Sweden drops rape accusation against founder of WikiLeaks
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Sweden drops rape accusation against founder of WikiLeaks
From Per Nyberg, CNN
August 21, 2010 -- Updated 2146 GMT (0546 HKT)
VIDEO
Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- Swedish authorities say they have revoked an arrest warrant that had alleged rape against Julian Assange, the founder and editor of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, less than a day after issuing it.
Assange is "no longer wanted" and "is not suspected of rape," Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne said in a statement posted on the agency's official website Saturday. He is also no longer arrested in absentia, the statement said.
The arrest warrant filed Friday had also mentioned a molestation charge, but molestation -- which is not limited to child victims in Sweden -- is not a crime punishable behind bars in Sweden.
Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, told CNN affiliate TV4 that Assange is still being investigated for molestation. Earlier, Rosander told CNN that Assange was arrested in absentia Friday night, and faced charges in relation to two separate instances, but she did not have more detail about when the alleged crimes occurred or the identities of the alleged victims.
The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.
Assange denied the allegations in a posting Saturday on the WikiLeaks Twitter page, saying, "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."
WikiLeaks had also called the arrest a "dirty" trick in a Twitter post early Saturday morning.
Assange was in Sweden last weekend, but it wasn't clear whether he was still in the country and, thus, couldn't be reached for comment.
Rosander told TV4 that the decision to make the arrest was made by an "on-call prosecutor," and that the arrest was revoked Saturday by the chief prosecutor. Rosander said such differences in prosecutorial judgment are common in Sweden.
She also said she does not believe that Assange had contacted police yet.
Swedish media, citing unnamed sources, reported that two women, ages 20 and 30, took the allegations against Assange to police Friday, leading to the warrant issued by the first prosecutor. The AftonBladet, a respected Swedish daily, said the 30-year-old woman told the newspaper that the younger woman approached her with a story similar to hers -- that she had consensual sex with Assange but that the situation had turned abusive.
Rosander would not confirm the reports.
An elusive figure, Assange reportedly lives part-time in Sweden. He told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet this week that he chose Sweden to host several servers for WikiLeaks because of the country's privacy laws.
He also told the paper, in an interview published Monday, that he had been in Sweden because he wanted a safe place to go after the high-profile leak of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan.
A statement was posted by the "WikiLeaks team" on the website earlier Saturday, saying, "We are deeply concerned about the seriousness of these allegations. We the people behind WikiLeaks think highly of Julian and and he has our full support."
WikiLeaks will continue its work as "Julian is focusing on his defenses and clearing his name," the statement said.
WikiLeaks has sparked major controversy by posting some 76,000 pages of the Afghan documents online last month, in what was called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized the leak, saying it would have a significant negative impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures.
Assange has defended the leak by saying it can help shape the public's understanding of the war. He said the material was of no operational significance and that WikiLeaks tried to ensure the material did not put innocent people at risk.
Assange reportedly has spent his life developing the tech skills needed to set up WikiLeaks. When he was a teenager in Melbourne, Australia, he belonged to a hacker collective called the International Subversives, according to the magazine Mother Jones.
He eventually pleaded guilty to multiple counts of breaking into Australian government and commercial websites to test their security gaps, but was released on bond for "good behavior," the magazine said.
As WikiLeaks has grown and published increasingly high-profile items, Assange has found himself the target of what he says are many legal attacks -- though not necessarily of the type he now faces in Sweden.
"In my role as Wikileaks editor, I've been involved in fighting off many legal attacks," Assange said in an e-mail to the BBC earlier this year. "To do that, and keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions.
"We've become good at it, and never lost a case, or a source, but we can't expect everyone to go through the extraordinary efforts that we do."
In a news conference following the release of the Afghan documents, Assange said the site has 800 part-time volunteers and a loose network of 70,000 "supporters."
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From Per Nyberg, CNN
August 21, 2010 -- Updated 2146 GMT (0546 HKT)
VIDEO
Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- Swedish authorities say they have revoked an arrest warrant that had alleged rape against Julian Assange, the founder and editor of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, less than a day after issuing it.
Assange is "no longer wanted" and "is not suspected of rape," Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne said in a statement posted on the agency's official website Saturday. He is also no longer arrested in absentia, the statement said.
The arrest warrant filed Friday had also mentioned a molestation charge, but molestation -- which is not limited to child victims in Sweden -- is not a crime punishable behind bars in Sweden.
Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, told CNN affiliate TV4 that Assange is still being investigated for molestation. Earlier, Rosander told CNN that Assange was arrested in absentia Friday night, and faced charges in relation to two separate instances, but she did not have more detail about when the alleged crimes occurred or the identities of the alleged victims.
The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.
Assange denied the allegations in a posting Saturday on the WikiLeaks Twitter page, saying, "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."
WikiLeaks had also called the arrest a "dirty" trick in a Twitter post early Saturday morning.
Assange was in Sweden last weekend, but it wasn't clear whether he was still in the country and, thus, couldn't be reached for comment.
Rosander told TV4 that the decision to make the arrest was made by an "on-call prosecutor," and that the arrest was revoked Saturday by the chief prosecutor. Rosander said such differences in prosecutorial judgment are common in Sweden.
She also said she does not believe that Assange had contacted police yet.
Swedish media, citing unnamed sources, reported that two women, ages 20 and 30, took the allegations against Assange to police Friday, leading to the warrant issued by the first prosecutor. The AftonBladet, a respected Swedish daily, said the 30-year-old woman told the newspaper that the younger woman approached her with a story similar to hers -- that she had consensual sex with Assange but that the situation had turned abusive.
Rosander would not confirm the reports.
An elusive figure, Assange reportedly lives part-time in Sweden. He told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet this week that he chose Sweden to host several servers for WikiLeaks because of the country's privacy laws.
He also told the paper, in an interview published Monday, that he had been in Sweden because he wanted a safe place to go after the high-profile leak of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan.
A statement was posted by the "WikiLeaks team" on the website earlier Saturday, saying, "We are deeply concerned about the seriousness of these allegations. We the people behind WikiLeaks think highly of Julian and and he has our full support."
WikiLeaks will continue its work as "Julian is focusing on his defenses and clearing his name," the statement said.
WikiLeaks has sparked major controversy by posting some 76,000 pages of the Afghan documents online last month, in what was called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized the leak, saying it would have a significant negative impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures.
Assange has defended the leak by saying it can help shape the public's understanding of the war. He said the material was of no operational significance and that WikiLeaks tried to ensure the material did not put innocent people at risk.
Assange reportedly has spent his life developing the tech skills needed to set up WikiLeaks. When he was a teenager in Melbourne, Australia, he belonged to a hacker collective called the International Subversives, according to the magazine Mother Jones.
He eventually pleaded guilty to multiple counts of breaking into Australian government and commercial websites to test their security gaps, but was released on bond for "good behavior," the magazine said.
As WikiLeaks has grown and published increasingly high-profile items, Assange has found himself the target of what he says are many legal attacks -- though not necessarily of the type he now faces in Sweden.
"In my role as Wikileaks editor, I've been involved in fighting off many legal attacks," Assange said in an e-mail to the BBC earlier this year. "To do that, and keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions.
"We've become good at it, and never lost a case, or a source, but we can't expect everyone to go through the extraordinary efforts that we do."
In a news conference following the release of the Afghan documents, Assange said the site has 800 part-time volunteers and a loose network of 70,000 "supporters."
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"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Comments
"WikiLeaks" has a huge following from all over the world, people that are really trying to get the truth out there about what is going on in our world without believing what mainstream media is throwing out <!-- s:geek: -->:geek:<!-- s:geek: -->
Disgusting
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Sun Aug 22, 8:48 am ET
STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said in an interview published on Sunday that he believes the Pentagon could be behind a rape accusation against him that was later dropped by Swedish prosecutors.
The country's prosecution service meanwhile justified the chaotic situation when authorities first issued an arrest warrant for the Australian whistleblower late on Friday night but then withdrew it the following day.
The Aftonbladet newspaper quoted Assange, 39, as saying he did not know who was "hiding behind" the claims, which came amid a stand-off with Washington over the website's publication of secret Afghan war documents.
Assange said he was shocked by the allegations against him and that he had never had sexual relations with anybody in a way that was not consensual, the tabloid said.
But he said that he had been warned previously that groups such as the Pentagon "could use dirty tricks" to destroy Wikileaks -- adding that he had been particularly warned against being entrapped by sexual scandals.
Assange told Aftonbladet that despite the lifting of the warrant, his enemies would still use the claims to damage Wikileaks, which is set to publish thousands more secret papers about the war in Afghanistan in coming weeks.
He refused to give more details about the two women whose claims sparked the furore, saying that it would impinge on their privacy.
Prosecutors said Saturday that Assange was now "not suspected of rape" and was no longer wanted for questioning on the charge, but added that an investigation into a separate molestation charge remained open.
Assange, Wikileaks website and his aides have strongly denied all the claims.
He had been in Sweden earlier this month giving a press conference on the upcoming release of the last batch of Afghanistan documents, but he generally remains on the move around the world staying with supporters.
The Swedish prosecutor's office issued a statement on Sunday defending its actions.
It said that chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who was responsible for withdrawing the arrest warrant, had "more information available to decide on Saturday than the duty prosecutor on Friday evening."
"A decision regarding restrictive measures, such as this, must always be reevaluated in a preliminary inquiry," the statement added.
The spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, Karin Rosander, told AFP late Saturday that the procedure followed was normal and would have been launched automatically by the duty prosecutor in serious cases such as rape.
In an interview in the Expressen newspaper, which broke the story, duty prosecutor Maria Haljebo Kjellstrand said that she "did not regret her decision".
The two women who originally made the claims did not make an official complaint and it was the police who took the decision to inform the prosecutors office, she said.
"I received a report from the police which seemed to me to be sufficient to arrest him. On Friday evening I got a call from the police describing what the women said. The information I received was convincing enough for me to take my decision," Hljebo Kjellstrand was quoted as saying.
WikiLeaks has already released nearly 77,000 secret papers about the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, sparking charges that it had endangered the lives of informants and others named therein.
The website says it had repeatedly asked the Pentagon for help analysing the remaining documents, and Assange has said he wants to avoid publishing the "names of innocent parties that are under reasonable threat".
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To me they represent disinformation agent controlled by the Governement, giving only the information that the powers allow. There are a lot of them. What caught my attention is that never a name is mentionned in these leaks, therefore there's no real disclosure of information as nobody in the Government or in the Army is directly mentionned and could therefore be prosecuted. It is very convenient you must admit. The worse is the last leak where there was a suspicious information (recently denied by a former Pakistani Intel Chief <!-- l -->viewtopic.php?f=90&t=13464<!-- l -->) regarding Pakistan secret services supposedly helping the terrorists which finally only gives credit for the US Gov. to a further invasion of the country and therefore expanding the war.
I think that these allegations are part of the game and to me it's like they're trying to give more credibility to Wikileaks in front of the "conspirationists" who are beginning to understand what's behind the curtain, "if Wikileaks is attacked by the Government they must be on the good side", but unfortunately it is not as simple. Or maybe that the Gov. is just getting rid of it because they don't need it anymore...
I don't know if I make myself clear enough but Wikileaks is not as clean as it seems to me.
that´s a trashy paper.....
-so I guess there is more than what we think ... <!-- s:? -->:?<!-- s:? -->