assangewatch.blogspot.com
Julian Assanges' extradition hearing is over and Judge Howard Riddle is expected to give his verdict on Feb. 24.
Assange's lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson, had sought an adjournment saying Assange would not get a fair trial in Sweden after Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Assange had "become public enemy number one in Sweden". But Judge Howard Riddle rejected Robertson's request for an adjournment.
Geoffrey Robertson QC told the court at the extradition hearing in south London that any resistance had been "unarticulated" by "Miss A", or Anna Ardin, who has accused Assange of tearing her clothes off, snapping a necklace. holding her down and trying to have sex with her without a condom.
Robertson said:
"In so far as Mr Assange held her arms and there was a forceful spreading of her legs, there's no allegation that this was without her consent."The Swedish police have not charged Assange with anything, but want him extradited to face questions about accusations of rape and sexual molestation made against him by Sofia Wilen and Anna Ardin, which he denies.
"Sexual encounters have their ups and downs, their ebbs and flows. What may be unwanted one moment can with further empathy become desired. These complex human interactions are not criminal in this country."
Wilen told police she had consensual sex with Assange using a condom and that later, as they slept, Assange began having sex with her while she was asleep. Wilen's encounter is the basis of the rape allegation.
According to Wilen's police statement, she woke up and asked,
“Are you wearing anything?”The police say “she felt it was too late” to stop the unprotected sex. “He [Assange] was already inside her and she let him continue. She couldn’t be bothered to tell him again. She had nagged about condoms all night. She had never had unprotected sex before. He said he wanted to come inside her, he didn’t say when he did, but he did it.”
“You,” Assange replied.
“You’d better not have HIV,” she said.
“Of course not.”
Clare Montgomery, the Swedish prosecutor, said of Ardin's account:
"In popular language, that's violence."Montgomery said Wilen's account:
"Would undoubtedly be rape here. If you penetrate a sleeping woman there's an evidential assumption that she did not consent."Assange's lawyers say that because the allegations would not even be considered a crime in Britain and because Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, who was not in the courtroom, has a "bias against men", and issued the extradition request for Assange before criminal charges had been filed, the warrant should be invalid.
Assange has offered to be questioned in Britain, but Ny has refused the offer saying he must go to Sweden to be questioned and that DNA samples may need to be taken.
Assange said:
“In this case we have not been able to present my side of the story. I have never been able to present my side of the story.”News clip from RT news:
I suppose that the most of the Swedish people think that Assange has been crossed the allowed boundaries of the law. He said that his box of rape after the trial shall be empty. I think that he has been lied a little bit and did something in the grey zone. His lie is necessary because Sweden has terrible laws about sexual assaults for man against woman. In Sweden it’s always a he which is arrested for rape , waited sometimes a long time in jail before he go to court. The he would not get a fair trial. Hearing of rape cases are behind closed doors and they believe the woman first and there is also a political influence. Sweden makes the law for rape very complicate. If the woman go to the police than they make the arrest warrant without risk for the woman. Sweden thinks that they are one of the best guys of Europe and have a modern state with modern laws. I think that’s wrong if I look how they handle crimes of sexual assaults. On this moment with Marianne Ny as prosecuter for rape cases I think that Sweden is a kind of Saoedi Arab with as victim men. If I look to the black pages in the history of sexual crime in Sweden against women I think the government must look good to her own history of the twentieth century before she makes such inhumane strong laws against men. Sweden has a terrible sexual crime history, because in the past she has been made it for some groups of the inhabitants impossible to get children. They sterilized in the twentieth century a lot of Swedish women. This group in the North of Sweden was unwanted and must be limited. So Sweden be careful if you make and use laws against sexual assaults and suppose that you make and use the laws better than in the beginning of this century. Normal people and governments are not without any crime. What the Swedish prosecuter do with the foreigner Assange is unfair. In my opnion a rape-process with prosecuter Marianne Ny and unsympathetic woman Anna Ardin is barbarian. After Anna Ardin thought that Assange damaged the condom it’s normal in that kind of situations that she directly try to stop the sex action and ask Assange to leave her flat. She did not. Witnesses also confirm that Anna Ardin behaved like nothing had happened after the alleged rape. The witnesses it also appears as if Anna Ardin was not having any issues with Assange until she found out that Sofia Wilen had had sex with Assang . The second case with Sofia Wilen is more complicate. If she is not infected than I think compassion with Assange after a letter of regret and a financial compensation of Assange is better than a trial.
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