The decision to put Julian Assange in a cell over ludicrous sexual offence allegations is a politically motivated act that must be resisted. Assange has never been in hiding from the police, and there is no reason at all to believe he would abscond if granted bail.
This is kompromat – the use of sexual allegations to denigrate a person perceived as a threat to the state. They did it to Charles Parnell and Roger Casement and, a lowlier case, to me. This is an article I wrote on August 25:
The Russians call it Kompromat – the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure. When I was attacked in this way by the government I worked for, Uzbek dissidents smiled at me, shook their heads and said “Kompromat”. They were used to it from the Soviet and Uzbek governments. They found it rather amusing to find that Western governments did it too.
Well, Julian Assange has been getting the bog standard Kompromat. I had imagined he would get something rather more spectacular, like being framed for murder and found hanging with an orange in his mouth. He deserves a better class of kompromat. If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ. Yet we just have the normal sex stuff, and very weak.
Bizarrely the offence for which Julian is wanted for questioning in Sweden was dropped from rape to sexual harassment, and then from sexual harassment to just harassment. The precise law in Swedish, as translated for me and other Sam Adams alumni by our colleague Major Frank Grevil, reads:
“He who lays hands on or by means of shooting from a firearm, throwing of stones, noise or in any other way harasses another person will be sentenced for harassment to fines or imprisonment for up to one year.”
So from rape to non-sexual something. Actually I rather like that law – if we had it here, I could have had Jack Straw locked up for a year.
Julian tells us that the first woman accuser and prime mover had worked in the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC and had been expelled from Cuba for anti-Cuban government activity, as well as the rather different persona of being a feminist lesbian who owns lesbian night clubs.
Scott Ritter and I are well known whistleblowers subsequently accused of sexual offences. A less well known whistleblower is James Cameron, another FCO employee. Almost simultaneous with my case, a number of the sexual allegations the FCO made against Cameron were identical even in wording to those the FCO initially threw at me.
Another fascinating point about kompromat is that being cleared of the allegations – as happens in virtually every case – doesn’t help, as the blackening of reputation has taken effect. In my own case I was formerly cleared of all allegations of both misconduct and gross misconduct, except for the Kafkaesque charge of having told defence witnesses of the existence of the allegations. The allegations were officially a state secret, even though it was the government who leaked them to the tabloids.
Yet, even to this day, the FCO has refused to acknowledge in public that I was in fact cleared of all charges. This is even true of the new government. A letter I wrote for my MP to pass to William Hague, complaining that the FCO was obscuring the fact that I was cleared on all charges, received a reply from a junior Conservative minister stating that the allegations were serious and had needed to be properly investigated – but still failing to acknowledge the result of the process. Nor has there been any official revelation of who originated these “serious allegations”.
Governments operate in the blackest of ways, especially when it comes to big war money and big oil money. I can see what they are doing to Julian Assange, I know what they did to me and others (another recent example – Brigadier Janis Karpinski was framed for shoplifting). In a very real sense, it makes little difference if they murdered David Kelly or terrified him into doing it himself. Telling the truth is hazardous in today’s Western political system.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/08/julian_assange_1.html
There are a couple of things to add. The lead complainant is a serial crier of rape who made allegations against someone else which were found groundless, and has published a guide to sexual revenge over men. She consulted with the second complainant before the second complainant went to the police; these are not two unrelated complaints. The second one relates to a Swedish offence of not wearing a condom.
This from Danish WMD whistelblower – jailed for two years for whistleblowing – Major Frank Grevil:
Comparison of crime statistics between the three Scandinavian countries,
which have historically a highly similar societal structure, gives the
remarkable result that the incidence of sexual crimes is about ten times
higher in Sweden than in Denmark or Norway. Usually Sweden’s higher
proportion of unassimilated immigrants from first and foremost islamic
countries is blamed, but it would seem to be only a minor part of the
explanation. Rather, political instructions to the police seem to be the
major reason!
Critics maintain that Sweden has turned into a gynocracy, with some of the
most hateful female politicians – front figures for a party called
“Feministiskt initiativ”* – having publicly declared that male fetuses
should be selectively aborted, and all adult males castrated!
In such an atmosphere of hate, the Swedish police has been instructed to put
all alleged crimes of even the most remotely sexual character under the
statistical heading “rape”. This includes consenting intercourse between
teenagers with the female part being slightly under-age. It also includes
consenting intercourse where the female part was drunk.
So whoever initiated the plot to go for Assange on Swedish sexual charges knew what they were doing.
I am not a fan of radical feminists. They are hate filled individuals whose very souls are ugly. They seem particularly fixated with causing trouble to political radicals. Anyone who knows the real story of the Tommy Sheridan debacle knows that. They succeeded in alienating me from the Stop the War movement
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/warning_this_po.html
Now, very much more importantly, they are gunning for Julian Assange at a crucial time for democracy. Silly little girls.
Glenn: “It does not appear that you’re putting forward a case in which you actually believe, yet again. I know lawyers are sometimes required to do that, and it can be a profitable exercise on occasion to argue for something you positively _do not_ agree with. While I’m not clear of your personal reasons for doing it, it’s very clear that is precisely what you are doing.”
For what it’s worth, Glenn. I don’t think the charges are serious enough to merit action by Interpol and think it very likely that the charges have been exaggerated possibly under political pressure in the same way that Al Capone got done for tax evasion when no other charges could be made to stick.
BUT, the point made before was that the charges had been completely concocted which they actually hadn’t been.
I think Craig Murray is right about one thing and that is that two completely separate issues have been inextricably entwined when really they should be seen as separate.
The loonier stuff about Assange being Mossad or CIA or this whole thing being a scheme to shut down the Internet is just that, loony stuff.
But, may I ask you again, “If the US could form a case against Assange to say that he has committed a crime and wants him extradited then surely it would be just as easy to do that through the UK. What is necessary to your theory about having him first extradited to Sweden?”
I do not know and did not study Swedish law, having been qualified in England and in the Caribbean, but let’s use reasonable sense:-
The Swedish law reads: ” He who lays hands on or by means of shooting from a firearm, throwing of stones, noise or in any other way harasses another person will be sentenced for harassment to fines or imprisonment for up to one year.”
Q. Mr. Assange – you are accused of harassment ?” what do you have to say in response to the charge?
A. I had no weapon and did not harass anyone.
Q. I put it to you that you are being less than frank with this honourable court.
A. I reject your suggestion Sir.
Q. You did have a dangerous weapon in use at the material time Mr. Assange.
A. No Sir!
Q. But there is no dispute that you had sex with these two women ?” how could you in all honesty deny that there was an attack. Mr. Assange I urge you at this point to take responsibility for the misuse of your harassing rod ?” what do you say to that?
A. It was not a harassing one Sir ?” it was very friendly and fully accommodated one by both ladies Sir ?” and that is the truth! Actually, by reference to the law ?” I laid a hand on it, they both did too ?” I worked them both over without any harassment ?” and all in all relative to the charge ?” I did shoot my “firearm” at the end in the most pleasurable way Sir. BUT, IN ALL THE CIRCUMSTANCES – NOT GUITY AS CHARGED!
THE SYSTEM SHOULD BE TOLD TO GO FUCK ITSELF ON THIS ONE!
CB http://www.globaljusticeonline.com
Lucretius:
Do you have any more evidence of Mossad’s involvement in Wikileaks than you do in their involvement in shark attacks off Sharm-el-Sheikh?
“Israel has dismissed Egyptian claims that a series of shark attacks in the Red Sea could have been the result of a plot carried out by its foreign intelligence agency, Mossad. ”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11937285
Angry said,
“Lucretius: Do you have any more evidence of Mossad’s involvement in Wikileaks ?”
Who said anything about Mossad and Wikileaks? Certainly not I.
“But come to think of it, here’s ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: [are WikiLeaks] being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments, because some of these items that are being emphasized and have surfaced are very pointed.
“And I wonder whether, in fact, there aren’t some operations internationally, intelligence services, that are feeding stuff to WikiLeaks, because it is a unique opportunity to embarrass us, to embarrass our position, but also to undermine our relations with particular governments.
“For example, leaving aside the personal gossip about Sarkozy or Berlusconi or Putin, the business about the Turks is clearly calculated in terms of its potential impact on disrupting the American-Turkish relationship.
Now who would want to complicate US relations with Turkey?
Between:
-the fact that his leaks all serve a precise Neocon agenda
-his otherwise impossible well-funded jet-setting lifestyle
-his perfectly spooky Anne Hamilton-Byrne MKULTRA background
-the flagrant pilfering of the plot of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
-the perfectly crummy and easily dismissable nature of the charges against him
-the fact that the media is all over him in precisely the same way there weren’t all over Scott Ritter when he declared there no WMDs in Iraq
-and the simple fact that he’s utterly superfluous and those leaking could achieve the same results with myriad other sites perfectly happy to host leaked material with the only drawback being that the media utterly ignores them
Given all those things, Assange is bullshit. All you people impressed with him, remember the WMDs? Remember how big and impressive that effort was? You fell for that then – but fool you twice – why are you falling for it again now?
Wikileaks
About 517,000,000 results !!! (Google)
Did anyone hear this slimeball this morning? You could hear the cogs in his brain? creaking lest he dropped a few bricks. ‘Nothing to do with me Guv’
0733
The latest Wikileaks release reveals that Libya threatened Britain with “dire repercussions” if the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing died in jail. Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw explains whether we have learned anything new from the latest release.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9267000/9267058.stm
All very odd, Craig:
“I am not a fan of radical feminists. They are hate filled individuals whose very souls are ugly.”
Who do you mean? Dworkin was clearly a very abused and troubled person, but Greer, Walters, Orbach, Steinem – all very radical and feminist, hardly hate filled.And ‘ugly souls’? Don’t think so: have you read them?
You’re saying these claims are manifestly false, and part of a deliberate smear operation. OK. But if so, and these women who claim to be raped are paid stooges of the CIA/Swedish government, then they are not ‘radical feminists’ at all, since radical feminists tend to stand against a war-mongering patriarchy which, as Suhayl points out, now largely kills women and children. They are paid stooges of the CIA/Swedish government.
Btw why did Assange come to the UK? He must have wanted to be arrested, presumably. He would have been safe in lots of countries, Venezuela, for example.
Finally: “They succeeded in alienating me from the Stop the War movement”. It’s not hard to feel alienated from a movement called Stop the War which hasn’t, or from its Trotsky-esque bureaucracy, but to let a few people, clearly without any humour, sideline you from such a popular cause is rather sad. You should have gone on to tell the one about feminists and moustaches, that would have shown them.
ps angrysoba, why teach the spambots?
News just in, Hackers have taken down the websites of the Master card and viva plastic empires.
They can’t hang that on Julian!
hey craig, wanna read something funny?
check out this badboy
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm
Maybe a lawyer could explain if the extraditiion hearing is a done deal or does the judge have any discretion in determining the outcome. Can he or she consider the charges and evidence presented and say it is insufficient to grant the request ? Could the Swedish police question him within the UK ?
“the fact that his leaks all serve a precise Neocon agenda”
Nobody, I thought people had largely stopped repeating this one. Revealing the extent of government duplicity does not serve the neo-con agenda at all. Meanwhile the US spiked an Iranian for a UN environmental position, the Americans were assured that their interests would be looked after in the Chilcot enquiry, and the governor of the Bank of England turns out to be (economically speaking) very right-wing indeed. These do not serve the economic system very well at all.
Ritter was just ignored, which is often the best way to edge progressive/unpopular views out. The MSM failed there, for sure, but they are failing less well with Wikileaks because it is too big to ignore. And it provides plenty of material for them to fill their papers, so paradoxically they have a commercial opportunity for good journalism at the moment. Doesn’t happen very often, mind!
What is the MKULTRA connection? I’ve seen that mentioned once before, and I thought someone was just being nuts. Have you got a link?
The alleged rape case against Assange, if it ever gets to court, will be behind closed doors. This will deprive the world of the most hysterically funny rape cross examination ever.
Here a sneak preview, however.
The charges:
Used his body weight to hold down Miss A in a sexual manner.
Had unprotected sex with Miss A when she had insisted on him using a condom.
Molested Miss A “in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity”.
Had unprotected sex with Miss W while she was asleep.
Charge 1 “Used his body weight to hold down Miss A in a sexual manner”
Name? Ms A Age?: 29 3/4 Marital status? Spinster Profession?: Militant feminist
Would you describe yourself as a virgin? Yes Are you in fact a virgin? No
There are various ways of having sexual intercourse. Do you know what is meant by the missionary position? No
It involves the man lying on top of the woman. Oh!
What position would you yourself normally use? Swinging on a trapeze.
The accused is 75 kg and you are 55 kg. What do you think the effect might be if he were to adopt the missionary position? It would weigh me down and restrict my movement.
No further questions.
Charge 2 “Had unprotected sex with Miss A when she had insisted on him using a condom”.
When you initially had intercourse with the accused was he wearing a condom? Yes
Who supplied the condom? I did
What kind of condom was it? Giant Super Snug with raspberry flavour
Is that the condom you normally use? Yes, but sometimes with a strawberry flavour
It is alleged that the condom burst at a late stage of the proceedings and that the accused refused to put on a new one? Yes
He maintains that you were screaming “Yes , Yes, Yes” at the time and that he thought you wanted him to continue. Not at all, I meant Yes, he should change contraceptive immediately.
No further questions.
Charge 3 “Molested Miss A “in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity”.”
Ms A, could you please explain what this charge actually means? That he attempted to put his sexual organ in my mouth and not where it should go.
Are you aware that this behaviour is fairly common, that it has a latin name and that it is not normally regarded as a criminal offense when two consenting adults get together? Well, it seems disgusting to me and the prosecutor was desperate to find something to accuse him of.
No further questions
Charge 4 Had unprotected sex with Miss W while she was asleep
Name? Ms W Age?: 27 Marital status? Spinster Profession?: Groupie, Stalker
Could you describe the circumstances leading up to the charge? I saw he was in town, went to a lecture he held, took photos of him from the front row wearing my nice tight pink sweater, got invited to a party and ended up in bed with him.
And yet you fell asleep with him beside you? Well, it takes it out of you when you
Duncan – thank-you for your reply – As expected I disagree with your analysis of the Iran political system which seems to be based on Western propaganda rather than first hand accounts. However we can agree to disagree Duncan because let’s be honest we are both in the same camp.
So just a couple of points I deem to be important. I use the word ‘genocide’ because a generation of children were slaughtered during and after the ‘Iraq aggression’ according to DoctorsforIraq.
Interestingly the Politics of Iran is not so dissimilar to our own system where the Monarch is head and the Privy Council have ‘enormous’ power with a structure protected by the security services against subversion. Those against this system in a way considered portentous are ‘disappeared’ or vitiated in a ‘subtle’ way. Members of the Privy Council declare allegiance under an oath that until 1998 was treasonous to disclose.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is one of the highest courts in Britain and judicial committee judgements although not legally binding carry great weight and their report is considered ‘de facto’ by elected governments. The Justices of the Committee are all Lords except one, who is a Knight. Nobody gets to head-up a powerful position such as Head of the Armed Forces without a nod or approval from this great power.
Interestingly I believe in 2009 cases relating to the Scotland Act 1998 were transferred to the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
The so called Royal Prerogative has powers over civil servants and the Royal Navy. Such powers have resulted in the banning of trade union membership at GCHQ under Mrs Thatcher, the Blair government’s decision to allow its advisers to issue direct instructions to civil servants, and the eviction of the Chagos islanders from their homeland in the late 1960s.
Many will find all this rather boring but a word of warning, do not regard this peculiar system as a harmless relic of our constitution or a throwback to a bygone age, the British Cabinet are but a mere slave(executive committee) of the Privy Council.
Craig: I am uncomfortable with an attack on radical feminists generally, though I see what you mean. But technicolour is right: radical feminists are usually against wars, conceived with masculinity, in which women are most at risk of being killed. It follows therefore that the people to which these tags are applied may be radical, but they’re not feminists.
Hello Duncan, by the way. Not seen you for ages, good to see you posting. Trust you’re well 🙂
‘nobody’: I didn’t believe that there were WMDs, nor did many others here (apart from the stooges, who doubtless still believe in them).
Angry: Why refute that Kevin Rudd is the Aussie PM, when no-one claimed he was? Why quote discussions about violence, sex concerning Assange, then claim these are not views you’re trying to promote? I do like the way you repeatedly raise issues only to scuttle away from them.
The nutters are in charge. Whistleblowing is a waste of time, it gets you sacked and made unemployable. I know. Which is why I applaude the hackers who brought down MasterCard and Swiss Bank websites. This realistically seems the only way to fight back. Targeted attacks on certain infrastructure. I liked the four secret Nato Brigades story. Won’t the Russians just wait until debt consumes Europe if it wanted an easy life.
Be careful which louche, dodgy, twisted men you give your support to. He sounds a lot like Dr Dylan Evans, who had a mad “I am innocent and the feminists are out to get me” article in the Sunday Times at the weekend. Dr Dylan Evans was found guilty of sexually harassing a woman in his university, and can’t accept it.
http://www.dylan.org.uk/fruitbat_freedom.html
Hi Jon – thanks. I was wasting a lot of time on computer game addictions. Doing fine. Joined the Greens here. How are you?
Is it possible for a blogger to troll his own site ?
dan, that was interesting, thanks for posting. the woman’s reaction sounds crazy, beyond all isms. and all, poor bloke, for a fruitbat. i guess it’s hard to laugh off.
Dan – have to agree with techniclour, defining showing another academic a piece of research about animals’ sexual behaviour as sexual harassment is ludicrous.
You also ignore that fact that the charges against Dr. Evans were quashed by the High Court and he was awarded damages
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1201/breaking66.html
I wonder what motivation you have for trying to blacken his reputation based on no evidence?
sorry – correction – the High Court found the behaviour technically fell under the definition of sexual harassment (which is ludicrous), but said the sanctions imposed were completely disproportionate to the minor nature of the offence and quashed them, also awarding Evans costs for the case, not damages
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1201/breaking66.html
i concluded dan must have been being ironic…
A very good article.
Read the inside story about what took place during Assanges visit to Sweden, and the truth about the “equal” paradise Sweden on my blog.
Hi Joakim – I’m having trouble believing the claim in that blog post link in your name that every woman in Sweden who tries to take her children overseas with her, saying her husband or partner is beating or abusing her and/or her children is a liar motivated by an extreme version of feminism. That seems highly unlikely and frankly like misogyny.
“Angry: Why refute that Kevin Rudd is the Aussie PM, when no-one claimed he was?”
Holy shit, Glenn! Try to keep up with the conversation you’re in. Your goldfish memory makes discussion with you very tedious.
I said, “The Aussie PM has thrown Assange under the bus”
You replied with, “Hey Angry… It appears Australia hasn’t completely abandoned Assange after all”
and linked to an article in which Kevin Rudd was saying XYZ.
So it was relevant of me to point out that Kevin Rudd is not the PM to show that your reply to me was not relevant.
Christ Almighty!
“Why quote discussions about violence, sex concerning Assange, then claim these are not views you’re trying to promote?”
Again… YOU ARE MISSING THE BLOODY POINT BECAUSE YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN THE SUBJECT THAT *YOU* RAISED!!!!!
Glenn: “If there was more to the allegation than has been revealed so far, Sweden is surely withholding it because it wishes to be ridiculed further. (In other words, no – there doesn’t appear to be more to the story.)”
According to this Davros-Thatcher-lookalike-owned-newspaper report, the allegations are this:
“Mr Assange faces two counts of sexual molestation, one count of unlawful coercion and one count of rape involving two women in Sweden in August.
In the most details yet released about the allegations, Ms Lindfield said that in the cases of both women the allegations related to him refusing to wear a condom during sex. He was also accused of having sex with one of the women by exploiting the fact that she was asleep, and another count said that he had held a woman’s arms and forced open her legs so he could have sex with her.”
I was quoting the most RECENTLY released allegations given that you seemed to be under the impression that Sweden was witholding the allegations and given that you even, in your leadenly sarcastic wasy, said the motive was to make Sweden look ridiculous.
Now please don’t repeat that:
a) You never said Kevin Rudd was the PM. I KNOW! My point was that your link MISSED THE POINT something you have an unimpeachable skill for.
b) I am putting forward arguments I don’t believe for [swivel-eyes] some reason or another. I was QUOTING the allegations for your benefit not arguing that therefore they MUST be true.
Hi Jon, how incurious you are mate. There’s a singular name sitting right there in plain sight and you want me to spoon feed you a link? Did the thought not occur to you to put “julian assange anne hamilton byrne” into google?
That’s what I did in 2003 with ‘scott ritter iraq wmd’ and with mind boggling results. Then it seemed that in spite of the media’s erstwhile darling having controversial views about the biggest story there was, neither he nor anyone with those views was allowed on the TV. Verboten. This was not the media ‘failing’. Rather it was the media equivalent of gravity falling upwards, a complete impossibility. It was so impossible that only a sentimental fool would believe that the media is anything other than a bloc-media that does as it’s told.
Speaking of Ritter, hey Glenn. Does the fact that you didn’t fall for the not-a-single-dissenting-voice media bullshit about WMD’s mean that you woke up to the media as that aforementioned do-as-they’re-told, brook-no-dissenting-voice monolithic bloc? Okay, so then you’d know there’s no way in hell Assange would be their current superstar if it wasn’t approved.
And why would anyone stop repeating the neocon thing? We’re just quoting Benjamin Netanyahu:
“Israel has not been damaged at all by the WikiLeaks publications. On the contrary, the documents showed support in many quarters for Israel’s assessments, especially on Iran.”
The Butcher of Gaza loves it. And Assange loves him right back:
“We can see the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu coming out with a very interesting statement that leaders should speak in public like they do in private whenever they can. He believes that the result of this publication, which makes the sentiments of many privately held beliefs public, are promising a pretty good [indecipherable] will lead to some kind of increase in the peace process in the Middle East and particularly in relation to Iran.”
Honestly! Benjamin Netanyahu as good guy promoting honesty in public affairs and leading the peace process forward. God spare me. Are you people really falling for this guy? I shake my head.
Nobody, where did your quote from Assange originate?
I looked up Assange’s comments on Netanyahu. They appear in a Time interview here:
Dec 1st 2010 page 2 of the transcript
RS: We talked a little bit about this earlier, your desired outcome from the leaking of this information is presumably, as you said, that world leaders and officials would say the same things in public that they say in private. Um, lots and lots of people would regard that as naive, in part because they in their own lives don’t say the same things in public that they say in private. Is that the outcome that you would like, and how do you respond to the charge that that’s the naive view of the way the world works?
JA: Well, I was quoting Netanyahu, who [is] certainly not a naive man. The, of course …
RS: But the effect, by the way, Mr. Assange, for Netanyahu, is that what he’s been saying publicly ?” i.e., Arab leaders have privately been saying that Iran is the greatest threat, and they want Israel and the U.S. to do something ?” the revelations have been in his interest.
JA: Of course. We’re talking about a sophisticated politician who is of that sentiment he’s on the side of, in this issue. But I suggest it is generally ?” of course, there are exceptions ?” but generally true, across every issue. We are negotiating … We need to be able to negotiate with a clear understanding of what the ground is and what our [inaudible] positions are. Of course, one side has a disproportionate amount of knowledge compared to the other side. There cannot be negotiations or proper understanding of the playing field in which these events are to happen. Now, we would like to see all organizations that are key to their authority … opened up as much as possible. Not entirely, but as much as possible, in order to level out that asymmetric information playing field. Now for the United States, its government actually has more information available to it than any other government. And so it is already in a symmetric position. I think this disclosure of diplomatic information, which is often third-hand, will allow people to understand more clearly these sort of broad activities of the U.S. State Department, which acts not, of course, in the interest of the U.S. people but in the interest of the State Department. It will allow people of other countries to see that. But it will also meet more reasonable negotiations and reveal a lot about the Arab states, and Central Asian republics, to the rest of the world and to their peoples.
time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040-2,00.html