If Assange is ever extradited to Sweden, the danger is that the evidence against him will be held entirely in secret. ALthough published in Sweden, the evidence so far has not been published in the UK except for some extremely selective quotes designed to damage Assange as much as possible.
This is (in translation) the full Swedish police statement arising from Ardin’s interrogation and approved by Anna Ardin. I gave it here without comment. Some further analysis of Ardin will follow in a later post, along with Sofia Wilen’s full statement.
I will however note here the fact that, following this statement, Ardin did produce a condom split across the top to police as evidence. However forensic examination showed not only that there was none of Assange’s DNA on the condom, but that it had never been worn by anybody.
It is impossible to put on a condom and leave no microscopic traces of the fact.
That does not of itself make Ardin’s story untrue. This is her statement:
The chief interrogator rings claimant Anna Ardin (hereafter ‘Anna’) for the purpose of conducting an interrogation because of the event described above (‘rape or sexual molestation at Tjurbergsgatan 36 up to 2010-08-14 12:00’).
Anna says she’s worked as a press secretary and political secretary for Sweden’s christian social democrats – the brotherhood movement. Anna says she was involved in organising a seminar that was to take place on 14 August where Julian Assange had been invited in as a lecturer.
Because Anna would be out of town 11 – 14 August she lent her flat to Assange. But Anna returned to Stockholm already Friday 13 August because she had a lot of work to do for the seminar. Anna and Assange have never before met personally but only had contact via mail and the telephone.
The Friday in question Assange and Anna went out and ate dinner together. They’d agreed that Assange would go on living in Anna’s flat despite her coming home a day early. After their dinner on the town they went back to Anna’s flat and drank tea.
In answer to a question Anna says that neither she nor Assange drank alcohol that evening. When they sat and drank tea Assange began caressing her leg. In answer to a question Anna says Assange earlier in the evening had not made any physical approaches save now which Anna initially welcomed. But it felt ‘uncomfortable from the get-go’ as Assange was rough and impatient. According to Anna, ‘everything happened so fast’. He ripped off her clothes and in conjunction with this pulled at and broke her necklace. Anna tried to put some clothes back on again because things were going too fast and it felt uncomfortable but Assange immediately took her clothes off again. Anna says that she thought she actually didn’t want to go any further but it was too late to say ‘stop’ to Assange when she’d ‘gone along with it this far’. She thought she ‘could blame herself’. So she let Assange fully undress her.
Then they lay in the bed. Anna was on her back and Assange was on top of her. Anna thought Assange wanted to immediately put his penis in her vagina which she didn’t want as he didn’t have a condom on. So she tried to twist her hips to the side and squeeze her legs together to prevent a penetration. Anna tried several times to reach for a condom which Assange stopped her from doing by holding her arms and prying open her legs and trying nevertheless to penetrate her with his penis without a condom. Anna says that in the end she was ready to cry because she was pinned and couldn’t reach a condom and thought ‘this might not end well’. In answer to a question Anna says Assange must have known she was trying to reach for a condom and he was holding her arms to stop her.
Assange asked after a while what Anna was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together. Anna then told him she wanted him to put on a condom before he entered her. Assange released her arms and put on the condom Anna got for him. Anna felt a huge unexpressed reluctance from Assange to using a condom which led to her getting the feeling he didn’t put on the condom she’d given him. She therefore reached down with her hand to Assange’s penis to check if he’d really put the condom on. She could feel that the edge of the condom was where it should be at the root of Assange’s penis. Anna and Assange resumed having sex and Anna says she thought ‘hope it’s over soon’.
Anna notices after a while that Assange withdraws from her to fix the condom. Judging from the sound, it sounded to Anna like Assange took the condom off. He entered her again and continued the act. Anna again checked his penis with her hand and again felt the edge of the condom where it should be and so let the sex continue.
After a while Assange ejaculates inside her and thereafter withdraws. Anna saw that the condom didn’t have semen in it when Assange took it off. When Anna began moving her body she noticed how things were running out of her vagina. Anna understood rather quickly that it must be Assange’s semen. She pointed this out for Assange but he denied this and told her it was she who was wet with her own juices. Anna is convinced that Assange, when he withdrew from her the first time, deliberately broken the condom at the tip and thereafter continued the sex with the resulting ejaculation. In answer to a question Anna says she didn’t look closer at the condom, if it was broken as she thought, but she says she thinks she still has the condom at home and will look at it. She says that even the bed sheets used on that occasion are most likely still in her hamper.
After the above mentioned incident Anna says she and Assange didn’t have any more sex. Yet Assange went on living with her up to and including Friday 20 August. According to Anna Assange made sexual overtures every day after that evening when they’d had sex. For example by touching her breasts. Anna rebuffed Assange on all these occasions and Assange accepted it. On one occasion, Wednesday 18 August, he’d suddenly removed all his clothing on his lower body and thereafter rubbed his lower body and his erect penis against Anna. Anna says she thought this was strange behaviour and uncomfortable and had therefore moved down to a mattress on the floor and slept there instead of up in the bed with Assange. The next night Anna stayed with a friend because she didn’t want to be around Assange because of his strange behaviour. She even pointed out after Wednesday 18 August that she didn’t want Assange staying any longer in her flat which he didn’t respond to until Friday when he took his things and returned her flat key.
In answer to a question Anna says Assange lived with her but they hardly slept together because Assange was up at night working with his computer. She mostly got up in the morning about 07:00 when he went to sleep.
In answer to a question Anna says she knew of Sofia when she’d been in contact with Anna before the above mentioned seminar and been part of the audience. According to Anna Sofia had purchased electrical cables for Assange and been with Anna and Assange at the lunch after the seminar. Anna noticed Assange flirted with Sofia during the lunch and understood that they’d afterwards begun some sort of relationship when Assange rang Sofia later in the evening when he was at Anna’s at the crayfish party.
She received an email message from Sofia Friday 20 August where she wonders if she can reach Assange as she had something important to tell him. Anna understood immediately what it was about and contacted Sofia who then told her what had happened to her, that she and Assange had had sex and that he didn’t want to use a condom etc. Sofia wanted to follow this up with the police and Anna decided to follow along, foremost as support.
Anna says she already heard from several sources that Assange ‘chases all women who cross his path’. Considering Assange’s reputation Anna felt it very important that they used a condom the time they had sex, that is the day before the seminar.
Anna says she’s felt terrible after the occasion when she and Assange had sex. Foremost because of the worry she’d been infected by HIV or some other STD. Anna says she freely consented to have sex with Assange but she couldn’t have let it happen if she’d known he didn’t have a condom. Anna has been in contact with the health centre and been given a time for tests next week. Anna approves of the police having the results of these tests.
Anna does not want any help from the crime victims unit but will get back to us if she feels it’s necessary.
Interrogation read back and approved.
…and they tell us Swedish girls are easy…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnx-CJjHjtQ
So, as I read it, she thinks a condom broke but when she presented it to forensics the condom had never been worn at all. At no point was the sex lacking consent but she “thought” JA didn’t want to wear a condom – although he did.
Most tenuous indeed.
I applaud Craig Murray for putting this up on the net. It is available elsewhere but the more places the better. There is not much need for comments as it speaks for itself.
David Allen Green is still pushing his agenda with ever increasing petulance. I’m trying to encourage people who might take what he is saying as the be all and end all to fully acquaint themselves with all aspects of the case and make up their own mind.
Lot of background here – needs sifting.
Re. the Virginia Grand Jury which may issue/have issued a sealed indictment for Assange.
http://www.alexaobrien.com/secondsight/wikileaks/grand_jury/witness_profile/
“In 1948, so the legend goes, Lyndon Baines Johnson, facing a formidable well financed primary opponent in his Senate race, turned to his campaign manager and suggested they spread the rumor that his pig farmer opponent had engaged in acts of barnyard intimacy that provided him “routine carnal knowledge” of his sow
Taken aback, Johnson’s campaign manager protested, “But Lyndon, we can’t say that! It’s not true!” To which Johnson replied, “Of course not, but let’s make the bastard deny it.”
LBJ was nothing if not the consummate politician, and that includes his hardball tactics. The fact is, dirty tricks have always been part of the political landscape in this country–and more than most of us realize, thanks to the furtive ways candidates and their surrogates go about sticking it to others.”
Full lab report on broken condom:
http://www.samtycke.nu/doc/ass/police_condom.pdf
I don’t speak any Swedish, but am I right in thinking it was cut by a knife??
Well fitted up Julian !!
I wonder what the punishment in Sweden is for falsely claiming rape,tampering with evidence,conspiracy to pervert the course of justice,providing false witness and wasting police time?
@Jives, you get a job with the CIA in Ghaza, a tranquil place placed within gun range or reach of Israeli predator drones, non stop surveillance, nobody else could probably look after a loose canon better than the IDF.
Yes, I had read this. But it is not widely known. Not yet. Also Sophia Wilen’s statement is available, and is somewhat more interesting in that Irmeli Krans, the gay rights’ police interrogator who took the statement because she knew Anna Ardin and could not therefore take Ardin’s, altered the original statement which as you have rightly mentioned was not signed.
I covered this here, with the link to Sophia Wilen’s statement, though I was not the first to post it on this blog.
http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-rape-of-julian-assange.html
If Ardin’s account is true, Assange is clearly no angel – in fact he’s an ass. But not a criminal. The main complaint seems to be that he made her feel uncomfortable in a sexual situation. That’s poor sexual etiquette, indeed. He slightly wounded her feelings for a while, the cad.
However, if this can sustain a legal prosecution, I’d like to put several former partners in the dock for similar crimes: for instance, of initiating congress with false reassurances of oral contraception, or of locking me in a leghold when I tried to withdraw before emission. Other misdemeanours could be brought into consideration: e.g. coercing performance under threat of an almighty strop, and seeking oral attention in a state of dubious menstrual hygiene. Ugh! OK, I wasn’t emotionally devastated but I was a bit annoyed and made my reluctance clear. But they pressed ahead regardless. Consequently, those evil harlots should be extradited to Sweden (one indeed was a Swedish citizen) to face criminal charges in a closed court.
People can argue that the woman bears extra pressure in these situations due to her potential to become pregnant. But there is a straightforward remedy: (morning-after pill + pregnancy test) = peace of mind. By contrast, a man who has been duped doesn’t have the power to enforce such a course of action, and could go on fretting for months about being an unwilling father.
Assange(l) has committed an arguable ethical transgression, but if we were to construe it as an actionable crime, most of the population could be sent to the dock. The fact that Sweden is prepared to fund a huge police operation and provoke a serious international diplomatic crisis for such a mundane episode of wounded feelings only goes to prove there is a hidden hand at play.
AAMVM, well said. I endorse it 100%. The more coverage the better.
Craig,
I cannot get the link ‘Swedish police statement’ : http://http//rixstep.com/1/20110204,02.shtml to work. It appears broken?
The link to the Swedish police statement is broken because of a slight typo, omitting the : after the http. This is the correct version:
http://rixstep.com/1/20110204,02.shtml
Quick checklist of commonly unknown facts (counter to the vapid NS list) here:
http://notesonwikileaks.tumblr.com/post/15251907983/assange-extradition-fact-sheet
Pity about the near-illegible font…note to notesonwikileaks, html needs to be legible to the reader as well as giving the writer a buzz.
Outbreak of “Assange not only strangles panda cubs but leaves bail guarantors destitute” coming to a ‘journalist’s’ terminal near you….
Based on this less partisan account:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/04/julian-assange-in-ecuador-bail-battle-embassy_n_1853778.html
Komodo, thanks for posting the possible Virginia Grand Jury indictment. I’ve been trying to locate that for weeks.
Thanks Richard – I missed that.
Komodo, thanks for that link. From there I found an interesting infographic, entitled 8 Things We Would Not Know Without Wikileaks.
Jon, Komodo, interesting leaks indeed, especially the last one regarding the UN and the US illegal information-gathering (with naturally Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama spearheading).
Here is a link to the the Sofia Wilen statement – one is relying, of course, on the accuracy of the translator(s). I know nothing about this website, just came across it:
http://rixstep.com/1/20110131,00.shtml
Another interesting site – alleging police shenanigans, also quotes from Craig Murray’s site:
http://darkernet.wordpress.com/tag/assange/
If Anna Ardin’s police statement is an accurate recollection of their encounter it would appear that Julian Assange got none of the benefits of condom use (their prophylatic effects) and all of the disadvantages (their de-sensitizing effects).
Very strange.
Don’t know about you OldMark but I’ve reached that age where I couldn’t even contemplate a condom.
Too much information there John 😉
In the chapter entitled Outcomes (written in 2007) in The New Old World, Perry Anderson describes Carl Bildt, Sweden’s Foreign Minister as:
“..a founder member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, along with Richard Perle, William Kristol, Newt Gingrich and others.”
Not that that has anything to do with it, of course. Anyone has a perfect right to be a warmonger and and be responsible for the deaths of thousands. But tearing a condom is a hanging matter. Sweden hath need of thee, Burns.
Hi Komodo, I speak Swedish.
They have test cut the condom with a knife and scissors ripping the back of it off.
The original damage in the front part most resembles that of the ripped off damage.
Med Grad +2 It is just the probability scale (100 V < 6 000)
I have translated quite a chunk. Will post what I have as long as no one marks it.
Nextus (at 3:41pm), I take all your points. However, I guess the other point might be that a woman might feel an implicit sense of threat more than a man might in that kind of situation, assuming that in a specific case, the man had greater physical strength. The alleged unprotected ‘sleep event’ is troubling. Nonetheless, right now, these are simply allegations and no doubt the other party (Assange) will deny some of them. I guess the point is, as Craig and many others rightly have suggested, he needs to face these allegations in a court of law but requires an assurance that, regardless of the outcome, he won’t be spirited off to the USA.
One of the problems with this whole, ploraised, subtextual discourse, it seems to me, is illustrated by the fact that simply by suggesting what I’ve suggested above, I have been attacked by some on a social media network as, “a rape apologist”. Well, it makes a change from being called, “a femi-nazi”, I suppose! Clearly, some people seem already to have decided Assange’s guilt without the need of recourse to a court of law.
You are reading a story published by a government intelligence agency. You should stop reading and start writing what you think they are trying to achieve.
Tony