Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador withdraws asylum.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/assange-a ... -1.5093405

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by British police on Thursday after police were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy where he has been holed up since 2012.

"Julian Assange, 47, has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador," police said in a statement.

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno said Assange's diplomatic asylum was withdrawn for repeated violations of international conventions. Ecuador received a guarantee from Britain that Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face the death penalty, Moreno said.

British foreign minister Alan Duncan statement on arrest of Julian Assange:
“It is absolutely right that Assange will face justice in the proper way in the U.K. It is for the courts to decide what happens next.”

Police said Assange has been taken into "custody at a central London police station where he will remain, before being presented before Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as is possible."

Assange took refuge in the embassy to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation. That probe was later dropped.

Assange hadn't left the embassy since August 2012 for fear that if he steps off Ecuador's diplomatic soil he will be arrested and extradited to the United States for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.

@Jeremy_Hunt
Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law. He has hidden from the truth for years. Thank you Ecuador and President @Lenin Moreno for your cooperation with @foreignoffice to ensure Assange faces justice

Assange's relationship with his hosts collapsed after Ecuador accused him of leaking information about Moreno's personal life. Moreno had previously said Assange has violated the terms of his asylum.

WikiLeaks said Ecuador had illegally terminated Assange's political asylum in violation of international law.

No doubt many of the faux anti-establishment (read: pro-Kremlin) crowd will be rushing forward to say that he's being persecuted by America/the West/the Deep State, with all the usual Whataboutism and deflection. Now, I don't doubt the US intelligence community wants to get Assange very badly. For my part, all I will say is that whether his actions should qualify as criminal or not, Assange should not be given the dignity of being considered a journalist. Journalists are supposed to have certain standards (even if they sometimes don't live up to them). Like not leaking classified information that will endanger innocent lives. Or not directly coordinating with a political campaign. Assange isn't interested in the truth, because if he was, he would have leaked information damaging to both Hillary and Trump, rather than clearly favoring one party, as desired by his Kremlin puppet masters. He is not a principled crusader for the truth- he is a political hack masquerading as a principled whistle-blower.

There's also the whole thing where he might be a sex offender (though we'll probably never know for sure, since the probe was dropped).

So if he finally got himself arrested by violating the terms of his asylum, well... excuse me while I play the world's smallest violin.

[Crazedwraith]

So if the sex probe has been dropped what has he been arrested for?

[The Romulan Republic]

So if the sex probe has been dropped what has he been arrested for?

Skipping bail, apparently:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/wiki ... on-n991236

LONDON — Julian Assange, the fugitive founder of WikiLeaks and publisher of state secrets that embarrassed governments across the world, was arrested in London on Thursday almost seven years after he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Assange was wanted by British police for skipping bail in August 2012, while he was under investigation for sexual assault and rape in Sweden.

London's Metropolitan Police said the Ecuadorian government had withdrawn asylum for Assange, adding that officers had been "invited into the embassy by the ambassador."

Footage shot by the Ruptly news agency showed a bedraggled Assange being carried out of the building by seven men.

As he was bundled into a waiting police van, Assange shouted: "You must resist. You can resist ... the U.K. must resist."

He was taken to a local police station and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court "as soon as is possible," authorities said.

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno said in a video message that Assange had his diplomatic asylum withdrawn due to "repeatedly violating international conventions."

Alan Duncan, a British government minister, welcomed Assange's eviction and said it was the result of "extensive dialogue" between the U.K. and Ecuador.

The Australian national has maintained that if forced to leave the embassy he would eventually be extradited to the U.S. to face charges.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry, criticized Assange's arrest.

"The hand of 'democracy' squeezes the throat of freedom," she said in a Facebook post.

WikiLeaks said in a tweet that Assange's political asylum had been "illegally terminated in violation of international law."

Julian Assange did not "walk out of the embassy". The Ecuadorian ambassador invited British police into the embassy and he was immediately arrested.

The group has repeatedly claimed that the Justice Department is building a criminal case centered on the leaking of Democratic emails hacked by the Russians in the 2016 election.

President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, told a congressional hearing in February that former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone was in contact with Assange before WikiLeaks released leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Assange, 47, has always maintained that the source of the leaks was not Russia, contrary to the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Special counsel Robert Mueller recently concluded his probe into Russian electoral interference and the Trump campaign.

Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and made news four years later with the publication of leaked information provided by Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst and self-described whistleblower.

These included a video of a U.S. military helicopter fatally shooting people in Iraq, and thousands of classified military logs revealing sensitive information about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, thought to be the biggest leaks in U.S. military history.

Manning last month refused to testify before a federal grand jury looking into the release of documents to WikiLeaks.

In November 2010, the Swedish government issued an international arrest warrant for Assange in connection with allegations of sexual assault and rape from two women. Assange, who has denied the allegations, surrendered to British police the following month and was released on bail — whereupon he fled, breaking the terms of his bond agreement.

Assange's lawyers have often warned that he would be handed over to U.S. prosecutors because of WikiLeaks' publication of classified documents. Rafael Correa, then the president of Ecuador, granted him asylum in 2012.

Sweden dropped its investigation into Assange in 2017. However, under Swedish law it is possible he could still be arrested should he return to the country before the statute of limitation expires in August 2020.

Elisabeth Massi Fritz, lawyer for one of Assange's accusers, said on Thursday that she would "do everything we possibly can" to get police to reopen the investigation "so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape."

Assange has remained in the embassy because London's Metropolitan Police said he would be arrested for violating his bail as soon as he stepped outside. The local force has been running an expensive operation to post officers outside the building in case that happens.

Assange became an Ecuadorian citizen last year, even though his relations with his hosts had soured years ago.

In 2016, the Ecuadorian government cut off his access to the internet in the embassy after WikiLeaks published a trove of emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The government said it was trying to make sure he couldn't interfere in the affairs of other countries.

In January, WikiLeaks sent a 5,000-word email to journalists listing 140 things they should not say about Assange, from asserting that he has been an agent of any intelligence service to that he has ever bleached his hair.

Patrick Smith reported from London, and Alex Johnson from Los Angeles.

So Wikileaks is claiming the revoking of asylum was illegal, and Assange shouted "You must resist. You can resist ... the U.K. must resist." as he was being arrested. I guess he's going all out on trying to frame himself as a martyr of the revolution . Ecuador says Assange violated the terms of his asylum by "repeatedly violating international conventions." The lawyer of one of his rape accusers is trying to get the case reopened in Sweden so he can be extradited. I'd imagine that US intelligence agencies and investigators would like to have a word with him about the 2016 election, among other things. Pity the Mueller probe is wrapped up now.

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh, it just occurred to me, if the US can get him extradited, maybe he could be called as a witness at Roger Stone's trial.

[The Romulan Republic]

Haven't managed to confirm from a good source yet, but word is that Ecuador wanted a guarantee that he would not be extradited to a country with the death penalty, which would preclude extradition to the US if true. Hopefully Britain will thoroughly interrogate him over everything he knows about Russia and 2016, before shipping him off to Sweden to face rape charges.

[Wild Zontargs]

Extradition request from US confirmed

Scotland Yard has confirmed that Assange was arrested on behalf of the US after receiving a request for his extradition.

In a statement it said:

Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court as soon as possible.

[Wild Zontargs]

"Assange Should Have Picked the Russian Embassy." But He Did.

In another timeline, Julian Assange may have enjoyed long walks with Edward Snowden by the Patriarch Ponds in Moscow.

Imagine that you are a dissident at risk of extradition to a jilted superpower, whose secrets you just spilled for the entire world to gawk at, and you happen to be caught up in the capital of one of its vassal states.

What do? Which Embassy do you pick?

[Map of how often countries vote with the US at the UN.]

One of your first, more elementary considerations should be that your target country would actually be willing to give you political asylum. This rules out pretty much the entire West, and America’s various vassal states in the Third World. This is the relatively easy part, and few go wrong here. Though there are exceptions. I am reminded of a particularly dim MI6 agent who tried to sell UK intelligence secrets to… the Netherlands. But say what you will of him – Assange is mostly certainly not stupid.

Second, it should be a powerful, politically stable country. For instance, Russia has never extradited Western spies back to their homelands, even during the Americanophile 1990s under Yeltsin. In contrast, while much of Latin America might be run by American-skeptical leftists these days, they have a habit of veering sharply to the right, which tends to be highly subservient to the United States there. Ecuador narrowly avoided that in 2017, when the neoliberal Guillermo Lasso – who had promised to evict Assange – was defeated by Lenin Moreno, who promised to continue Correa’s policies. But Ecuador is a small country, vulnerable to outside pressure, and in any case, as has already long been clear, Moreno is not so committed to the anti-imperialist struggle as his predecessor.

Third, it should preferably have a physically big embassy. You are potentially going to be spending a lot of time there, and being confined to a small room for years on end will be comfortable neither for you, nor for your hosts. It will be like going to prison anyway, if with more dignity. Moreover, should you get a serious medical issue, you will be in a real pickle. In fairness, this point is mostly covered by the second requirement, since the more powerful countries also tend to have the bigger Embassies. For instance, Hungary’s Cardinal Mindszenty made the right decision, opting for the US Embassy in the wake of the crushing of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. He ended up spending 15 years there, but at least his accomodations were reasonably lavish, consisting of two rooms and his own bathroom.

Presumably, the US Embassy was not an option for Assange. So that left China or Russia.

And of these, Russia must have been the better deal. It already had much worse relations with the West in general, and the UK in particular, than China, and was even then considered likelier to stick it to the West. This was seemingly confirmed a year later, when China pressured Edward Snowden to move on from Hong Kong to Russia, to avoid a lengthy extradition battle with the US. Seeking refuge on Russian territory would also not have been as completely ideologically contradictory for a freedom of speech activist. While Russia doesn’t have much to write home about on that front, at least its Internet was more or less entirely free back then.

Hence, my article on August 16, 2012, at the height of the drama over whether Ecuador would give him refuge: “Assange Should Have Picked the Russian Embassy.” In an exchange with the blogger spandrell in the comments, I argued that this was Assange’s own choice, on the basis that his ideological values – which included strong antipathy to “authoritarian conspiracies” – were hardly compatible with the very nature of the Russian secret police state.

Well, more fool me. Julian Assange did try to claim asylum in Russia.

Only problem was: He was refused.

This would be unambiguously confirmed to me several years later by a source who must remain anonymous, but who was in a consummately first hand position to know those details. Russian diplomatic officials were apparently not happy with the decision, but the order was clear and it came from the highest levels of the Russian government. A few months ago, a senior Russia-based journalist who has excellent access to the Kremlin elites told me he heard the same.

In September 2018, AP released an investigation showing that Julian Assange sought, and received, a Russian visa in 2010 thanks to the efforts of Israel Shamir. This happened ten days after Sweden issued a warrant for his arrest over sex crimes charges, and a day after Wikileaks began releasing the US State Department cables. Julian Assange left it too late to go to Russia physically – but he was, at least, exploring this possibility.

So why did Russia, two years later, refuse Assange – their puppet, according to the mainstream Western narrative – asylum?

Israel Shamir on the pages of this webzine has suggested that it was just a function of Russians’ general suspicion towards “ideologues” of Assange’s calibre:

It is said that Assange was in cahoots with the Russians, that they guided him and provided with the stuff they hacked and even that “Wikileaks is a Front for Russian Intelligence”. As a matter of fact, Russians were extremely hesitant to have anything to do with Assange. They could not believe he was for real. Are you so naïve, they told me, that you do not understand he is a CIA trap? Such people do not exist.

It is a problem of the Russian mind: as a rule, they do not understand and do not trust Western dissidents of Assange’s ilk. They want their western sympathisers to be bought and paid for. Free agents are suspicious in their eyes. God knows there are many people in the West whose opinions roughly coincide with those of the Russians; but the Russians would prefer to buy a journalist off the peg. That’s why RT has had more than its fair share of defectors, that is of broadcasters who denounced RT and went to the Western mass media.

As the AP investigation showed, Israel Shamir may well have been in a better position to know than most of us had hitherto expected (at least assuming he was also privy to the denied asylum request).

Still, perhaps the real explanation is more banal.

Putin, like many in the Russian elite, had started off as an Anglophile, and his strongest relationship with a Western leader during the early years of his rule was with Tony Blair. The Litvinenko Affair and the South Ossetian War had certainly soured relations with the West in general, and Britain in particular, but not in a way that appeared hopeless and permanent, as has increasingly seemed to be the case since 2014. There were hopes that things would go back to normality, and I can only assume that Putin didn’t want to set himself up a headache for the next few years, if not decades.

I suppose he sort of failed at that.

For his part, Assange will have to place his hopes on the British judicial system and its political independence.

[The Romulan Republic]

A source I've never heard of, which bills itself as "An alternative media selection" and "A collection of interesting, important and controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media" (yeah, I know code for "conspiracy theorist site" when I see it), with an article that takes veiled pot-shots at the fact that Wikileaks worked with Russian intelligence (calling it a "mainstream Western narrative") and is pretty obviously trying to use the story that Assange was refused asylum by Russia as proof that his working with Russia is a Western lie...

Yes, I'm sure this is a completely objective source and not a conspiracy theorist site. Well, let me just look the Unz Review up on Google..

Ron Keeva Unz (born September 20, 1961) is an American former businessman, best known for an unsuccessful race in the California gubernatorial election, 1994, and for sponsoring propositions promoting structured English immersion education. He was publisher of The American Conservative from March 2007 to August 2013. He now publishes The Unz Review: An alternative Media Selection: A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media.

So he's a Republic politician and part of the "Everyone should speak English" crowd. Still, he apparently opposed anti-immigrant measures and supported a raise to the minimum wage, so he can't be too-

In November 2013, Unz launched the website, The Unz Review, a blogging platform which "bills itself as an 'alternative' to the 'mainstream media'".[25] Contributors include left-wing writers, such as Patrick Cockburn, Norman Finkelstein, Diane Johnstone, and James Petras (largely republished from CounterPunch), right-wing bloggers such as Pat Buchanan, Paul Gottfried, Steve Sailer and John Derbyshire, and libertarian writers such as Ron Paul, Andrew Napolitano, Ilana Mercer, and Philip Giraldi.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the webzine is an "outlet for certain writers to attack Israel and Jews". More generally, according to the ADL, while Unz "does not appear to be an anti-Semite, he provides support to extreme anti-Israel ideologues".[26] It has also been described as "an alternative conservative website",[27] "far right",[28] "alt-right" and "a mix of far-right and far-left anti-Semitic crackpottery".[29]

Unz has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the far-right website VDARE, claiming that he supports them because they are "mostly broke and they write interesting things."[30][31] In 2017, he was a keynote speaker at VDARE's first national conference.[32]

In 2017, The Unz Review received public attention when former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson was criticized after tweeting an article by a columnist, counter-terrorism specialist Philip Giraldi, titled "America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars-Shouldn't they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?" published in the webzine.[33][27]As a result, Giraldi was suspended from writing articles for The American Conservative, which he explained in another Unz Review column.[34]

In July 2018, Unz wrote, as part of his American Pravda series, a column titled "The Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath" and cited the conspiracy tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, saying "From my distance of many decades, the text of the Protocols struck me as rather bland and even dull. ... I actually found the discussion of the Protocols ... far more interesting and informative than reading the text itself."[35] This was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League as using the Review "to promote the blood libel against Jews".[36] In August 2018, Unz denied the Holocaust, writing "I think it far more likely than not that the standard Holocaust narrative is at least substantially false, and quite possibly, almost entirely so."

Never mind, he's a supporter of anti-Semitism and a fucking Holocaust Denier who wrote an article citing the fucking Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Congratulations, you tricked me into clicking a link to a Neo-Nazi mouthpiece. Hopefully I don't have new malware on my computer. Now come back when you have a real source, you fascist piece of shit.

[Wild Zontargs]

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal logical fallacy where irrelevant adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.

[The Romulan Republic]

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal logical fallacy where irrelevant adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.

I do not regard Holocaust denying swill as a credible source. If you have a problem with that, if you think that's not honest debating, then fucking report me, you brown shirt shit. If the mods think my conduct in calling out your source is unacceptable, I'll happily take a ban.

[Wild Zontargs]

The genetic fallacy (also known as the fallacy of origins or fallacy of virtue) is a fallacy of irrelevance that is based solely on someone's or something's history, origin, or source rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context. In other words, a fact is ignored in favor of attacking its source.

The fallacy therefore fails to assess the claim on its merit. The first criterion of a good argument is that the premises must have bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim in question. Genetic accounts of an issue may be true, and they may help illuminate the reasons why the issue has assumed its present form, but they are not conclusive in determining its merits.

[The Romulan Republic]

Give me a real source (you must be able to find one, right, if what you're claiming is true?), report me, or shut the fuck up. If you quoted Mein Kampf in support of your arguments, I'd call you out on it too, and posting quotes insinuating that I am guilty of logical fallacies would not get you off the hook, would not constitute a rebuttal, you despicable excuse of a human being.

[Wild Zontargs]

TRR: I don't like the outlet he publishes in, so find me a different writer with an identical contact in the Russian government. Otherwise, something something Hitler, your article is invalid. If you can't get the mods to ban me, I'm right.

No, I think I'll just let you have fun with that shovel. Keep digging.

[Wild Zontargs]

US charges Assange with conspiring with Manning

The U.S. Justice Department has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with conspiring with Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer.

The charge was announced Thursday after Assange was taken into custody in London in connection with a U.S. extradition request, as well as for breaching U.K. bail conditions in 2012.

His lawyer has previously said that Assange planned to fight any U.S. charges against him.

The indictment accuses Assange of assisting Manning, a former U.S. intelligence analyst, in cracking a password that helped Manning infiltrate Pentagon computers.

[The Romulan Republic]

TRR: I don't like the outlet he publishes in, so find me a different writer with an identical contact in the Russian government. Otherwise, something something Hitler, your article is invalid. If you can't get the mods to ban me, I'm right.

No, I think I'll just let you have fun with that shovel. Keep digging.

You cited a Neo-Nazi source, got called on it, are too lazy to try to find something else to support your argument (or else admit that you can't back up you claims from a credible source), and are trying to deflect from the fact that you have no credible source by whining about the fact that I don't respect your Neo-Nazi source.

Glad to hear that you aren't a fan of the Holocaust Denier site. Doesn't change the fact that you chose to cite a highly biased, racist conspiracy theorist site to support your argument, and that by your own admission you lack a more credible source.

On the US charges, I guess we see whether Britain will extradite (personally, I think Sweden should get dibs, if they choose to reopen the rape case).

[Wild Zontargs]

On the US charges, I guess we see whether Britain will extradite (personally, I think Sweden should get dibs, if they choose to reopen the rape case).

As I linked upthread, they arrested him by request from the US, so it looks like they're inclined to cooperate.

[The Romulan Republic]

On the US charges, I guess we see whether Britain will extradite (personally, I think Sweden should get dibs, if they choose to reopen the rape case).

As I linked upthread, they arrested him by request from the US, so it looks like they're inclined to cooperate.

What I'm getting at (leaving aside the rumours about Ecuador demanding a guarantee that he wouldn't be extradited to a country with the death penalty) is, is there an extradition process that must be gone through, where a judge would have to approve the extradition? I assume so, and that the British Government can't just say "okay now you're extradited".

Any British board members, feel free to elaborate.

[Wild Zontargs]

Reuters: Guilty of skipping bail, sentence TBD (max 12 months). Will be back in court regarding extradition on June 12th. EDIT: this second tweet was deleted

[Wild Zontargs]

Reuters: Judge says United States must produce papers concerning extradition of Assange by June 12th (not that Assange to appear on extradition matter on June 12). Our incorrect tweet will be deleted

[Mange]

Haven't managed to confirm from a good source yet, but word is that Ecuador wanted a guarantee that he would not be extradited to a country with the death penalty, which would preclude extradition to the US if true. Hopefully Britain will thoroughly interrogate him over everything he knows about Russia and 2016, before shipping him off to Sweden to face rape charges.

It's nowhere certain that he would be facing charges. First, either the prosecutor or police (depending on the type of case, in this case it would be a prosecutor so I'll stick to that) must finish the preliminary investigation ("förundersökning") or criminal investigation. During this phase, the prosecutor is bound by the objectivity principle and must consider and weigh the evidence that speaks both for the innocence and guilt of the suspect. The preliminary investigation can be discontinued if the prosecutor for example finds that there's not sufficient evidence or leads to prosecute the suspect.

If the results of the preliminary investigation are such that the prosecutor finds that there's enough evidence to prosecute the suspect and that the evidence is sufficient to likely lead to a conviction, the case will then be brought to a district court (it's at this stage that the suspect can be regarded as being "charged with a crime").

I'm not a lawyer, but I strongly believe that if Assange had volunteered to come here to Sweden, he would've been remanded by the court (a suspect can be remanded for a maximum of 14 days after which a new hearing on extension must be held by the court) and that the preliminary investigation would've been discontinued (as with most preliminary investigation of this kind) with the decision "Brott kan ej styrkas" (="insufficient evidence that a crime has been committed").

There seems to be very little in terms of physical evidence and it's a matter of word against word. There are some testimonies from friends and family that one of the alleged victims had spoken about the incident (hearsay is admissible in Swedish courts as we have a principle of free assessment of evidence, though it's regarded as having a low value unless the witness is a police officer for example, and it's of even less value in cases such as this).

[Ziggy Stardust]

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal logical fallacy where irrelevant adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.

If you're going to smugly quote logical fallacies instead of making any attempt to defend your arguments in a substantive way, at least choose the right fallacy. Otherwise you just look like a dolt.

What TRR did isn't poisoning the well at all, regardless of whether or not you agree with him. It literally CAN'T be poisoning the well because the entire point of poisoning the well is that it is pre-emptive, as that definition says. But you posted first, you nitwit. At worst, you can say TRR was committing an ad hominem fallacy, because he was focusing on the character of the author and not the substance of his arguments.

[Coop D'etat]

There seems to be very little in terms of physical evidence and it's a matter of word against word. There are some testimonies from friends and family that one of the alleged victims had spoken about the incident (hearsay is admissible in Swedish courts as we have a principle of free assessment of evidence, though it's regarded as having a low value unless the witness is a police officer for example, and it's of even less value in cases such as this).

Is the Swedish system that unwilling to proceed on word against word sex assault charge's?

I work on defending those kinds of charges relatively routinely in Canada and a complainants word is generally sufficient to bring charges and get convictions so long as they don't have credibility issues. There's been a big push in the last 10 years to deem complainants generally credible and not put too much weight on lack of corroborating evidence as there rarely is for these types of offences.

[Mange]

There seems to be very little in terms of physical evidence and it's a matter of word against word. There are some testimonies from friends and family that one of the alleged victims had spoken about the incident (hearsay is admissible in Swedish courts as we have a principle of free assessment of evidence, though it's regarded as having a low value unless the witness is a police officer for example, and it's of even less value in cases such as this).

Is the Swedish system that unwilling to proceed on word against word sex assault charge's?

I work on defending those kinds of charges relatively routinely in Canada and a complainants word is generally sufficient to bring charges and get convictions so long as they don't have credibility issues. There's been a big push in the last 10 years to deem complainants generally credible and not put too much weight on lack of corroborating evidence as there rarely is for these types of offences.

Yes, the number of criminal complaints that leads to prosecution is very small. For example, according to the National Council for Crime Prevention, only eleven percent of the reported sexual offenses led to trial in 2017 and the defendants were acquitted in 30 percent of those trials (unlike in the United States, it's possible for the prosecutor to appeal a defendant's acquittal).

In this article by public broadcaster SVT (which mentions the figures from the National Council for Crime Prevention), the president of an appellate court states that rape cases are difficult because the evidence is often weak and that it's often word against word: SVT (in Swedish, Google Translate wouldn't work). However, most investigations don't lead to trial such as in this case: The Local

[Wild Zontargs]

What TRR did isn't poisoning the well at all, regardless of whether or not you agree with him. It literally CAN'T be poisoning the well because the entire point of poisoning the well is that it is pre-emptive, as that definition says.

Now come back when you have a real source, you fascist piece of shit.

"We've already decreed that you are a fascist, so we can ignore anything else you have to say on the subject. Now I'll demand you find someone else with a source in the Russian government. If you can't, I'm right. If you can, you're a Nazi Russian shill and I'm still right."

[Vympel]

Assange's activities are firmly and totally uncontroversially journalism, and that a bunch of delusional people are still salty because they think he personally stopped Saint Hillary from assuming her rightful throne is totally irrelevant to that fact. It's extremely cool watching people wax lyrical about what a grave threat Trump is to press freedom cheer Trump as he goes after Assange for activities which any journalist engages in, though.

The salt from numerous dipshit establishment journalists who hate him stems mostly from that fact, together with sheer personal animus. I also love the return of the same old bullshit anti-Wikileaks propaganda which have been stock in trade of the US government for a decade - i.e. the totally baseless claim that wikileaks has somehow 'endangered lives' "(no evidence for this claim has ever been presented).

The assertion that his arrest was for 'skipping bail' is - unsurprisingly - totally false. He's in custody until May 2 pending an extradition hearing for extradition to the US on an indictment prepared by the Trump DOJ relating to his activities with Chelsea Manning.

The media is unsurprisngly already getting the story wrong, alleging the indictment they've released is for 'hacking'. It is not. Dan Froomkin:

https://twitter.com/froomkin/status/111 ... 41120?s=20

The words “hack” or “hacking” do not appear even ONCE in the text of the Assange indictment or the press release. So why are all the news headlines using it? They’ve been snookered by a press release HEADLINE.

https://twitter.com/froomkin/status/111 ... 11808?s=20

Julian #Assange has been charged with conspiracy to commit journalism. The free press has not ducked a bullet here; it’s taken one to the chest. 1/7

Here are the “manners and means of the conspiracy" from the indictment. There are only four of them. 2/7

1) “It was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used the ‘Jabber’ online chat service to collaborate…” THEY USED AN ENCRYPTED TEXTING APP TO COMMUNICATE 3/7

2) "Assange and Manning took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure of classified records to WikiLeaks, including by removing usernames from the disclosed information and deleting chat logs...” THEY FOLLOWED STANDARD INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM PROTOCOLS 4/7

3) “It was part of the conspiracy that Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records from departments and agencies of the United States.” A JOURNALIST ASKED A SOURCE FOR MORE 5/7

And 4) “It was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used a special folder on a cloud drop box of WikiLeaks to transmit classified records containing information related to the national defense of the United States.” THEY USED THE INTERWEBS 6/7

Additionally, Manning “copied a Linux operating system to a CD” HEAVEN FORBID and provided Assange with part of a password to a system she already had access to and ask him to crack it and he didn’t succeed. FAIL 7/7

Further:

https://www.justsecurity.org/63595/assa ... s-freedom/

If the Justice Department had filed an indictment focused more narrowly on the alleged hacking, none of this would warrant much comment. The Justice Department would present its evidence; Assange would defend himself; and few people would raise concerns about the prosecution’s implications for press freedom. The problem is that the indictment seems to have been drafted not just to justify the prosecution of Assange but to tar legitimate journalistic activities by association with Assange’s alleged crime.

The indictment characterizes everyday journalistic practices as part of a criminal conspiracy. Cultivating a source, protecting a source’s identity, communicating with a source securely—the indictment describes all of these activities as the “manners and means” of the conspiracy. The Justice Department says that Assange and Manning communicated using an encrypted chat service, but most national-security journalists communicate with sources using encrypted channels. It says that Assange and Manning “took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure,” but taking measures to protect their sources’ identities is something that national-security journalists do all the time, for good reason. It says that Assange created “a special folder on a cloud drop box of Wikileaks” to allow Manning to share files with him, but many major news organizations use SecureDrop and other similar software to allow sources to share files with them securely.

And yet further:

https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the ... -freedoms/

So much of what has been reported today about this indictment has been false. Two facts in particular have been utterly distorted by the DOJ and then misreported by numerous media organizations.

The first crucial fact about the indictment is that its key allegation – that Assange did not merely receive classified documents from Chelsea Manning but tried to help her crack a password in order to cover her tracks – is not new. It was long known by the Obama DOJ and was explicitly part of Manning’s trial, yet the Obama DOJ – not exactly renowned for being stalwart guardians of press freedoms – concluded it could not and should not prosecute Assange because indicting him would pose serious threats to press freedom. In sum, today’s indictment contains no new evidence or facts about Assange’s actions; all of it has been known for years.

The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manning obtain access to document databases to which she had no valid access: i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. Rather, it simply accuses Assange of trying to help Manning log into the Defense Department’s computers using a different user name so that she could maintain her anonymity while downloading documents in the public interest and then furnish them to WikiLeaks to publish.

In other words, the indictment seeks to criminalize what journalists are not only permitted but ethically required to do: take steps to help their sources maintain their anonymity. As long-time Assange lawyer Barry Pollack put it: “the factual allegations…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.”

That’s why the indictment poses such a grave threat to press freedom. It characterizes as a felony many actions that journalists are not just permitted but required to take in order to conduct sensitive reporting in the digital age.