and experimented with eating just one meal every two days, in order to be more efficient. ''He was always extremely focused,'' she says.
Well before meeting Assange, I'd thought how much he seemed like a character from Stieg Larsson's trilogy of blockbuster novels. One of Larsson's brilliant computer geniuses, taking on the world's wicked and powerful. Or a more youthful Mikael Blomkvist, with an Australian accent.
Larsson died six years ago. But could the Swedish crime writer and Assange have met?
Assange first visited Sweden in the 1990s - and WikiLeaks is hosted on a main server in Sweden, where the identities of confidential sources are protected by law.
This doesn't prove anything, of course - and WikiLeaks only moved its main server to Sweden two years ago, after the Julius Baer Bank tried to close down the website. Even so, I email Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson's widow, to ask if the two of them ever met Assange - explaining that he helped research a remarkable 1997 book, Underground, about the exploits of an extraordinary group of young Melbourne hackers, written by the Melbourne academic Suelette Dreyfus. The hackers all had monikers in the book: Assange is said to be the character Mendax. Assange convinced Dreyfus to release the book online, and according to one source I spoke to, there was great interest in the book in Sweden - and in China.
It isn't the most urgent question I have for Assange, who I meet in early May, the day after he slips back into Melbourne, his home town. He arrived on a flight from Europe, via the US. Or so I understand from the person acting as our inbetween.
The same contact provides a Melbourne address, and instructions. ''Don't call a cab, find one on the street; turn off your mobile phone before you catch the cab and preferably, remove the batteries.''
And here he is - a tall, thin, pale figure with that remarkable white hair, looking very tired, and wearing creased, student-style dark clothes and boots, and backpack.
As we shake hands, he inclines his head slightly in a courtly, old world manner, at odds with his youthful, student-traveller looks. When I remark that there's a lot to ask him, he replies, ''That's all right - I'm not going to answer half of it.''
Is Assange his real name? Yes, he replies, then says it's the name in his passport. ''What's in a name?'' he then adds mysteriously, casting doubt on his first answer.
At the time of writing, his passport status was apparently back to normal after immigration officials at Melbourne Airport said that his passport was going to be cancelled on the grounds that it was too tatty.
It has been in a couple of rivers, Assange allows of the state of his passport. The first time, as he recalls, in December 2006, when he was crossing a swollen river during heavy rain in southern Tasmania, and was swept out to sea. He swam back in. ''My conclusion from that experience is that the universe doesn't give a damn about you, so it's a good thing you do.''
Why did he have his passport with him? He had everything he needed for three weeks of survival, he replies. He needed his passport for ID when he flew to Tasmania.
Doesn't he have a driver's licence? ''No comment.''
How true is the image of him as the enigmatic founder of WikiLeaks, constantly on the move, with no real place to call home? Is this really how he lives his life?
''Do I live my life as an enigmatic man?''
No - is it true you're constantly on the move?
''Pretty much true.''
Does he have one base he'd call home?
''I have four bases where I would go if I was sick, which is how I think about where home is.''
He has spent the best part of the past six months in Iceland, he says. And the next six months? ''It depends on which area of the world I'm needed most. We're an international organisation. We deal with international problems,'' he replies.
Assange mentions four bases, but names only two. The one in Iceland and another in Kenya, where he has spent a lot of time, on and off, in the past couple of years.
The Kroll report, released on WikiLeaks, reportedly swung the Kenyan presidential election in 2007.
When he's in the country, Assange lives in a compound in Nairobi with other foreigners, mainly members of NGOs such as Medecins Sans Frontieres. He originally went to Kenya in 2007 to give a lecture on WikiLeaks, when it was up and running. ''And ended up staying there,'' I suggest encouragingly.
''Mmmm.''
As a result of liking the place or …
''Well, it has got extraordinary opportunities for reforms. It had a revolution in the 1970s. It has only been a democracy since 2004 … I was introduced to senior people in journalism, in human rights very quickly.''
He has travelled to Siberia. Is there a third base there?
''No comment. I wish. The bear steak is good.''
Why did he go to Georgia?
''How do you know about that?''
I read it somewhere, I reply. It was a rumour. ''Ah, a rumour,'' he says.
But he did go there? ''It's better that I don't comment on that, because Georgia is not such a big place.''
Living permanently in a state of exile, which can become addictive, means that you always have the sharp eye of the outsider, I suggest.
''The sense of perspective that interaction with multiple cultures gives you I find to be extremely valuable, because it allows you to see the structure of a country with greater clarity, and gives you a sense of mental independence,'' Assange replies.
"You're not swept up in the trivialities of a nation. You can concentrate on the serious matters. Australia is a bit of a political wasteland. That's OK, as long as people recognise that. As long as people recognise that Australia is a suburb of a country called Anglo-Saxon.''
Could he ever live in one place again? A brief silence. ''I don't think so,'' he says finally.
''I don't see myself as a computer guru,'' he remarks at one point. ''I live a broad intellectual life. I'm good at a lot of things, except for spelling.''
At one point, thinking about some of the material leaked on WikiLeaks, I ask Assange how he defines national security. ''We don't,'' he says crisply. "We're not interested in that. We're interested in justice. We are a supranational organisation. So we're not interested in national security.''
How does he justify keeping his own life as private as possible, considering that he believes in extreme transparency?
''I don't justify it,'' he says, with just a hint of mischievousness. ''No one has sent us any official documents that were not published previously on me. Should they do so, and they meet our editorial criteria, we will publish them.''
Assange isn't paid a salary by WikiLeaks. He has investments, which he won't discuss. But during the 1990s he worked in computer security in Australia and overseas, devised software programmes - in 1997 he co-invented ''Rubberhose deniable encryption'', which he describes as a cryptographic system made for human rights workers wanting to protect sensitive data in the field - and also became a key figure in the free software movement.
The whole point of free software, he comments, is to ''liberate it in all senses''. He adds: ''It' s part of the intellectual heritage of man. True intellectual heritage can't be bound up in intellectual property.''
Did being arrested, and later on finding himself in a courtroom, push him into a completely different reality that he had never thought about - and eventually in a direction that eventually saw him start thinking along the lines of a website like WikiLeaks, that would take on the world?
''That [experience] showed me how the justice system and bureaucracy worked, and did not work; what its abilities were and what its limitations were,'' he replies. ''And justice wasn't something that came out of the justice system. Justice was something that you bring to the justice system. And if you're lucky, or skilled, and you're in a country that isn't too corrupt, you can do that.''
In another life, Assange might have been a mathematician. He spent four years studying maths, mostly at Melbourne University - with stints at the Australian National University in Canberra - but never graduated, disenchanted, he says, with how many of his fellow students were conducting research for the US defence system.
''There are key cases which are just really f---ing obnoxious,'' he says.
According to Assange, the US Defence Advance Research Project Agency was funding research which involved optimising the efficiency of a military bulldozer called the Grizzly Plough, which was used in the Iraqi desert during Operation Desert Storm during the 1991 Gulf War.
''It has a problem in that it gets damaged [from] the sand rolling up in front. The application of this bulldozer is to move at 60 kilometres an hour, sweeping barbed wire and so on before it, and get the sand and put it in the trenches where the [Iraqi] troops are, and bury them all alive and then roll over the top. So that's what Melbourne University's applied maths department was doing - studying how to improve the efficiency of the Grizzly Plough.''
Assange says he did a lot of soul-searching before he finally quit his studies in 2007. He had already started working with other people on a model of WikiLeaks by early 2006.
There were people at the physics conference, he goes on, who were career physicists, ''and there was just something about their attire, and the way they moved their bodies, and of course the bags on their backs didn't help much either. I couldn't respect them as men''.
His university experience didn't define his cynicism, though. Assange says that he's extremely cynical anyway. ''I painted every corner, floor, wall and ceiling in the 'room' I was in, black, until there was only one corner left. I mean intellectually,'' he adds. ''To me, it was the forced move [in chess], when you have to do something or you'll lose the game.''
So WikiLeaks was his forced move?
''That's the way it feels to me, yes. There were no other options left to me on the table.''
WikiLeaks, he says, has released more classified documents than the rest of the world press combined.
''That's not something I say as a way of saying how successful we are - rather, that shows you the parlous state of the rest of the media. How is it that a team of five people has managed to release to the public more suppressed information, at that level, than the rest of the world press combined? It's disgraceful.''
Where does Assange see WikiLeaks in 10 years? "It's not what I want the world to be. It's what I want the rest of the world to be," he replies.
He would like to see all media develop their own forms of WikiLeaks. That would put his own website out of business, I point out.
''We have a proposal to [an American foundation] for a grant to just that,'' he replies, explaining that WikiLeaks could create systems for all media organisations.
A thought: has he ever met Rupert Murdoch? ''No.''
Nor has he met Stieg Larsson, Assange tells me.
Julian Assange Enemy of the State Hero of the People By Lucy Carne LONDON SEEDS OF CHANGE:
Julian Assange the boy and the thorn in the side of governments, and a rally by his Brisbane supporters this week
In front of an adoring crowd at the Frontline journalist’s club in London last month, Australia Julian Assange explained why he’s risking the wrath of the world’s most powerful governments.
In his face could still be seen traces of the sweet natured, sensitive little boy his Sunshine Coast-based mother has described and, smiling, the Queensland born 39 year old leaned into the microphone.
“They say I enjoy crushing bastards and. Yes, that’s part of my motivation,” Assange said.
“For some reason, the White House finds that offensive.”
Today, the founder of whistle blowing website WikiLeaks and the man on whom the world’s spotlight is focused, sits is a grey tracksuit in one of western Europe’s biggest prisons.
This week he was remanded in custody of rape, sexual assault and unlawful coercion stemming from alleged non-consensual sex without a condom with two women in Sweden.
Assange’s imprisonment, after he handed himself in, was met with relief in the US, where authorities were angered by his website’s release of embarrassing diplomatic cables last week.
The man who kicked the hornets’ nest had been silenced they thought.
“I hadn’t heard that, but it sounds like good news to me,” US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on being told of Assange’s arrest.
But while Assange grows restless behind bars – he has already complained about the “boring” daytime television and his request to be reunited with his own laptop has been denied – a global groundswell of support has grown.
The strongest act of revenge is coming from a group of ”hacktivists” known as Anomymous, which temporariiy shut down the websites of US and Swedish corporations this week.
The group also froze the websites of credit-card companies Visa and Mastercard, which had cancelled financial donations to WikiLeaks.
Post Finance – the Swiss bank that froze Assange’s private account – was disabled too, as was the Swedish prosecution office and the Swedish lawyers representing the two women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by Assange.
The Anonymous group’s spokesman, known only as Coldblood, told reports they had not met Assange and were not connected to his organization but felt the need to defend him.
“If we let WikiLeaks fall without a fight then government will think they can just take down any sites they wish or disagree with,” Coldblood said.
In Brisbane on Thursday, some 300 protestors took to the streets in anger at Assange’s imprisonment.
Protests in London were due to be held today.
More than 35,000 people have joined a Facebook group to support Assange, with calls for all members to donate to his legal fund, while around 28,000 Australians have signed a letter to US President BARACK Obama supporting him.
In an open letter published yesterday, prominent supports, including Australia documentary film maker John Pilger, Monty Python member Terry Jones, English actress Miriam Margolyes and author Iain Banks, call for his immediate release from jail
Assange’s unusually harsh imprisonment for allegedly ignoring two women’s requests to use contraception has caused this sudden swell of skepticism and fury.
Many believe it is a flimsy excuse to keep Assange, who was placed on Interpol’s most wanted list, within reach of the US Justice Department so it can prosecute him under the Espionage Act.
Even while he is hailed by the public as a champion of transparency, to the governments of Australia and the US he remains a menace. To them he is not an innocent messenger but an anti-government terrorist who wants to harm the US and governments across the world.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard labeled WikiLeaks’s activities illegal but, despite calls for her to do so, has failed to outline any Australian law that Assange has broken.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland also has stood by his condemnation of Assange, while arch-conservative US politician Sarah Palin called him an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”
How did the tousled-haired boy in overalls grow up to become an Andy Warhol-esque hero of the people.
“He can seem – with his spectral white hair, pailed skin, cool eyes, and expansive forehead – like a rail thin being who has rocketed to Earth to deliver humanity some hidden truth,” The New Yorker wrote in June.
Born in Townsville in 1971, Assange has described his childhood as “pretty Tom Sawyer”’ filled with horseriding, building rafts and fishing.
I was, however, far from Idyllic. By the age od 14, his family had moved 37 times, living everywhere from Magnetic Island to Byron Bay.
It set the scene for his future nomadic life.
The young boy was home schooled, sporadically educated by university professors and even taught himself in hours spent alone in council libraries.
But his life changed when his mother’s abusive boyfriend tried to gain custody of Assange’s half brother in order to submit him to religious sect The Family.
His mother and her young family “disappeared”, constantly moving, never leaving a trail.
But at the age of 16, in 1987, Assange got a computer and modem and his life was suddenly transformed.
He embraced the random problem-solving and solace of life as a computer hacker.
“We were bright sensitive kinds who didn’t fit the dominant subculture and fiercely castigated those who did as irredeemable boneheads,” he wrote of himself and a teenage friend.
He was arrested in the early 1990’s for hacking into the computer system of a major Canadian telecommunications company, but avoided a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
A brief spell in hospital for depression soon followed, as well as time spent living rough in the Dandenong Ranges National Park in Victoria and a stint motorcycling across Vietnam.
While working towards a physics degree at the University of Melbourne in 2006, he founded WikiLeaks.
It was a site for anyone wishing to “reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations” he wrote at the time of the site’s launch.
“ I am the one who takes that risk,” he said prophetically, explaining his role at WikiLeaks while addressing the Frontline club last monthly. “As a consequence, I also get a lot of undue credit. I also get all the criticism.”
His original WikiLeaks mandate was to “make the news, not be the news”.
But that seems to have backfired, with Assange now a household name around the world.
“Is is weird?” an audience member asked him of his new celebrity status.
“No,” Assange shrugged.” Actually, I find it quite boring.” Lucy Marne is The Courier-Mail’s European correspondent
Dear Friend,
Sarah Palin wants Julian Assange hunted as a terrorist.1 She's among a swelling chorus of American politicians calling for the arrest - and even the death - of the Australian citizen who runs WikiLeaks. It's a shame that real terrorists, the kind we should be focusing our attention on, don't show up at British Police stations with their lawyers, as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did yesterday.
Here in Australia, Prime Minister Gillard pre-emptively judged Mr. Assange "illegal," even as the Attorney General confirmed that no Australian nor international crime by WikiLeaks has been identified.2
The death penalty? Judgment before trial? This isn't the kind of justice system we have in Australia. If our Government won't stand up for the rights of Australian citizens, let's do it ourselves.
We're printing ads in The Washington Times and The New York Times with the statement our Government should have made, signed by as many Australians as possible. Will you add your name to the signatories, and invite your friends to join too?
The statement:Dear President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder:
We, as Australians, condemn calls for violence, including assassination, against Australian citizen and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, or for him to be labeled a terrorist, enemy combatant or be treated outside the ordinary course of justice in any way.
As Thomas Jefferson said, "information is the currency of democracy."3 Publishing leaked information in collaboration with major news outlets, as Wikileaks and Mr. Assange have done, is not a terrorist act.
Australia and the United States are the strongest of allies. Our soldiers serve side by side and we've experienced, and condemned, the consequences of terrorism together. To label WikiLeaks a terrorist organisation is an insult to those Australians and Americans who have lost their lives to acts of terrorism and to terrorist forces.
If WikiLeaks or their staff have broken international or national laws, let that case be heard in a just and fair court of law. At the moment, no such charges have been brought.
We are writing as Australians to say what our Government should have said: that all Australian citizens deserve to be free from persecution, threats of violence and detention without charge, especially from our friend and ally, the United States.
We call upon you to stand up for our shared democratic principles of the presumption of innocence and freedom of information.We're printing this statement in The Washington Times and The New York Times early next week - and the more Australians sign, the more powerful the message will be. Please add your name by clicking below, and forward this message to friends and family:
What has started with WikiLeaks being branded as terrorists won't end there.
In fact, just yesterday U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, Chair of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee, said thatThe New York Times should also be investigated under the U.S. Espionage Act for publishing a number of the diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks.4 We can help stop such plans in their tracks, by showing how they are affecting the image of the US in the eyes of their staunchest friends and allies.
Click here to sign the statement before it's published in The New York Times and Washington Times.
Thanks for being part of this,
The GetUp team
---
1 Beckford, M., 'Sarah Palin: hunt WikiLeaks founder like al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders', The Telegraph, 30 November 2010.
2 Oakes, L., 'Oakes: Gillard gushes over US leaks', Perth Now, 4 December 2010.
3 The quote is widely attributed to Jefferson, but some now dispute whether he actually said it. We know, at least, that he said "knowledge is power," even if Francis Bacon did say it first.
4 Savage, C., 'U.S. prosecuters study WikiLeaks prosecution', The New York Times, 7 December 2010.
Do you think that Jillian Assange of Wiki Leaks is a hero or villian? We think that he is a hero because he tell truth about Government and Corporate Corruption to the people, so they can have better future! Many bad corrupt government and corporate establishment hate him because they are evil and self-serving people! We believe that Jillian Assange will be hero for common people in the world!!
Assange probably did not censor the leaked documents to protect the innocent. For example, the names of individuals who provided information to foreign governments like the USA revealing crimes against humanity within their own countries. In other words did Assange, the Wikileaker, protect all the other whistleblowers?
I got nothing but love for a person who risks their life to tell the truth.
Truth is the only thing that is real. Its hard to find any media that's supports him which makes it apparent that perspective is dictated. We need to seek the truth to find it. But that is the big question, "do we really need to know the truth?" Heck yea! Secret information will always get leaked. Governments spend our hard earned billions of on spying on eachother and it's just a game. The real problem here is that Jillian Assange told the public. And you would think that any journalist with integrity would support him. Xoxoxo jillian
That should bear repeating, many many times over!!
If he actually did commit ra*pe, I would have a lot to say about that, but it's just so clear (to me, from the way these charges just seem to be trumped up, from all angles), that he didnt commit a crime like that. Those in authority knew he was about to leak some big stuff, so they tried to smear him with the worst possible thing they could - falsely accuse him of being a rapist and put a cloud over his integrity just before he leaked it through his Wikileaks site. B@astards.
I think Julian Assange is a good guy. Good on him for blowing the whistle on all this corruption all around the world. As if people didnt know about it, this just confirmed it.
By the way, his name is spelt Julian, not Jillian, which is a girl's name
TheDude02 wrote::D I got nothing but love for a person who risks their life to tell the truth.
Truth is the only thing that is real. Its hard to find any media that's supports him which makes it apparent that perspective is dictated. We need to seek the truth to find it. But that is the big question, "do we really need to know the truth?" Heck yea! Secret information will always get leaked. Governments spend our hard earned billions of on spying on eachother and it's just a game. The real problem here is that Jillian Assange told the public. And you would think that any journalist with integrity would support him. Xoxoxo jillian
Julian Assange from Jail to Masion
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks. Photo: Jacky Ghossein
\
Assange gets bail but still locked up (01:12)
British judge grants bail to WikiLeaks founder under strict monitoring conditions, but he remains in jail as Sweden appeals the ruling.
Assange will never receive a fair trial: Hicks
Cameron Atfield
December 15, 2010
Hicks answers the tough questions
Former terrorism suspect David Hicks has come out in support of jailed freedom-of-speech campaigner Julian Assange, saying he feared for Mr Assange's safety should he end up in American hands.
Mr Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, has been returned to London's notorious Wandsworth prison despite winning bail from a British Court.
He will be held there for another 48 hours while Swedish prosecutors, who want to extradite him to Sweden to face allegations of sex crimes, mount a High Court appeal against the decision.
Supporters of Mr Assange, including his lawyer, have claimed the charges are politically motivated after the release of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, causing embarrassment for several governments.
Yesterday, Mr Hicks told Fairfax Radio he was concerned about what might happen to Mr Assange if he was extradited to the United States.
"He will never receive a fair trial," he said.
"We have already established that it's a political decision rather than a legal one. It's important that our governments are held to account for any war crimes they may be involved in and that is why the work of WikiLeaks is so important."
Mr Hicks spent six years at Guantanamo Bay, the US-run prison camp in Cuba, before he returned home to Australia to serve nine months at Adelaide's Yatala jail.
He was convicted by a US military commission of "providing material support for terrorism".
Mr Hicks said he believed future WikiLeaks releases could contain information about his incarceration.
"I will watch with interest in more leaks released because I have heard that they might contain information about my treatment in Guantanamo and the political interference in my case," he said.
"I just hope the Australian government doesn't abandon him like they did to me."
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange sex assault court case branded a 'show trial'
The Swedish authorities are turning the sexual assault case against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, into a "show trial", his lawyers claimed.
Mark Stephens attacked the decision by the Swedish authorities to appeal against a judge's ruling to grant the 39 year-old Australian bail.
He said their decision was now a "'persecution" rather than a prosecution and was politically motivated.
He accused the authorities of stopping at nothing to have the Wikileaks founder behind bars, a claim they denied.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is refused bail
15 Dec 2010
WikiLeaks: summary of the latest disclosures
15 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: is 'Wikileaker' on a crusade or an ego trip?
15 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: Jemima Khan comes to aid of Wikileaks founder in Swedish extradition fight
15 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: 'don't shoot the messenger'
15 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: 'don't shoot the messenger'
Governments around the world must not "shoot the messenger" by attacking disclosures by WikiLeaks, Julian Assange said on Tuesday.
Julian Assange says his whistle-blowing website deserves protection and has not cost a single life despite the claims of critics
The former computer hacker said his whistle-blowing website deserves protection and has not cost a single life despite the claims of critics.
Writing for The Australian newspaper, Mr Assange quoted its founder, Rupert Murdoch, as once saying the truth will inevitably win over secrecy.
He said: "Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public."
Mr Assange said WikiLeaks has coined "scientific journalism" that allows readers to study the original evidence for themselves.
He added: "Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest.
"WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption."
The campaigner denied he is anti-war, but said Governments must tell the truth about their reasons for fighting.
He claimed the United States, supported by its "acolytes", has attacked WikiLeaks instead of other media groups because it is "young and small".
Branding the website "underdogs", he accused Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard of "disgraceful pandering" to the Americans.
He said: "The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings."
Mr Assange highlighted some of the most high-profile revelations made by his website over the last week.
He added: "The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth."
In news
The WikiLeaks bunker
WikiLeaks: 10 greatest scoops
WikiLeaks: do they have a right to privacy?
The key WikiLeaks revelations
Why law is powerless to stop WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks 'will continue releasing documents'
15 Dec 2010
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is driven into Westminster Magistrates Court in London Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA
WikiLeaks 'will continue releasing documents'
WikiLeaks has pledged to continue releasing confidential documents after Julian Assange, the website's founder and chief, arrived at court for an extradition hearing.
Wednesday 15 December 2010
Richard Edwards and Nick Collins 2:53PM GMT 07 Dec 2010
Mr Assange handed himself over to police in central London on Tuesday morning after a warrant was issued for his arrest on rape charges.
But ahead of his first court appearance a spokesman for the website insisted the arrest would not prevent the planned release of further cables on Tuesday evening.
The spokesman wrote on Twitter: "Today's actions against our editor-in-chief Julian Assange won't affect our operations: we will release more cables tonight as normal."
The 39-year-old Australian was due to appear before a district judge at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday afternoon, where his lawyers were expected to fight extradition proceedings.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Officers from the Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit have this morning arrested Julian Assange on behalf of the Swedish authorities on suspicion of rape.
"Assange is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court today."
Supporters of Assange were told to protest against censorship outside the Horseferry Road court house on several websites.
His arrest came after an Australian newspaper published an editorial written by Assange, in which he urged governments around the world not to "shoot the messenger".
He wrote: "Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest."
He accused the Australian government and prime minister Julia Gillard of "disgraceful pandering" to the Americans, adding: "The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings."
Mr Assange has not been seen publicly for 31 days, since an appearance in Geneva, and was believed to have been in hiding in the south-east of England as the latest tranche of WikiLeaks material was released.
A European Arrest Warrant was issued by the Swedish last month but could not be acted upon because it did not contain sufficient information for the British authorities. A spokesman for Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor, said the extra details were sent last week.
Police processed the warrant yesterday and arrangements were made with Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s British lawyer, for the Wikileaks founder to attend a central London police station.
Mr Stephens said his client was keen to discover what allegations he was facing so he could clear his name.
"It's about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law," he said.
"Julian Assange has been the one in hot pursuit to vindicate himself to clear his good name.
"He has been trying to meet with her (the Swedish prosecutor) to find out what the allegations are he has to face and also the evidence against him, which he still hasn't seen."
The 39-year-old Australian has been under intense pressure since the release of thousands of secret documents in recent weeks.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesman for WikiLeaks, said Mr Assange had been forced to keep a low profile after several threats on his life.
Sweden’s Supreme Court upheld a court order to detain Mr Assange for questioning on suspicion of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion” after he appealed against two lower court rulings. He denies the allegations.
His details were also added to Interpol’s most wanted website, alerting police forces around the world.
Mr Stephens said he would fight any bid to extradite his client. He added that Mr Assange “has been trying to meet with the Swedish prosecutor since August this year”.
Mr Assange’s troubles deepened when his Swiss bank account was shut down after it was found he had given a false address. Postfinance, the financial arm of Swiss Post, said: “The Australian citizen provided false information regarding his place of residence during the account opening process.”
Mr Assange had allegedly told Postfinance he lived in Geneva but could offer no proof that he was a Swiss resident.
News of his potential arrest came as WikiLeaks was criticised for publishing details of hundreds of sites around the world that could be targeted in terrorist attacks.
Among the British sites listed are a transatlantic undersea cable landing in Cornwall; naval and motoring engineering firm MacTaggart Scott, based in the small Scottish town of Loanhead; and BAE Systems sites, including one in Preston, Lancashire.
The revelations prompted Sir Peter Ricketts, David Cameron’s national security adviser, to order a review of computer security across all government departments.
Julian Assange: Jemima Khan comes to aid of Wikileaks founder in Swedish extradition fight
Jemima Khan appeared in court to lend her support to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as he was put behind bars over sexual allegations originating from Sweden.
By Andrew Hough, and Caroline Gammell 07 Dec 2010
Khan, the socialite and charity worker, offered to provide a £20,000 surety to prevent the 39-year-old Australian from being remanded in custody in Britain over the claims.
Swedish officials want him extradited to answer questions over the alleged rape of one woman and molestation of another while he was in Stockholm this summer.
Mr Assange, who was also supported in court by film director Ken Loach and four others, has repeatedly denied the claims.
The 36-year-old former wife of Imran Khan said she would pay “whatever sum was required” to ensure he was granted bail.
However, a district judge at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court decided he was too much of risk as it emerged that there was no record him ever arriving in Britain.
During Tuesday's hearing he was accompanied by officials from the Australian High Commission after asking for consular assistance.
Outside court, Khan said: “I am not here to make any kind of judgement on the Julian Assange as an individual as I do not know him and I have never met him.
“I am here because I believe in the principle of the human right to freedom of information and our right to be told the truth.”
Mr Assange’s supporters believe his arrest is a political stunt to detract from the revelations being made on a daily basis on the Wikileaks website.
Geoffrey Robertson QC, a prominent Australian human rights barrister who was a defending lawyer at the Brighton Bombing trial in the mid 1980s, has reportedly agreed to act for Mr Assange in future hearings.
The former computer hacker claims he had received several death threats since the secret documents were published and that someone had called for the kidnap of his 20-year-old son in Australia.
Julian Assange in British prison on rape charge
08 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: Extradition case involving Wikileaks founder could last many months
08 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: question of consent
08 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: 'don't shoot the messenger'
07 Dec 2010
The Scarlet Pimpernel of cyberspace
07 Dec 2010
US Attorney General taking 'significant' action
07 Dec 2010
Julian Assange: is 'Wikileaker' on a crusade or an ego trip?
Julian Assange, the man who published the Afghan war files on his Wikileaks website, is unlikely to be chastened by Admiral Mike Mullen’s claims that he might now have “blood on his hands”.
Julian Assange outside court in Melbourne in 1995, where he was later convicted of hacking offences.
Julian Assange, pictured in London this week, relies on donations and the hospitality of wellwishers as he travels the globe.
WikiLeaks: summary of the latest disclosures
The latest round of WikiLeaks releases disclose more detail about the US's relationships with allies and foes across the globe. Here is a round-up of today’s headlines.
Britain
Prince Andrew criticised a variety of governments, including those of Britain and America, as corrupt, stupid and backward in a conversation with a US diplomat.
In his wave of “almost neuralgic patriotism”, the Duke also made the bizarre claim that British geography teachers are the best in the world.
Families of British servicemen killed in Sangin, Afghanistan have reacted furiously after it was claimed WikiLeaks would disclose dismissive remarks by US commanders on British efforts to secure the town.
The Welsh family of Bradley Manning, the US soldier suspected of handing the classified documents to WikiLeaks, have flown to America but been prevented from visiting him in prison.
The internet has been rife with speculation about which former Labour minister was labelled “a bit of a hound dog” with women by an American official.
David Cameron was seen as “lightweight” by Barack Obama after the first meeting between the two leaders, leaked files will show.
Prince Charles does not command the same respect as the Queen, according to a senior Commonwealth official.
International
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, dismissed claims that Arab countries had asked the US to attack his country as a deliberate attempt by the US to destabilise the Middle East.
Released Guantánamo Bay prisoners should have electronic tagging devices implanted so that they can be followed by security officials, the King of Saudi Arabia suggested to a White House official.
Silvio Berlusconi responded to leaked claims by American diplomats that he has a penchant for “wild parties” by claiming he only throws parties in a “proper, dignified and elegant way”.
One of the more unlikely stories to surface from the leaked documents was that of a 77-year-old American dentist who fled Iran on horseback after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
American officials suspect that North Korea has been secretly aiding Iran in its attempts to build nuclear weapons under the auspices of the Chinese government.
Colonel Gaddafi was believed to be very close to a “voluptuous” Ukrainian nurse who followed him everywhere he went, a US cable claimed.
An exile from Iran was living in London when he was targeted in an assassination plot by an Iranian agent, who was later arrested in America.
Hillary Clinton asked US diplomats in Argentina about the mental health of President Cristina Kirchner and questioned whether she was using medication to help her “calm down”.
The White House has told federal agencies to tighten security around the US military computer network following the leaking of classified information.
China would support a unified Korea controlled from Seoul because it believes the North is behaving like a “spoiled child”, documents show.
Sarah Palin has accused Barack Obama of taking insufficient action to prevent the release of the latest batch of WikiLeaks files.
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, could die within months from terminal cancer, an Iranian informant told American officials.
Angela Merkel is the only leader “man” enough to lead the European Union, according to American cables.
The United Nations has angrily hit back at American “interference” after learning that Hillary Clinton ordered what amounted to an espionage campaign on its senior officials.
Julian Assange
The WikiLeaks founder is in hiding after an international warrant was issued for his arrest on rape allegations.
Assange’s next target will be the banking sector, with one American bank in particular to suffer from his next revelations, which he compared to the Enron scandal.
Assange has accused Barack Obama of attempting to smother the freedom of the press.
A criminal investigation is underway into how the latest batch of documents was made public, and Barack Obama could take legal action against Mr Assange.
Kazakh defence minister 'was openly drunk'
01 Dec 2010
WikiLeaks: Best quotes from Duke of York's Kyrgyzstan breakfast with US ambassador
30 Nov 2010
WikiLeaks: bereaved families' fury at US 'insult' over Afghanistan
30 Nov 2010
WikiLeaks: British and US governments stupid, says Prince Andrew
30 Nov 2010
WikiLeaks: Criminal investigation underway into leak of classified diplomatic documents
30 Nov 2010
WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton states WikiLeaks release is "an attack"
30 Nov 2010
Alleged Victims Arina Ardin and Sofia Wilen
Rape accuser took "trophy photo", says Assange December 27th 2010
WikiLeaks
founder, Julian Assange,
claims a woman accusing him of sexual assault
took a "trophy photo" of him lying naked in her bed.
Assange, 39, who
is fighting two allegations of sexual assault, was arrested earlier this
month in London and later released on bail pending an extradition
hearing.
He admits to
Britain’s The Sunday Times he is confused by the allegations, as the
woman had invited him to stay in her flat in Stockholm in August. He
claims she had also invited him to bed with her.
"We went to bed, and things went on from there," he was reported as saying.
He claimed the
night began with the 31-year-old woman, known in legal documents as Miss
A, taking the nude photograph. She apparently gave no indication there
was a problem between them, even reportedly inviting friends to her flat
for dinner "in honour" of Assange.
"Does that sound
like someone who was upset by what had happened? And at the dinner were a
couple who had offered to have me as their guest. Instead, she insisted
I remain with her. I stayed the rest of the week," Assange told The
Sunday Times.
The other young
woman at the centre of the second allegation says she invited him back
to her flat and had consensual sex with him, but woke up the next
morning to find him having intercourse with her.
When she asked him if he was using protection, he allegedly said: "I am wearing you."
Assange has
denied the allegations in both cases and is fighting extradition to
Sweden for further questioning. His British lawyer has said the
suspicions stem from a "dispute over consensual, but unprotected sex."
While unprotected sex cannot in itself be interpreted as rape in Sweden,
sexual intercourse with a person who is asleep is considered
non-consensual.
8 Dec 2010 ... The second woman who accuses Assange is Sofia Wilen. Both alleged victims, who went to the police together “to seek ... Also have a look at http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?301387-Anna-Ardin-and-Sofia-Wilen... www.indymedia.org.au/.../assange-prosecutor-“lock-the-men-up-anyway” - Cached
Alleged victims ... Anna Ardin, left, and Sofia Wilen. ..... the julian assanges head over and above anyone else in that particular arena. ... www.w54.biz/showthread.php?949-WikiLeaks-founder...p... - Cached
Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén approached the Klara police station in ... according to Borgström and Ny - but the alleged victims don't decide ... forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=129738483&page... - Cached
19 Dec 2010 ...Alleged victims ... Anna Ardin, left, and Sofia Wilen. ..... Italy, November 7th, Saturday - Jako Arena, Bamberg, Germany, November 8th, ... www.yesfans.com/showthread.php?t=62197&page=5 - Cached
21 Dec 2010 ...sofia wilen worked hard to bed assange (typo). Inappropriate? ... release the obnoxious spy jonathan pollard!..anna ardin worked for a cia front ... of it all and focus on thriving outside that mental arena. ... As far as the "Alledged" Rape charges, that is a seperate issue, or at least should be. ... www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/.../comments-newest.html - Cached
5 Dec 2010 ... At first the two women, Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen, tweeted and texted, ... Exactly what you are doing to the alleged victims right now. ... portland.indymedia.org/en/2010/12/404194.shtml - Cached
16 Dec 2010 ... Problem: It's been proven that Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen fabricated the .... Circulating the names of possible r@pe victims; leave it to ... www.huffingtonpost.com/.../keith-olbermann-suspends-twitter-account_n_797845.html - Cached
Google brings back "Sofia Wilen." Yeh thats the one. Was close :rofl: .... but you can't really compare a speeding ticket to an alleged act of sexual .... Movie Ratings, |---- Wall of Sound, |-- The Sporting Arena, The Archive ... www.neowin.net/.../959396-who-is-anna-ardin-one-of-assanges-accusers/ - Cached
8 Dec 2010 ... Indeed after the alleged rape et al Ardin arranged a "crayfish party" ..... of taking a rape allegation to court is notoriously hard for the victim. ... luis posada carriles, rape, remand, sofia wilen, spying, sweden, ... www.allvoices.com/.../7565838-who-is-anna-ardin-one-of-assanges-accusers - United States - Cached
Funny how this all turned nasty when Anna Ardin (Miss A) met up with Assange's other girlfriend Sofia Wilen (Miss W). ... wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?101543-Julian... - Cached
Assange prosecutor: “Lock the men up anyway”
http://www.indymedia.org.au/2010/12/08/assange-prosecutor-%E2%80%9Clock-the-men-up-anyway%E2%80%9D Wed 08 Dec 2010
By Diet Simon
The Swedish prosecutor out to get Julian Assange, described as
“overzealous” in the prestigious German weekly, Die Zeit, once advocated
that men accused of mistreating women be locked up even without a
conviction to give the accusing women time and space to think.
There is heated debate in Sweden whether the hard line taken against Assange by the state attorney is right, the paper says.
“Not an international conspiracy of secret services, but an
overzealous state attorney is regarded as the main reason for
(Assange’s) arrest.
“Even an association of young feminist women within the Social
Democratic Party now doubts the seriousness of the accusations and the
professionalism of the state attorney.
“That is remarkable inasmuch as Assange’s alleged victim (Anna Ardin) is a member of this group.”
Even within the group, Die Zeit writes, it is assumed that the
allegations rest only on Assange allegedly not having used a condom
against the will of his sex partner.
“These claims are not officially confirmed, however. But they would fit
with the behaviour of the Swedish judiciary in the Assange case.”
When the accusations were first voiced to the Swedish police in August, the prosecutors did not lay charges.
Then personnel changed.
A new prosecutor, Marianne Ny, took over the case, distanced herself from the previous decision and laid a rape charge.
Marianne Ny is regarded as a prosecutor who goes especially far. “In
one case of a woman being mistreated she voiced the opinion that men
accused by women but not convicted should in any case be preventively
locked up – to give the women “space to think things over”.
"Only when the man is in captivity and the woman in quietude gets
time to look at her existence with some distance, does she get the
opportunity to discover how she was treated,” she is quoted as saying at
the time.
To Swedish media Assange’s British lawyer has likened Marianne Ny to
an "unsecured firearm on the tossing deck of a ship in stormy sea”.
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange fears he is subject of an 'illegal investigation'
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has claimed that there could be an "illegal investigation" being carried out into him.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange celebrates as he prepares to address
the media outside the High Court in central London yesterday. Photo:
AFP/GETTY
1:26PM GMT 17 Dec 2010
Speaking on his first day under house arrest, the 39-year-old Australian
said he had not been provided with any evidence relating to claims he
sexually assaulted two women.
He was let out of prison on Thursday after a judge ruled he should be
released ahead of Swedish extradition proceedings in the new year.
Bail conditions require Mr Assange to remain in the country until the
extradition hearing next year and he is now staying at Ellingham Hall, a
country retreat on the Norfolk/Suffolk border owned by Vaughan Smith,
the founder of London's Frontline club.
Speaking from the grounds of the mansion, he claimed certain
institutions were "engaged in what appears to be, certainly a secret
investigation, but appears also to be an illegal investigation.
"We can see that by how certain people who are allegedly affiliated with
us were contained at the US border and had their computers seized, and
so on."
Asked if he was facing a US conspiracy, Mr Assange said: "I would say
that there is a very aggressive investigation, that a lot of face has
been lost by some people, and some people have careers to make by
pursuing famous cases, but that is actually something that needs
monitoring.
"We've seen the Swedish government, let's not say the government, a
Swedish prosecutor in these representations to the British Government
and British courts said he needed not to provide a single shred of
evidence."
Mr Assange reiterated that he had spent 10 days in solitary confinement
at Wandsworth Prison, south west London, and had still not been
presented with "a single piece of evidence".
He claimed his organisation had been attacked primarily not by
governments, but by banks in Dubai, Switzerland, the US and the UK and
added that WikiLeaks is continuing to release information about the
banks.
He added: "Over 85 per cent of our economic resources are spent dealing
with attacks, dealing with technical attacks, dealing with political
attacks, dealing with legal attacks, not doing our journalism. And that,
if you like, is a tax upon quality investigative journalism.
"An 85 per cent tax rate on that kind of economic activity. Whereas
people who are producing celebrity pieces for Vanity Fair have much
lower tax rates."
Mr Assange said that he had support from a "large Washington law firm"
and from "colleagues in California" but called for more help.
He said: "We need more, and not just at a reactive level."
After emerging from the High Court in London, Mr Assange vowed to "continue his work and protest his innocence".
Assange believes further leaked information relating to the sexual
assault claims are to be made public later today. He has also indicated
that the US is preparing to indict him on espionage charges.
A spokeswoman for the US Department of Justice would confirm only that
there is "an ongoing investigation into the WikiLeaks matter".
Assange is wanted in Sweden for alleged sex offences, which he denies.
His lawyers have accused the Swedish authorities of waging a "vendetta"
against him.
Earlier this week at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court he was granted bail pending the bid to extradite him.
But the whistleblower remained in prison while the authorities
challenged his release at the High Court in London, arguing that there
was "a real risk" he would abscond.
However, on Thursday Mr Justice Ouseley released Assange after rejecting
submissions that the risk he posed made it impossible to set him free.
The judge said his cooperation with police suggested he was not "a
person who is seeking to evade justice" and accepted offers by Assange's
supporters to stump up £200,000 as a cash deposit and a number of other
sureties.
Rape accusers in a 'tizzy' after cops 'bamboozled' them: Assange
December 22, 2010 - 10:17AM
Julian Assange feels he has been unjustly persecuted.
"They know not what they do 'cos they are only
women"........................you sexist pig! Bamboozled by Police my
arse...........the prick still doesn't understand or accept that he has
done anything wrong........
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the Swedish women who have accused
him of sexual assault had got into a "tizzy" about the possibility they
had caught a sexually transmitted disease from him.
Assange told the BBC that one account of what happened in August - the
month at the centre of allegations against him - was that the two women
had panicked when they found out they had both slept with him and went
to police who "bamboozled" them.
He insisted he was fighting a Swedish extradition warrant because he believes "no natural justice" would occur in Sweden.
Alleged victims ... Anna Ardin, left, and Sofia Wilen.
"There are some serious problems with the Swedish prosecution," he said
in an interview from the mansion of a wealthy supporter in eastern
England where he must stay as part of his bail conditions.
Sweden wants Britain to extradite the 39-year-old Australian to face
questioning over allegations from two women that he raped one of them
and sexually assaulted the other in Stockholm in August.
Assange said he was used to attention from women but would not reveal how many women he had slept with.
"A gentleman certainly doesn't count," he said. "I've never had a
problem with women. Women have been extremely helpful and generous with
me and put up with me, assisting me in my work, caring for me, loving me
and so on. That's what I'm used to."
Assange claimed that the Swedish authorities had asked that his Swedish
lawyer be "gagged", adding that his offers to be interviewed by video
link or by Swedish officials in Britain had been rejected.
"I don't need to be at the beck and call of people making allegations," he said.
"I don't need to go back to Sweden. The law says I... have certain
rights, and these rights mean that I do not need to speak to random
prosecutors around the world who simply want to have a chat, and won't
do it in any other standard way."
He said that one account of what occurred in August was that after
having discovered they had each had sex with him, they had got into a
"tizzy", or a panic, about the possibility of sexually transmitted
diseases.
As a result, he said, the women had gone to the police for advice "and
then the police jumped in on this and bamboozled the women".
WikiLeaks has enraged Washington by releasing thousands of US diplomatic
cables and US Vice President Joe Biden described Assange as a "hi-tech
terrorist".
US officials are believed to be considering how to indict Assange for espionage.
In an interview with The Times on Tuesday, Assange compared WikiLeaks'
"persecution" to that endured by Jews in the US in the 1950s.
Assange also confirmed that WikiLeaks was holding a vast amount of
material about Bank of America which it intends to release early next
year.
"We don't want the bank to suffer unless it's called for," Assange told
The Times. "But if its management is operating in a responsive way there
will be resignations," he said, without giving details about the
material.
Shares in Bank of America have fallen amid speculation that it was a WikiLeaks target.
AFP
CIA’s WikiLeaks Task Force: WTF, Indeed
By Spencer Ackerman December 22, 2010 | 9:33 am | Categories: Info War
It can set up mirrored sites. It can bounce from server to server. But
whatever impact WikiLeaks continues to have on the U.S. government after
dumping tens of thousands of military reports and diplomatic cables,
the CIA’s WikiLeaks Task Force is watching, studying, learning. It’s
literally a WTF operation.
Actually, what makes it a WTF operation isn’t just the task force’s
acronym. It’s the WTF’s mandate: not to launch any subterfuge against
the radical disclosure entity — that would be a job for NSA, most
likely, or maybe Saturday Night Live — but rather to study its
disclosure’s impact on the CIA’s ability to recruit snitches and retain
the trust of spy agencies worldwide.
According to the Washington Post’s Greg Miller, it takes an entire task
force to determine that CIA came out of the WikiLeaks saga with minimal
exposure. While WikiLeaks appeared to show CIA operations in Iraq, its
biggest-hyped disclosure was a boring piece of analysis on homegrown
terrorism. The Pentagon and the State Department can only wish they had
such limited breaches.
Score one for the CIA’s distaste for sharing information. It didn’t
participate in the government-wide SIPRNet secret internet that allowed
an Army private like Bradley Manning to allegedly put hundreds of
thousands of State Department cables on a Lady Gaga CD. While the
Defense Department is rushing to ban thumb drives, an ex-CIA official
tells Miller that if he ever put a thumb drive into his work computer,
“there would probably be a little trap door under my chair.” For all the
carping about CIA’s reluctance to share information from earnest
think-tankers and angry congressional panels, here’s an enormous
information-security upside.
That’s partially the result of an institutional culture of secrecy. But
CIA’s also had a lot of early experience with cyber-insecurity. In 1995,
then-Director John Deutch put classified information on his home
computer, which his AOL account left vulnerable to cookies, malware or
phishing – though a CIA inquiry found no harm was done. More seriously,
in what might be the biggest reply-all-FAIL of all time, a CIA agent
accidentally emailed the agency’s entire spy network inside Iran in
2004, allowing a double agent to identify and then neutralize all the
CIA’s snitches.
And the CIA might not WikiLeak, but it leaks like a sieve. In his first
public speech as director of national intelligence, Jim Clapper said
that President Obama was pissed at “widely quoted amorphous and
anonymous senior intelligence officials who get their jollies from
blabbing to the media.” All those are WTF moments — though, as a
reporter, I’m not complaining — but chances are they’re not going to
merit their own task force.
Photo: CIA
The truth lies trapped in a web of intrigue
December 24, 2010
A murky situation ... Julian Assange outside a police station this week in Britain, where he is on bail. Photo: Reuters
This sexual and political drama has more mysteries than any thriller, writes Guy Rundle in London.
Whatever prompted Naomi Wolf to defend Julian Assange by penning a
satirical article for The Huffington Post titled ''Julian Assange
Captured by World's Dating Police'', one assumes she is now regretting
it. Ditto Michael Moore's ex cathedra statements on whether the sex
crime allegations made against the WikiLeaks founder constituted rape or
not: ''His condom broke during consensual sex. This is all a bunch of
hooey as far as I'm concerned.''
Two weeks ago, when he was on remand in Wandsworth prison, it was
broadly accepted that the man responsible for humiliating and
challenging great powers across the world had been railroaded by a
series of accusations relying on scorned female fury.
But now people more critical of the ethereal 39-year-old former hacker
have hit back, as tabloid articles and a long piece in The Guardian
detail the allegations against him blow by blow. The tabloid pieces in
Sweden's Expressen and Britain's Mail on Sunday seemed more interested
in his sexual encounters that were unquestionably consensual than in the
criminal accusations. It is the report from The Guardian, one of
WikiLeaks' publishing partners, that may do him more damage. Yet even
this assessment is more interesting for what it left out - stories of
influence, tampering, shadowy establishments and hidden agendas that
leave the late Stieg Larsson out in the cold.
The story begins in early August, with the first complainant, Miss A, a
woman now universally acknowledged as Anna Ardin, a rising star in the
Social Democratic Party and an organiser of Assange's speaking
engagement in Stockholm. Ardin had put up Assange in her apartment and
organised a crayfish party for him, a traditional Swedish summer
get-together attended by journalists and the leaders of Sweden's
libertarian anti-censorship Pirate Party.
Assange and Ardin had begun a sexual relationship but, according to Nick
Davies in The Guardian report, Ardin had told two friends that the sex
had been ''violent''; Assange had pinned down her arm to prevent her
applying a condom. She had let him stay in her apartment, but not her
bed.
Unbeknown to her, Assange was also seeing Sofia Wilen, a photographer
who, by her own account to police, had become a little obsessed with
Assange after seeing him on TV. Though she had told him she never had
unsafe sex, she said she had woken to find him having sex with her
without a condom. According to her account to prosecutors, they joked
about pregnancy, had breakfast and returned to Stockholm by train, with
Wilen paying for the tickets - as she had paid days earlier for the
cinema, the meal and the train out.
On the Wednesday, August 18, Wilen rang Ardin, whom she did not know, to
find out where Assange was. They compared notes and, on Friday, August
20, went to Klara police station to inquire how they could force Assange
to take a test for sexually transmitted infections. Fifteen minutes
into the interview the police decided to ask the duty prosecutor to open
a rape investigation.
Though it would be months before it began to be adjudicated in The
Huffington Post, the case became murky and mysterious from the get-go.
Wilen's experience had been the basis for the rape accusation, Ardin's
for two misdemeanour accusations. The senior prosecutor threw out the
rape accusation, leaving a case barely worth pursuing.
But then Claes Borgstrom entered the scene. Battered and feisty, a
real-life Kurt Wallander, Borgstrom is both a celebrity lawyer and a
major figure in the Social Democratic Party, its gender equality
spokesman. He petitioned the appeals prosecutor, Marianne Ny, to revive
the accusations. When she did, in early September, there were four
accusations, not three, the most serious being a new one - that of
violent sexual coercion of Ardin.
The new accusation created a substantial difference between the first
and later account of events to the police. It was at this time that
material began to disappear from the internet. Two tweets were removed
from Ardin's Twitter feed in early September - one saying ''Julian wants
to go to a crayfish party, anyone around'' and another from the
crayfish party Ardin organised for him that night ''2am - sitting
outside with the most exciting, interesting people in the world'', both
tweets sent in the 24 hours after the alleged violent sexual encounter
took place.
Simultaneously, two items disappeared from blogs written or co-written
by Ardin: a record of events making no mention of a violent sexual
encounter, and a ''7-step guide to revenge'' on ex-lovers. All four
deleted items were retrieved from internet caches by Swedish bloggers.
One of those who retrieved the deleted material was Goran Rudling, an
activist involved in a campaign to revise Sweden's 2005 Sex Crimes Act,
which he believes has rendered the law unworkable. No fan of Assange,
whom he describes as a ''villain - he wants to make himself more
important by saying there is a conspiracy to get him'', Rudling
nevertheless points out that the investigation of his case has been
hamstrung by a routine disregard for the proper procedures.
''There is, for example, no full record of the first interviews, written
or audio/video. So we don't know what questions were asked, or how they
were answered,'' Rudling says. ''The arrest warrant was issued before
the interview proper had even begun, and one of the complainants was
only interviewed the next day, by telephone.''
Why was a warrant for a serious allegation issued so quickly? One
possibility is so that it could be leaked in time for the afternoon
news, especially to the right-wing tabloid Expressen, which painted such
a harsh picture of Assange that it prompted Ardin to give an interview
to the rival paper Aftonbladet the next day, in which she said that
''Assange is not violent and we do not fear him … this is about someone
who has problems with women''.
It is this quote that has become a headache for Borgstrom, since it
contradicts Ardin's later claims. Questioned about this by reporters,
Borgstrom replied that said the women ''weren't jurists - they don't
know what rape is''. This claim was shaky. As gender equality officer at
Uppsala University, Ardin had issued a new edition of the student
union's gender equality procedures, including a guide to legal recourse.
By now, however, attention had turned to Borgstrom and the passion with
which he was pursuing the case. His decision to take the case had been
met with bemusement by many as his party was on the verge of contesting
the September general election, one it lost badly.
When the Social Democrats were last in power, Borgstrom had helped draft
the 2005 Sex Crime Act, which had made it possible to charge people
with what has become known as ''sex by surprise''. Since losing power in
2006, his party has claimed that the ruling centre-right coalition has
done nothing to give the new laws any force. Opponents of the law
contended that it was unworkable, prompting investigations into matters
that would be reduced to two conflicting stories in court and open to
misuse for reputation damage and revenge.
Crucially, the 2005 law had gone beyond simple notion of consent and
elaborated the idea of ''violation of sexual integrity'' and
non-financial ''sexual exploitation'' - that is, psychological or
situational manipulation. It thus became possible to charge someone with
a sex crime even if consent was present throughout, a feature of at
least two, and possibly all four, of the accusations against Assange.
The accusations against him occurred at a highly charged time, as the
centre-right government received an exhaustive review of the law. The
review had been prompted by bitter struggle between those who said it
was unworkable - people drawn from the left and right - and those on the
centre-left, feminists and greens who argued that the justice system
should be further transformed to overcome the low conviction rate it
achieved.
One of the players in the debate had been Gothenburg's crime development
unit, a department of the prosecutor's office responsible for exploring
new modes for the development of sex crime legislation, and headed by
the appeals prosecutor Marianne Ny.
Does this add up to a possible hidden agenda? Yes and no. Unlike the
experience of Larsson's character Lisbeth Salander, Sweden has less
explicit corruption than a lot of countries. What it does have is a
suffocatingly tight political elite, much of it grouped around the
Social Democratic Party, which has huge cultural power even in
opposition.
Some, such as the law blogger Marten Schultz, are impatient with
Assange's repeated claims of especially bad treatment, arguing that the
most surprising decision from the prosecutors was the second one,
stating that Assange was not a suspect - without carrying out any
investigation.
Others, such as Christian Engstrom, a Pirate Party member of the
European Parliament, suggest that it would be difficult for Assange to
get a fair trial in Sweden, as the judge and ''lay examiners'' who
assess each case are appointed by the political parties in proportion to
their numbers in parliament. ''Usually Swedish justice works well,'' he
argues. ''But in cases like Julian's everything goes strange.''
His chief of staff, Henrik Alexandersson, is more forthright, saying
that as Assange has antagonised all major parties ''there is no chance
of him getting a fair trial''.
Few cases in recent times have been so argued about on the basis of so
much misinformation. Even Davies's account in The Guardian has been
criticised as one-sided by a WikiLeaks associate in Sweden who was one
of several people who tried to mediate between Assange and Ardin, before
she went to the police. ''I would say that it is simply the case for
the prosecution,'' he says. ''The police record contains Assange's early
interview with the police on the 'misconduct' [accusations], yet none
of that has been included.''
Assange has at no time been charged with any crime. His arrest warrant
was issued in relation to questions the prosecutors' office wishes him
to answer regarding the accusations. Assange is next due in court in
Britain on January 11 for the beginning of his extradition hearing.
The WikiLeaks associate suggests the case may never come to trial,
noting that ''one of the complainants has refused to sign off on her
statement''. Even if that proves to be the case, Julian Assange has
entered history, though it remains to be seen whether in triumph or
tragedy.
Days of his life
August 20 Julian Assange is accused of the rape and sexual assault of
Sofia Wilen and of ofredande (''unfreedom'' - a misdemeanour crime under
Swedish law) in relation to Anna Ardin. The accusations are leaked to
the tabloid Espressen.
August 21 Stockholm's chief prosecutor withdraws the arrest warrant for
Assange, saying she sees no description of rape or assault. An
investigation into the ofredande accusation stands.
August 31 Police in Stockholm question Assange and formally tell him of the allegation against him. He denies the accusations.
September 1 Marianne Ny, an appeals prosecutor, reopens an investigation into rape in relation to Ardin.
November 18 An arrest warrant is issued in Sweden for Assange to answer questions from the prosecutor.
November 30 Interpol issues a ''red notice'' for Assange's detention.
December 6 A European arrest warrant is issued.
December 7 Assange gives himself up to British police. The Crown
Prosecution Service reads out four accusations: rape: that Assange had
held Ardin down, forcibly parted her legs and had sex with her;
ofredande: that Assange had unsafe sex with Ardin, thereby violating her
sexual integrity; ofredande: that Assange had pushed his erect penis
into Ardin's back, thereby violating her sexual integrity; sexual
assault: that Assange had had unsafe sex with Wilen while she was
sleeping.
December 16 Assange is released on bail of £200,000 ($308,000) plus
several sureties. An initial extradition hearing is set for January 11.
The substantive hearing will begin in early February.
US Army launches WikiLeaks probe
Nancy A Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers
December 24, 2010 - 2:59PM
WASHINGTON - The US Army has launched a wide-ranging investigation into
how a private suspected of downloading thousands of secret reports and
diplomatic cables and handing them over to WikiLeaks was able to do so
and whether other soldiers should face criminal charges in the case.
An army official familiar with the investigation told McClatchy
newspapers that the six-member task force has been given until February 1
to complete a report that will look at everything from how Private
Bradley Manning was selected for his job and trained to whether his
superiors missed warning signs that he was downloading documents he had
no need to read.
The army confirmed the investigation, but wouldn't release details.
Advertisement: Story continues below The report could change how the
army - the largest distributor of government security clearances -
grants access to government documents as well as lead to recommendations
of charges against soldiers who worked with Manning and may have been
aware of his activities.
Manning was working as an intelligence specialist in Baghdad during 2009
and the early months of 2010 when he allegedly downloaded hundreds of
thousands of classified documents.
Those documents reached WikiLeaks - army officials have said they're not
certain how - and have been published by the website in four separate
bursts that began in April with the release of a video showing an army
helicopter firing on civilians in Baghdad, killing two Reuters news
agency employees.
The website also released tens of thousands of documents related to the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before the current, ongoing publication of
hundreds of thousands of US State Department cables, which began on
November 28.
Manning allegedly downloaded the documents while pretending to listen to
music by Lady Gaga on headphones, a cover story, investigators say, to
explain the sound of the computer's CD drive whirring as he copied the
files.
He's being held in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Base in
Virginia on charges that could lead to a 52-year prison sentence.
Some human rights groups charge that Manning is being mistreated, with no ability to exercise or access to news.
The Defense Department has denied the claims.
Army Lieutenant General Robert Caslen Jr, the commander of the Army
General Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, will lead
the study, which was ordered by John McHugh, the Army secretary.
"Lt Gen Caslen has a very broad investigative mandate and he has been
assured of the co-operation of both the Department of the Army and the
US Central Command as he proceeds. Lt Gen Caslen's investigation will
not interfere nor conflict with the ongoing criminal investigation,"
Army spokesman Lt Col Christopher Garver said in a statement prepared in
response to questions from McClatchy.
No other service branch is conducting a similar investigation, but the
army findings could lead to changes throughout the military. With more
than 800,000 uniformed personnel, the Army issues more security
clearances than any other government organisation.
The US Justice Department also is conducting an investigation into
whether to bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,
though such a prosecution faces a number of challenges, including the
apparent difficulty prosecutors are having tying Assange directly to
Manning.
Manning, now 23, reportedly isn't co-operating with investigators, and
Defense Department officials who have been briefed on the case said
according to their most recent information, now months old, that no
direct tie has been established between Manning and Assange.
The only reason there'd be a "high chance" is
because he is such a mouthy, obnoxious little prick and people would
want the peace his non-existence would bring.............his paranoia
and media manipulation continues.............
WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange says there is a "high chance" he would be
killed in a US jail if he were to be extradited from Britain on
espionage charges.
The Australian is on bail in Britain fighting a bid by Sweden to
extradite him over sex assault claims, but Washington is believed to be
considering how to indict him over the leaking of thousands of US
diplomatic cables.
Assange told The Guardian it would be "politically impossible" for
Britain to send him across the Atlantic, adding that the government of
Prime Minister David Cameron would want to show it had not been
"co-opted" by Washington.
"Legally the UK has the right to not extradite for political crimes.
Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the
discretion of the UK government as to whether to apply to that
exception," he said.
He said US authorities were "trying to strike a plea deal" with Bradley
Manning, the US army soldier suspected of providing WikiLeaks with the
cables.
Assange added that if the United States succeeded in getting him
extradited from Britain or Sweden, then there was a "high chance" of him
being killed "Jack Ruby-style" in an American prison.
Ruby, a nightclub owner, shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald at a police station
in Dallas, Texas days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination
of US President John F Kennedy in 1963.
Ruby's alleged links to organised crime sparked conspiracy theories
about his involvement in an overall plot surrounding the assassination
of Kennedy.
Assange has previously said that he and other WikiLeaks staff have
received death threats since the website began to release a cache of
about 250,000 secret US State Department cables in November.
The 39-year-old has been staying at a friend's country mansion in
eastern England since his release from jail last week on strict bail
conditions that include reporting to police daily and wearing an
electronic tag.
A court in London is due to hold a full hearing on the Swedish extradition request starting February 7.
The only reason there'd be a "high chance" is because he is such a
mouthy, obnoxious little prick and people would want the peace his
non-existence would bring.............his paranoia and media
manipulation continues...........
Wow, are you serious?
Not sure if it was posted here but finally got to read the police report summary, what an arse! Doesn't change anything though
Originally Posted by Deks
Wow, are you serious?
No I wrote that to pass the time of day..................
Originally Posted by buglerbilly
No I wrote that to pass the time of day..................
h fair enough, I thought you may respond with some reasoning into your thoughts though.
For myself, I haven't yet decided whether on balance wikileaks is a good
thing or not. I'm certainly not calling for the julian assanges head
over and above anyone else in that particular arena
I thought my views on Mr Assange were very clear: -
1) Personally, I think he's an obnoxious little prick who's ego is only
matched by his inability to keep his zip up..........this doesn't only
refer to the Swedish instances............
2) He's of a left-wing "society" that believes TOTALLY in its own
supreme correctness ensuring that the rest of us mere mortals have our
outlooks and beliefs modified to understand that THEY are always
right.........IF you've never dealt with such vermin, then undoubtedly
this will sound strange to you BUT I've had to deal with it, understand
the type and still have difficulty being polite when discussing the
same.
3) WikiLeaks, as a group, I have no problem with IN THEORY. However,
taking the current example as a case in point, we still are in the very
early days of how we handle Cyber Leaks where people ILLEGALLY download
masses of information NOT business info but State, Defence and Political
"secrets"; to then say this puts no one at risk 'cos they've read it OR
"its your fault cos you didn't read the STOLEN info we have in our
possession to verify what or who was at risk" defies description in its
banal rigtheous naivety and blatant stupidity. Equally, to ignore the
Global political impact such disclosures can creat is also naive and
stupid.
4) Do I want to live in a society where all matters are open to
disclosure as a right? Nope I do NOT...........it's idealistic and
almost moronic to beleve that this will somehow ensure either equality,
justice or peace in this World. I most certainly do not want other
people knowing what I do or say in every instance, I value my privacy
far more than that and make no mistake, being allowed to leak State
secrets is only a skip and a jump away from no one have any rights to
privacy as privacy, by definition, could be viewed as having "secrets".
A reader emailed me to tell me that Julian Assange’s second rape accuser is named Sofia Wilén. She’s the “Woman B” in this article, the stalkerish groupie who slept with Assange but got mad at him after he turned out to be an inattentive geek. There are a bunch of articles confirming Wilén’s involvement in the case, including her friendship with Assange’s other accuser, the psychotic feminist Anna Ardin:
STOCKHOLM/MELBOURNE (Rixstep) — The charges
against Julian Assange were indeed trumped up. Anna Ardin and Sofia
Wilén planned it all. They went to the police station asking for advice,
knowing the police would turn it into an accusation of rape. They’re
also the ones who leaked the story to the tabloid Expressen.
This was revealed in a letter written by Assange’s Australian barrister to the website Crikey.
A bit of a recap first.
Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén approached the Klara police station in
Stockholm on the afternoon of Friday 20 August 2010 to ask questions of
the police, purportedly about forcing someone to submit to STD/HIV
tests.
The policemen on duty rang up prosecutor on duty Maria Kjellstrand
even before the formal interrogation had begun. Kjellstrand - working with no paperwork at all at this point
– issued an ‘APB’ for Assange and had the police search the Stureplan
district of Stockholm for Assange, ostensibly to bring him in for
questioning (and a tour of Swedish isolation cells).
The formal interrogation of Sofia Wilén was only concluded hours
later and the interrogation of Anna Ardin didn’t take place until the
day after - by telephone.
As seen from Anna Ardin’s SMS history, Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén made the whole thing up - and even decided to leak the story to notorious Swedish tabloid Expressen. The story reached Niklas Svensson and others at Expressen at 19:52.
A colleague of Svensson’s rang up Maria Kjellstrand to find out if the story was true - and Kjellstrand, violating the rules of her office, told the reporter that it was.
Wilén is apparently a photographer by trade. This is supposedly the only known picture of her on the Internet:
Spread the word – Julian Assange’s lying rape accusers are Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén. These women need to be exposed for what they have done.
For more on Anna Ardin, the radical feminist who convinced Wilén to
file charges against Assange, see here. For my complete breakdown of the
Assange case, see here.
UPDATE: I’m adding some more pictures that my readers have found. Here’s one from Legion, at Unfrozen Caveman’s blog:
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 4th, 2010 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Feminism, Men's Rights, Sexuality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
36 Responses to “The name of Julian Assange’s other false rape accuser is Sofia Wilén”
You’re number one on Google now for the searched name. Congrats!
The feminists have shot themselves in the foot.
Exposing the libertarian/intellectual factions to MRA concerns is going
to dig another huge hole in their graves.
Ferd, since you are now number one on google
search the name sofia wilen you should edit your post to include the
other pictures linked to among the comments.
You were talking about calling men to arms yesterday and now you have a chance to do just that.
To the rest of the people reading this, start a
google bomb about this (and the previous) post. The more people who see
these two vapid liers for what they are, the better.
i’d be a bit careful about using such certainty
in your language to describe your allegations about what these 2
specific women did. I’m not saying I disagree with you… not at all… and
I think your insight and journalistic activism is spot-on and extremely
helpful and important in this very important issue.
But you don’t have the experience that a
newspaper editor does in libel and slander. These 2 women aren’t public
figures. It’s possible you could have wrong info. I think it would be
better to distance the certainty with “i think X because of the sources
that have said Y.” rather than a call to “spread the word”. Just
looking out for you dude. Keep up the good work otherwise.
Um, is she about three months pregnant in that pic, or what? Or it is the way her jacket is made?
And “Seth” looks pretty spazzed out in that pic,
maybe a few seconds away from raping somebody himself. I can’t tell
what “show” they’re intensely waiting for, but from the image in the
mirror behind them it looks like a live-action “Emperor’s New Groove.”
(??)
[...] welcome to re-publish any and all of my original posts on the
debacle in their entirety (find them here, here, and here) provided
they follow these [...]
[...] Ferdinand Bardamu has noted (check out links here, here, and
here), Julian Assange, editor of Wikileaks, has been accused under very
suspicious circumstances of [...]
[...] good story on the bogus “sex crimes” accusations against
Julian Assange appears here, on Ferdinand Bardamu’s In Mala Fide blog.
Contrary to widespread speculation, Assange is not being charged with
rape, but apparently just [...]
[...] the last time I write about Julian Assange for the time
being. Promise. And if my previous posts on Assange offended you, this
one will probably give you a coronary. Proceed at your own [...]
Thanks to kulak for this gem: Felt it had to be published as a separate post:
Wikileaks? There is an easy way to secure all government documents, and to prevent any further security leaks.
Keep all of America’s classified documents in
the same filing cabinet as President Obama’s college transcripts,
passport information, nationality documents and birth certificate(s).
How come a man like Julian choose a way to rape two hookers?
In a country like Sweden, where sex is one of the most free in Universe?
Poohahh..
Tell it to my stinking shoes.
It’s a pure cia thing.
[...] rape accusers. My traffic has ballooned from Googlers seeking
info and pictures of Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén in the past 48 hours,
and my posts are being linked all over the place from sites as diverse
as [...]
It is very sad that important issues are being
mixed up concerning the charges against Julian Assange. Yet I am
convinced that all involved have a primary interest in seeing the
impotant work of Wikileaks go forward. Please people, do whatever you
can to prevent Mr. Assange from being extradicted to the USA. If that
should occur I’m quite certain that he will never return to Europe
alive. Noone has intended that.
The climate here is now totally “over the top.” He will be tortured and killed. Please, you must prevent extradition. Joe
Great investigative journalism! I have noticed
that the mainstream media has not done any real digging on the accusers
there names or profiles. Well done.
Assange is a smart dude, but not smart enough
to avoid a Swedish girl in those black-topped rectangle glasses which
stand everywhere for “I WILL ACCUSE YOU OF RAPE IF YOU EVEN LOOK AT ME”?
wow,..MEN watch out for these FALSE RAPE
ACCUSERS,.. hey too greedy for money and fame !! Rather use ur hand than
sleeping wth such FALSE-ACCUSERS AND GETTING LOCKED UP BEHIND BARS !!!
We have read how the City of Berkeley which
wanted to award Private First Class Bradley Manning the Honour of being a
Hero to America, but they have correctly and properly delayed a vote on
the matter.
This is because the City of Berkeley should not
have moved on this matter until it has been proven in a Proper Court of
Law if Private First Class Bradley Manning is the one who leaked the
American Undiplomatic Cables to Wikileaks.
The City of Berkeley in typical American
fashioned has forgotten that anyone under suspicion is to be PRESUMED
INNOCENT UNTIL FOUND OTHERWISE BY A PROPER COURT OF LAW.
This is of course the correct position, because a
person has to be found guilty in a Court of Law, and not in what the
Media might say, or even what hearsay says.
The City of Berkeley in California is a liberal
City, and most people vote for the Democrats, and this may have been
politically motived because of the recent Federal and State Elections.
There are many possibilities here, and I will
only mention the more obvious ones to illustrate why the Presumption of
Innocence must be respected.
What if a million Americans claimed that he was
the one who leaked that Classified Information to Wikileaks, would that
make all of them suspects?
We may be correct in assuming that the person or
persons behind this leak to Wikileaks were sane, and therefore had
their motives.
It could be that if a person heard about what
someone else or others have leaked to Wikileaks, then they made have
wanted to take the credit for it, or it could have been just booze talk.
If a person knew of the leak, and then pretended
that it was him to someone who is not the Authority, then he would be
confident to be found innocent at his trial.
The motivation is of course fame and fortune, or
even infamy and fortune, but as long as there is the fortune along with
the pronouncement of innocence.
That is one end of the spectrum, and the other
possibility is that Presidents Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were the
masterminds of this, and that Manning will receive a Pardon from Barack
Obama, just before he hands over office to President Hillary Clinton.
Berkeley is a liberal city that votes for the
Democrats, and it is the Democrats who will lose a lot of votes if they
do not manage to find whoever leaked the Cables to Wikileaks either
innocent, or to say either truthfully or to lie and say that they cannot
find who made the leak to Wikileaks.
I am not suggesting that liberals will vote for
the Republicans, although a few might; but America has voluntary voting,
and the liberals may not vote at the next election.
This is why President Hillary Clinton has not
been Publicly calling for an Imperialistic version of a Fatwa on
Manning, but the Democrats have left to the other side of the coin to do
their dirty work, because the Democrats know that it will cost the
Democrats votes.
The Republicans do not have any worries as
regards loss of votes with a person who could be portrayed as a traitor,
even though, depending on testimony that is not extracted from torture
may show that he is probably a Patriot and maybe even a Hero.
The problem for both Political Parties in
America is that regardless of who leaked the information, they are
showing the world that they are not happy with being made to be honest,
and that is why they are persecuting Private First Class Bradley Manning
in a Middle East Jail, so that protests cannot be held at an American
Jail.
We can all be certain that Private First Class
Bradley Manning’s Legal Defence Team, and even common sense have
instructed him to answer no questions.
We have learned from the Media that the American
Government, is trying to make it look like there was coercion from the
founder of Wikileaks on Private First Class Bradley Manning to make the
leaks.
We have seen attempts at this by asking why
Wikileaks has not paid money to Private First Class Bradley Manning,
because as far as President Hillary Clinton is concerned, she needs
Julian Assange convicted in America for her election at the next
American Presidential election.
The reason for detaining a Presumed Innocent
American Citizen in Contravention of the American Constitution is to
bribe, pressure, or even torture him into doing the whims of President
Hillary Clinton.
Whoever leaked the information to Wikileaks did
the American Community a great Public Service, because what we learn is
that the Dictatorship is coming to America, regardless of Democrats or
Republicans.
The Democrats and the Republicans want to
conceal the fact that the American Military must one day come home, and
that they are now trained psychopaths who need an endless supply of
victims.
That supply of victims will not be foreigners,
but American Citizens who have been disarmed because of being
manipulated by a Puppet Uncle Tom using their stupid white guilt trip.
The American citizens will be told criticism
against the Unconstitutional policies of a Puppet Uncle Tom will because
of their alleged racism, and not because of the evil policies.
The Democrats and the Republicans both know all these things to be true, but they will not confess for the obvious reasons.
They have their ready made excuses that were invented long ago, and all of this information is Classified Top Secret.
The reason they are against even the low level
Classified Information being leaked, is because others will be able to
deduce what the Top Secret Information concerning the disarming of the
American people, and the return home of America’s psychopathic Nazi
Army.
It should not surprise us if the Founder of
Wikileaks has been bribed, pressured, or even intimidated into changing
the original content of the UnDiplomatic American Cables.
The American Government has made so many
documents Classified, because that way they can intimidate anyone with
commenting on their definition of Classified Information.
I know that we are all wiser with hindsight, but
a non-Nazi Hope and Change would have said what is done is done, and
that persecuting those who may or may not have leaked this information,
and those who are publishing it even in a changed form after they have
been bribed and intimidated would not be in the Public Interest.
I truly wish that I did not have to be the one
of many to inform America’s Politicians, but I guess that if they do not
know by now, then they need to firstly be advised as to how Americans
are thinking, and they need to be reminded of their obligations to the
American Public.
The American People may soon rise up and kill all, and that means all American Politicians, Federal, State, and Local.
That is why if even people like Ron Paul need to
decide to leave Politics or to confess that he has been as corrupt as
the rest of them all along, because if there is a cleansing, the
cleansing will be complete.
There will be no distinction between good
Politicians or bad Politicians, because the only good American
Politician will be a Dead American Politician.
As far as the Main Stream Media is concerned, I
have not been able to see the mood of the American people, but they may
go down along with the bankers.
This is why both Political Parties in America
ware working together to find ways to unduly censor the Internet, so
that the Corrupt and Bribed Puppet Media can free rein brainwash the
Gullible.
There were many people who were hoping that the British Legal System was not subservient to the dictates of America.
Xtranormal cartoon of an ‘interview’ with
Claes Borgstrom. He doesn’t like talking much about his business
partner, Thomas Bodstroms CIA connections much..
// * Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups.
She published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the
Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by
Misceláneas de Cuba. From Oslo, Professor Michael Seltzer points out
that this periodical is the product of a well-financed anti-Castro
organization in Sweden. He further notes that the group is connected
with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner whose CIA ties
were exposed here. Note that Ardin was deported from Cuba for subversive
activities. In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group
Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US
government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada
Carriles is a friend and supporter. Wikipedia quotes Hebe de Bonafini,
president of the Argentine Madres de Plaza de Mayo as saying that “the
so-called Ladies in White defend the terrorism of the United States.”
However we do not have to accept the single-bullet theory. Life is more
complicated than that. In addition to her anti-Castro, pro-CIA streak, Anna
Ardin apparently indulges in her favorite sport of male-bashing. A
Swedish forum reports that she is an expert on sexual harassment and the
male “master suppression techniques”. Once, as she was lecturing, a
male student in the audience looked at his notes instead of staring at
her. Anna Ardin reported him for sexual harassment because he
discriminated against her for being a woman and because she claimed he
made use of the male “master suppression technique” in trying to make
her feel invisible. As soon as the student learned about her complaint, he contacted her to apologize and explain himself. Anna
Ardin’s response was to once again report him for sexual harassment,
again because he was using the “master suppression technique”, this time
to belittle her feelings.
Ardin is apparently involved with a “Christian” Social-Democrat group.
The Swedish church has a precious few male priests: what was once the
struggle for female equality has ended up with men being effectively
removed from service. Nowadays very few Swedish male-female couples
marry in the church, or get married at all; most Swedish gay couples,
however, are proud to become “man and wife” in the church. This is all
good news for wealthy Swedes: deserted churches sell their properties
(once enjoyed by the community) to be fenced off by the nouveau riche
created by the latest privatization wave. So much for Swedish social
democracy!
The second accuser, Sofia Wilen, 26, is Anna’ friend. Here is a video of
an Assange press conference where one can see the girls together. Those
present at the conference marveled at her groupie-like behavior.
Though rock stars are used to girls dying to have sex with them, it is
much less common in the harsh field of political journalism. Sofia
worked hard to bed Assange, according to her own confession; she was
also the first to complain to police. She is little known and her
motives are vague. Why might a young woman (who shares her life with
American artist Seth Benson) pursue such a sordid political adventure?//
//Santa is a bad example to the children... so fat
he can't get down chimneys any more
he is a reindeer abuser
and won't allow the elves to unionize // sb11
Note to self: If you go after a fly, sooner or later, you will land on a pile of shit
I got nothing but love for a person who risks their life to tell the truth.
Originally Posted by Deks
Dude, you’re way off base – women never lie about rape!
[...] reading this article, I decided to look around and try to find some pictures of Sofia [...]
Great find, Ferdinand. I shall add this to my site also.
There is a second picture of Sofia Wilén that I have found, but her face is unhelpfully blurred out. No idea how Unfrozen Caveman found it:
http://unfrozencaveman.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/woman-b1.jpg
Now, as far as I know, there are certain software programs that can actually re-pixellate manipulated images such as this.
I have no idea how to go about doing such a thing myself; just thought I’d put that out there.
One pre-event picture and video of the press conference where they met.
http://dissention.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/an-interesting-series-of-photos-dec-4-2010/
You’re number one on Google now for the searched name. Congrats!
The feminists have shot themselves in the foot. Exposing the libertarian/intellectual factions to MRA concerns is going to dig another huge hole in their graves.
Ferd, since you are now number one on google search the name sofia wilen you should edit your post to include the other pictures linked to among the comments.
You were talking about calling men to arms yesterday and now you have a chance to do just that.
To the rest of the people reading this, start a google bomb about this (and the previous) post. The more people who see these two vapid liers for what they are, the better.
ferd dude…
i’d be a bit careful about using such certainty in your language to describe your allegations about what these 2 specific women did. I’m not saying I disagree with you… not at all… and I think your insight and journalistic activism is spot-on and extremely helpful and important in this very important issue.
But you don’t have the experience that a newspaper editor does in libel and slander. These 2 women aren’t public figures. It’s possible you could have wrong info. I think it would be better to distance the certainty with “i think X because of the sources that have said Y.” rather than a call to “spread the word”. Just looking out for you dude. Keep up the good work otherwise.
Um, is she about three months pregnant in that pic, or what? Or it is the way her jacket is made?
And “Seth” looks pretty spazzed out in that pic, maybe a few seconds away from raping somebody himself. I can’t tell what “show” they’re intensely waiting for, but from the image in the mirror behind them it looks like a live-action “Emperor’s New Groove.” (??)
More on the CIA honey trap (alleged):
http://rixstep.com/1/20100917,01.shtml
From the Left Wing counterpunch website,
It looks like this is the Left vs the Right and Radical Feminists.
It also looks like Sweden is being made to look (even more) foolish in the eyes of the world for their Kafkaesque sex laws.
Typical CIA f**ked up operation. The KGB would have fed him into a wood chipper, and that would have been the end of it. I sometimes why we even try…
more info.
—-
Assange: Aftonbladet’s ‘Inside Story’
http://rixstep.com/1/20100914,00.shtml
FB,
I have put up one more picture of her. Apparently someone copied her profile picture (from some art site) before she could delete it.
Her name has been known since early September.
https://www.flashback.org/t1275257
Late August.
yeah, that’s how you hunt them down.
[...] welcome to re-publish any and all of my original posts on the debacle in their entirety (find them here, here, and here) provided they follow these [...]
[...] Ferdinand Bardamu has noted (check out links here, here, and here), Julian Assange, editor of Wikileaks, has been accused under very suspicious circumstances of [...]
[...] article was originally posted, in a slightly different form, at In Mala Fide on December 4, [...]
On a totally different note: Legion, I thought you were another Legion. There’s a dude who goes by that handle here on the left coast.
[...] Part three [...]
[...] good story on the bogus “sex crimes” accusations against Julian Assange appears here, on Ferdinand Bardamu’s In Mala Fide blog. Contrary to widespread speculation, Assange is not being charged with rape, but apparently just [...]
[...] the last time I write about Julian Assange for the time being. Promise. And if my previous posts on Assange offended you, this one will probably give you a coronary. Proceed at your own [...]
Thanks to kulak for this gem: Felt it had to be published as a separate post:
Wikileaks? There is an easy way to secure all government documents, and to prevent any further security leaks.
Keep all of America’s classified documents in the same filing cabinet as President Obama’s college transcripts, passport information, nationality documents and birth certificate(s).
Problem solved.
How come a man like Julian choose a way to rape two hookers?
In a country like Sweden, where sex is one of the most free in Universe?
Poohahh..
Tell it to my stinking shoes.
It’s a pure cia thing.
[...] [...]
[...] In Malafide 4 december 2010 – UPDATE II – The name of Julian Assange’s other false rape accuser is Sofia Wilén [...]
[...] rape accusers. My traffic has ballooned from Googlers seeking info and pictures of Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén in the past 48 hours, and my posts are being linked all over the place from sites as diverse as [...]
[...] Best info: In mala fide [...]
It is very sad that important issues are being mixed up concerning the charges against Julian Assange. Yet I am convinced that all involved have a primary interest in seeing the impotant work of Wikileaks go forward. Please people, do whatever you can to prevent Mr. Assange from being extradicted to the USA. If that should occur I’m quite certain that he will never return to Europe alive. Noone has intended that.
The climate here is now totally “over the top.” He will be tortured and killed. Please, you must prevent extradition. Joe
Great investigative journalism! I have noticed that the mainstream media has not done any real digging on the accusers there names or profiles. Well done.
Assange is a smart dude, but not smart enough to avoid a Swedish girl in those black-topped rectangle glasses which stand everywhere for “I WILL ACCUSE YOU OF RAPE IF YOU EVEN LOOK AT ME”?
[...] This guy bears an uncanny resemblance to the “Seth” vegging out with Wilén in this picture: [...]
wow,..MEN watch out for these FALSE RAPE ACCUSERS,.. hey too greedy for money and fame !! Rather use ur hand than sleeping wth such FALSE-ACCUSERS AND GETTING LOCKED UP BEHIND BARS !!!
We have read how the City of Berkeley which wanted to award Private First Class Bradley Manning the Honour of being a Hero to America, but they have correctly and properly delayed a vote on the matter.
This is because the City of Berkeley should not have moved on this matter until it has been proven in a Proper Court of Law if Private First Class Bradley Manning is the one who leaked the American Undiplomatic Cables to Wikileaks.
The City of Berkeley in typical American fashioned has forgotten that anyone under suspicion is to be PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL FOUND OTHERWISE BY A PROPER COURT OF LAW.
This is of course the correct position, because a person has to be found guilty in a Court of Law, and not in what the Media might say, or even what hearsay says.
The City of Berkeley in California is a liberal City, and most people vote for the Democrats, and this may have been politically motived because of the recent Federal and State Elections.
There are many possibilities here, and I will only mention the more obvious ones to illustrate why the Presumption of Innocence must be respected.
What if a million Americans claimed that he was the one who leaked that Classified Information to Wikileaks, would that make all of them suspects?
We may be correct in assuming that the person or persons behind this leak to Wikileaks were sane, and therefore had their motives.
It could be that if a person heard about what someone else or others have leaked to Wikileaks, then they made have wanted to take the credit for it, or it could have been just booze talk.
If a person knew of the leak, and then pretended that it was him to someone who is not the Authority, then he would be confident to be found innocent at his trial.
The motivation is of course fame and fortune, or even infamy and fortune, but as long as there is the fortune along with the pronouncement of innocence.
That is one end of the spectrum, and the other possibility is that Presidents Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were the masterminds of this, and that Manning will receive a Pardon from Barack Obama, just before he hands over office to President Hillary Clinton.
Berkeley is a liberal city that votes for the Democrats, and it is the Democrats who will lose a lot of votes if they do not manage to find whoever leaked the Cables to Wikileaks either innocent, or to say either truthfully or to lie and say that they cannot find who made the leak to Wikileaks.
I am not suggesting that liberals will vote for the Republicans, although a few might; but America has voluntary voting, and the liberals may not vote at the next election.
This is why President Hillary Clinton has not been Publicly calling for an Imperialistic version of a Fatwa on Manning, but the Democrats have left to the other side of the coin to do their dirty work, because the Democrats know that it will cost the Democrats votes.
The Republicans do not have any worries as regards loss of votes with a person who could be portrayed as a traitor, even though, depending on testimony that is not extracted from torture may show that he is probably a Patriot and maybe even a Hero.
The problem for both Political Parties in America is that regardless of who leaked the information, they are showing the world that they are not happy with being made to be honest, and that is why they are persecuting Private First Class Bradley Manning in a Middle East Jail, so that protests cannot be held at an American Jail.
We can all be certain that Private First Class Bradley Manning’s Legal Defence Team, and even common sense have instructed him to answer no questions.
We have learned from the Media that the American Government, is trying to make it look like there was coercion from the founder of Wikileaks on Private First Class Bradley Manning to make the leaks.
We have seen attempts at this by asking why Wikileaks has not paid money to Private First Class Bradley Manning, because as far as President Hillary Clinton is concerned, she needs Julian Assange convicted in America for her election at the next American Presidential election.
The reason for detaining a Presumed Innocent American Citizen in Contravention of the American Constitution is to bribe, pressure, or even torture him into doing the whims of President Hillary Clinton.
Whoever leaked the information to Wikileaks did the American Community a great Public Service, because what we learn is that the Dictatorship is coming to America, regardless of Democrats or Republicans.
The Democrats and the Republicans want to conceal the fact that the American Military must one day come home, and that they are now trained psychopaths who need an endless supply of victims.
That supply of victims will not be foreigners, but American Citizens who have been disarmed because of being manipulated by a Puppet Uncle Tom using their stupid white guilt trip.
The American citizens will be told criticism against the Unconstitutional policies of a Puppet Uncle Tom will because of their alleged racism, and not because of the evil policies.
The Democrats and the Republicans both know all these things to be true, but they will not confess for the obvious reasons.
They have their ready made excuses that were invented long ago, and all of this information is Classified Top Secret.
The reason they are against even the low level Classified Information being leaked, is because others will be able to deduce what the Top Secret Information concerning the disarming of the American people, and the return home of America’s psychopathic Nazi Army.
It should not surprise us if the Founder of Wikileaks has been bribed, pressured, or even intimidated into changing the original content of the UnDiplomatic American Cables.
The American Government has made so many documents Classified, because that way they can intimidate anyone with commenting on their definition of Classified Information.
I know that we are all wiser with hindsight, but a non-Nazi Hope and Change would have said what is done is done, and that persecuting those who may or may not have leaked this information, and those who are publishing it even in a changed form after they have been bribed and intimidated would not be in the Public Interest.
I truly wish that I did not have to be the one of many to inform America’s Politicians, but I guess that if they do not know by now, then they need to firstly be advised as to how Americans are thinking, and they need to be reminded of their obligations to the American Public.
The American People may soon rise up and kill all, and that means all American Politicians, Federal, State, and Local.
That is why if even people like Ron Paul need to decide to leave Politics or to confess that he has been as corrupt as the rest of them all along, because if there is a cleansing, the cleansing will be complete.
There will be no distinction between good Politicians or bad Politicians, because the only good American Politician will be a Dead American Politician.
As far as the Main Stream Media is concerned, I have not been able to see the mood of the American people, but they may go down along with the bankers.
This is why both Political Parties in America ware working together to find ways to unduly censor the Internet, so that the Corrupt and Bribed Puppet Media can free rein brainwash the Gullible.
There were many people who were hoping that the British Legal System was not subservient to the dictates of America.
[...] UPDATE II – The name of Julian Assange's other false rape accuser is Sofia Wilén [...]
Xtranormal cartoon of an ‘interview’ with Claes Borgstrom. He doesn’t like talking much about his business partner, Thomas Bodstroms CIA connections much..
http://www.chillingmesoftly.com/content/claes-borgstrom-julian-assange-kicks-kittens-0