My post on the shootings in France has brought tens of thousands of people to this site – but not to read my dull contribution. People are coming to read the comments from other readers.

Today’s development of the bomb squad descending on the al-Hilli house does not in itself worry me enormously. You may recall the massive terror scare that was ramped up when some Muslim students in Manchester were found to own a bag of sugar.

In fact we have the opposite phenomenon today, with the spook-fed “security correspondents” on TV lining up to tell us it is probably just everyday household stuff. This deviation from the standard Islamophobic “Muslims = bombs” narrative is so startling it makes me wonder why the “move along, nothing to see here” line is being taken so quickly.

My own security services sources insist that al-Hilli was not a person of current interest to the UK intelligence agencies and was not involved in anything clandestine. I have no reason to disbelieve them. On the other hand, the limited and confusing information in the media is almost entirely from official sources. I find it very strange indeed how little attention has been paid to the murdered French cyclist, and how easily it is presumed he was just a passerby. Surely it is as likely he was the intended victim and the al-Hillis the accidental witnesses?

Please do read the comments on my first entry on the subject to see the debate unfettered by the censorship in the mainstream media. This is perhaps my favourite comment:

From Janesmith101

All comments regarding Sylvain, Al-Hilli and a possible nuclear link are being removed from sites I’ve posted on in The Guardian, Independent and Huffpo UK.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/sep/09/alps-killer-motive-baffles-police

Here was my comment, I added as a point of fact it was completely speculative and an unproven theory in a later comment, also removed.

Sylvain Mollier, the ‘passing’ cyclist, was in fact a nuclear metallurgist who worked for a french nuclear company called Cezus (a subsidiary of Areva). Cezus fabricates and processes zirconium into metal and nuclear grade zircoaloy for nuclear fuel assemblies – it also has other applications in aerospace such as components and ceramics for missiles and satellites. Mr Al-Hilli was also a skilled aerospace engineer, on what looks to be his first camping holiday.

What is the probability that two highly skilled engineers managed be at the same remote place, at the same time, yet still managed to end up dead as a result of what looks to be a military style assasination?

As someone else pointed out in The Independent comments, the deceased were found by a ‘retired’ RAF officer who, we assume, will recieve perpetual anonymity as a witness. If the police are looking for a motive, try an intercepted rendevous by a security service fixated on denying a hostile power illicit nuclear technology.

http://wrmea.org/component/content/article/162-1995-june/7823-israel-bombs-iraqs-osirak-nuclear-research-facility.html

The Huffington Post UK reports that this wasn’t the family’s first trip to the camp site. An earlier report had asked other camp site visitors whether they had seen the family before and they had replied they hadn’t. If this isn’t wasn’t the first visit by Al-Hilli, it might slightly increase the odds that he knew or had met Mollier before, this being the last in a series of rendevous of a transactional nature. Mollier lived and worked locally.

Again, I’m not sure of the truth of these reports, there is some very sloppy journalism, as there is always seems to be. I’ve read for example Mollier’s company Cevus descirbed as a steel firm something which it is patently not, but perhaps it may have been a detail lost in translation.

An interesting comment summing up some of the strange coincidences, at least, surrounding these murders. My other favourite comment calls me a “macchiavellian shill”.

I have only one thought of my own I want to add at the minute. Al-Hilli was a Shia muslim and had been on pilgrimage to Qoms in Iran. What if it is indeed true that he was in possession of no especial nuclear or defence secrets to pass on to the Iranians, but the Israelis thought that he was? The Israeli programme of assassination of scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme is a definite fact. It makes as much sense as anything else at the moment, as a possibility.

I am not saying that is what happened. But the directions in which the mainstream media is being so strenuously pointed by official sources, like the massacre of an entire family over an inheritance, are certainly no more inherently probable. Certainly as we are now told all the shots were from one gun, for the assassin to get each victim in the head with none of them being able to escape, indicates real proficiency with the weapon and a very high level of training.

According to the ebuzzing (formerly wikio) rankings, this is the third most influential political blog in the UK – and the fifth most influential blog of any kind. It beats, hands down, the heavily funded ConservativeHome and Labourlist propaganda operations.

Of the two political blogs ahead of it, Guido Fawkes has permanent paid staff, whereas Liberal Conspiracy is a collective of 32 high profile ultra politically correct guardianistas; many of whom are paid by mainstream media.

Yet this blog has total funding of precisely nil and is only me, an ageing and disillusioned man sickened by the growing gap between rich and poor, the domination of mainstream political parties by corporate interests, and the continual promotion of aggressive war.

This blog does everything wrong. There are frequent gaps between posts, sometimes of weeks on end, because I get too depressed at instances of the callous disregard of the powerful for ordinary people.

I do not tweet, except that the start of each blog entry automatically gets tweeted, which someone set up for me.

This is an SNP supporting blog based in Ramsgate, Kent, written by a manic depressive sacked diplomat of eclectic views, whose guiding lights are the deeply unfashionable John Stuart Mill and William Hazlitt, whose favourite book was written by Michael Foot, and who is still metaphorically on his knees begging forgiveness for advising people to put Nick Clegg into government.

This blog, like all the other top blogs, could make substantial money from advertising, but is the only one not to carry advertising because it does not desire money.

It is webhosted for free, and kept running by a team of techies and moderators who do it for free also, not because they support a party or policy line or everything I say, but because they like the blog. It has the most free, well nigh anarchic moderation policy of any major blog. You can say what you like, including being very critical of me. Racism is pretty well the only red line. Opposing voices are very welcome.

I don’t do political correctness.

Even more heretically, this blog succeeds despite the fact the ebuzzing rankings show the majority of its posts are about international relations. Not only is it interested in foreigners, it tends to concentrate on Africa, Central Asia and other places the mainstream media scarcely believe exist. This blog succeeds so well because the mainstream media leaves unmet an active desire for information by very large numbers of people who are not as stupid as they think.

I have been lucky to have led a fascinating and varied life and as a result not only have a large number of high level contacts who would be the envy of any journalist, but am prepared to publish facts that mainstream political discourse finds uncomfortable.

To give just a few examples, this blog made public that Adam Werritty and Liam Fox had eight meetings with Matthew Gould, now British Ambassador to Israel, not the two reported in Gus O’Donnell’s whitewash “report”. At least two included Mossad, and the purpose throughout was to coordinate on the ramping up of official support for an attack on Iran.

This blog made public the deal whereby the US obtained Arab League support for the attack on Libya in return for US support for the Saudi invasion of Bahrain.

This blog revealed Lord Taylor of Blackburn’s role as bagman for New Labour, and for Jack Straw personally, in collecting from the defence industries, and BAE in particular.

This blog revealed the dirty deal between the British government and the Karimov regime to resume arms supplies and military training in return for logistic support for Afghanistan.

You would be surprised by how many people actually embedded in the establishment, including Members of Parliament and very senior mainstream media journalists, have told me they regularly read this blog to see what is really happening. it is an antidote to the model of single propaganda narrative that now characterises mainstream media.

The stratospheric rise of this blog up the industry rankings is not actually caused by a sudden increase in popularity. That popularity has been there for years. But at last it is being measured.

The old wikio rankings measured the number of links from other blogs; in the case of political blogs, only from other political blogs. So clusters of New Labour, Tory and Lib Dem blogs, by constantly linking to each other, could collectively drive themselves up the rankings.

But over 70% of incoming links to this blog are from outside the UK; they did not count for anything at all in the rankings. Nor did the frequent links to this blog from the sites of major newspapers and broadcast companies in the UK and around the globe.

Ebuzzing now has abandoned the old wikio algorithm in favour of a much wider measurement, which draws on more reference sources, including twitter and newspaper sites. The result reflects much more the actual readership and influence of a blog than did the old wikio rankings:

More than 2 million sources are catalogued and analysed. The semantic content ranking is performed automatically. Blog and article popularity are calculated using our algorithm, which takes into account content shares and recommendations on Twitter, Facebook and the primary content exchange platforms.

I think it is hilarious that the huge wedges of cash put by Lord Ashcroft or Unite into the Tory and New War Criminal blogging propaganda arms cannot see off this old chap with his ancient laptop.

The internet remains a great leveller, and that remains reason to hope.

19,000 athletes took part in the Olympics and Paralympics. 25,000 artists, performers and speakers participate – every August, in the Edinburgh Festivals. Total audience numbers for all Olympic venues across the UK were 8 million. Total audience numbers for the Edinburgh Festivals, every August, are 4.2 million. Crammed into an area not substantially bigger the the Olympic Park.

Total gross taxpayer subsidy for the Olympics was north of £12 billion. £12,000,000,000. Total gross taxpayer subsidy for the Edinburgh Festivals is south of £3 million. £3,000,000.

The Edinburgh Festivals every year bring a net inflow of 105,000 tourists to the UK who would not otherwise have come. By contrast the Olympics brought a net decrease in the number of tourists visiting the UK, not yet calculated exactly but likely to be around 200,000.

Yet the crazed doom-mongers of the security industry have not yet got hold of the Edinburgh Festival. There are no anti-aircraft missiles on blocks of flats in West Pilton, no frigates lurking in the Firth of Forth, no commandoes in motorised dinghies patrolling the Water of Leith. You can enter the King’s Theatre without a soldier rummaging through the pantie liners in your handbag. You don’t get a full body scan at the Usher Hall. Half the road lanes are not closed off for the use of very, very important bureaucrats. Small shopkeepers are not prosecuted for displaying Festival symbols.

And the fireworks are better. A lot better.

{Edinburgh’s summer festivals include the Edinburgh International Festival, the Fringe, the Film, Book, Television and Science Festivals. I missed some).

Regular readers know I love railways and am constantly on the move by train. They also know that I am constantly furious at the mess left by rail privatisation, with the most expensive rail fares in the world, plus massive taxpayer subsidies, leaving huge profits for private shareholders of operating companies on “can’t lose”, taxpayer underwritten deals.

I calculated that my “super off peak return” ticket from Ramsgate to Newark, bought yesterday for £83.70, costs over 20p a mile. I contemplated yesterday afternoon posting about what an incredibly large charge that is for train travel compared to other countries. I was going to invite people to give examples of per mile cost on other tickets in the UK and elsewhere.

I then reflected that few of my long-suffering readers find my railway postings as interesting as I do, and decided not to inflict it on you.

Then this morning I went to catch the 8.37 from Newark, which gets in to London at 10.02. I am on it now. But I was informed that, whereas on South Eastern services from Ramsgate an off-peak service is one which gets into London after 10.00, on East Coast services an off-peak service is one which departs from wherever you catch it after 10.00. So the same train is not an off-peak service at one point in its journey, but becomes off-peak later on.

The first “Off-peak” service from Newark does not get into London until 11.35.

I reluctantly therefore asked to upgrade my “off-peak” ticket so I could get the 8.37. I was told this would cost £94.20!! However, the lady added helpfully, I could just buy a single to London for £74.50 and then use my off-peak ticket from London to Ramsgate.

This I have done. So my return journey from Ramsgate to Newark is costing me just shy of £160. It would be a lot cheaper to drive – in a Chelsea tractor.

You may recall I posted some time ago that when making a journey from Truro to York, the Virgin train from Truro was severely late, causing me to miss my advance purchased train to York. While I had shown my tickets and explained at Kings Cross, I had been told that as Virgin were a separate company, it was nothing to do with East Coast, and I had to buy a new ticket for £180. I applied to Virgin for a refund, who said that as their train had only been 52 minutes late, they owed me nothing and my missing a train from another company was not their business.

That was crazy. Now again, having different operating companies using different definitions of what constitutes “off-peak” coming into London is yet another example of the way the crazed “competition” model, in reality a series of taxpayer-funded private monopolies, works to the massive disadvantage of the consumer.

The railways need to be renationalised, and the modernisation and expansion of the network should be at the centre of economic growth strategy. A full 200mph high speed line to Aberdeen, another to Cardiff and a third to Stranraer for Belfast should be undertaken immediately. Beeching lines should be restored, and new lines to new population centres be a major priority. If the money from quantitve easing was applied to this and to homebuilding, rather than being given to the banking bonus pool as at present, we might actually see some life in our economy.

Let me be upfront: none of my usual contacts, so far, has any knowledge about the very clinical murders in France of the Iraqi origin British Hilli family. I have seen various internet reports of the links of Mr Hilli to the defence industry and that the French cyclist victim was linked to the nuclear industry. I am not immediately concerned that the other cyclist who raised the alarm was ex-RAF; had that fact been sinister, it would have been hidden or he might not have raised the alarm at all.

In short, I really do not know what is happening here and I don’t think normal hierarchies within British security agencies know either. It may be genuinely random, or not. I am not posting to speculate or to spread knowledge, but because unless I do post, commenters will derail other threads to discuss this. Should I discover anything, I will let you know. But we may well never know; we still don’t really know who killed JFK, or Hilda Murrell. There is always an answer, but it is not always known to the public.

No excuse can justify the failure to identify and help the poor little girl who was still alive in the bottom of the car. Discovering if anybody was alive in the car should have outweighed every other consideration for the emergency services. Protocols for the dead will not help them much, whatever they may achieve for abstract justice. The living are easier to serve well, and this was a gross failure.

This statement was written by Irmeli Krans, a Swedish police officer, on 20 August 2010 and amended on 26 August 2010. It purports to be the record of an interview with Sofia Wilen, but Sofia Wilen refused to sign the statement and has not done so to this day.

It is nevertheless this unsigned statement which the British High Court stated contains an allegation which would, if true, amount to rape. Some may recall that fact being triumphantly and aggressively read out to me on Newsnight by Gavin Esler, with no mention that the statement referred to had never been signed by the “complainant”.

The Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, had told the British High Court that even though the statement was unsigned, it was valid as evidence under Swedish law (it would not be under British) because the interview was conducted before two witnesses, Irmeli Krans and Anna Ardin.

Contrary to police protocol in virtually every developed country, including Sweden, the interrogation although in a police station had neither been audio recorded nor video recorded. Irmeli Krans has claimed she could not find a working dictaphone – in a major Stockholm police station that does of course have video-taping facilities.

Irmeli Krans and Anna Ardin had known each other for at least two years before they were present together at the police interview of Sofia Wilen. They had been on the same ballot paper as candidates for the same political party in a council election. They were facebook friends and had exchanged messages on a relevant subject, the abuse of power by white men:

Irmeli Krans to Anna Ardin April 2009:

Hello! Thanks for the compliment. And like you say, white men must always defend the right to use abusive words. Then they of course deny that these very words are part of a system that keeps their group at the top of the social ladder.

I will analyse Anna Ardin’s behaviour in detail in a further post in a few days. According to Ardim, Sofia Wilen contacted her concerned that unprotected sex with Assange may have given her a sexually transmitted disease. Rather than take her to a medical facility, Ardin took Wilen to a police station, under the pretext that the police might be able to compel Assange to take an STD test – which even in Sweden must be an extraordinary proposition.

Ardin did not take Wilen to the nearest police station. She took her right across Stockholm to the police station where Ardin’s friend, lesbian feminist campaigner Irmeli Krans, was serving. They arrived at 2pm and rather than see another officer, they waited two hours until Krans came on duty. Then Ardin was present throughtout Krans’ interview of Wilen – which appears to have very much informed Ardin’s presentation of her own subsequent allegation against Assange. Ardin’s “assault” by Assange took place several days before the Wilen “assault”, but was not reported by Ardin until two days after she had sat through Wilen’s interview with her friend Krans.

And always remember, Wilen refused to sign the resulting statement, given here, as a fair account of what occurred.

Statement of Irmeli Krans

Following is Krans’ interrogation of Sofia Wilén 20 August 2010, subsequently modified by Krans 26 August 2010.

Background

Sofia says she saw an interview a few weeks ago on TV with Julian Assange who is known to be behind the WikiLeaks publication of US military documents from Afghanistan. Sofia thought he was interesting, courageous, and admirable. For the next two weeks she watched the news carefully, she read a lot of articles, and saw interviews. One evening when she sat at home and Googled the name Julian Assange she discovered he was invited to Sweden to hold a lecture arranged by the social democrat brotherhood movement. She posted a message to the brotherhood press secretary Anna Ardin whose contact details she found on their website and asked if he would be coming to Sweden and if she in such case could attend his lecture. She offered to help out with practical details in return. Anna Ardin replied that she’d forward her message to those in charge.

But Sofia got no further reply and suddenly one day she saw an ad with the time and place for the lecture. The lecture was to be held in ‘LO-borgen’ at Norra Bantorget Saturday 14 August. She rang those in charge on Friday and asked if it was OK to attend. She was told she was one of the first to apply and it’d be OK. She took the day off from work and went to LO-borgen on Saturday. She saw a woman who she presumed was Anna Ardin standing outside LO-borgen and went up to her and introduced herself. Anna told Sofia that she was on the list so she was welcome to attend. At the same time the lecturer himself, Julian Assange, approached with a man in his 30s. She got the impression the man was Julian’s press secretary or something similar. Julian looked at Sofia as if he was amused. She got the feeling he thought she didn’t belong there in her shocking pink cashmere jumper amongst all the other gray journalists.

The Lecture

She sat at the far right front when she entered the venue, the lecturer would stand all the way to the left. The room seemed full of journalists. A half hour before the lecture was to begin, Anna approached Sofia and asked if she could help buy a cable for Julian’s computer. They needed a cable and Sofia had offered to help out. Sofia went up to Julian to ask what type of cable he needed. He explained what he needed and then wrote it down on a small piece of paper. She took the paper and placed it immediately in her pocket. Julian looked contemptibly at her and said ‘you didn’t even look at the note’. She told him she didn’t need to as he’d already explained what type of cable he needed.

She took a cab to the ‘Webhallen’ boutique on Sveavägen but they were closed. The time was 10:30 and the store would open first at 11:00. But that’s also when the lecture was scheduled to begin, so Sofia started feeling stressed. The cabbie drove her instead to the Haymarket where she purchaed two types of cable for safety’s sake. She got back in time, she had the right type of cable, but she wasn’t thanked for her help by Julian. The lecture went well.

The Lunch

There were many journalists who wanted to interview Julian after the lecture. Sofia stayed around because she too wanted to speak with him. She asked Anna if this was possible and Anna said Julian would stand outside the entrance to LO-borgen to be accessible to the public in case anyone wanted to ask him questions. Sofia went out and sat in the shade and waited for the interviews to be over. There were more interviews outside. Sofia approached LO-borgen again and overheard that the brotherhood people were going to treat Julian to lunch. Sofia asked if she could come along too, after all she’d helped them with the cable. She was invited and went together with Anna, Julian and his entourage, and two members of the brotherhood to a restaurant on Drottninggatan across from the Central Bathhouse. She ended up next to Julian and started talking with him. He looked at her now and again during the lunch. On one occasion when he put cheese on his knäckebröd she asked him if it tasted good and then he reached over with his sandwich and fed her with it. Later during lunch he said he needed a charger for his laptop. She said she could get one for him, after all she’d got the cable for him earlier. He put his arm around her and said ‘yes you gave me the cable’. Sofia thought this was flattering for it was obvious he was now flirting with her.

The others left after lunch, leaving only Sofia, Julian, and Julian’s companion. They went off together to buy an electric cable for Julian’s computer. ‘Kjell & Co’ didn’t have the product, so they went on to Webhallen but it was closed again. They walked back on Sveavägen towards the Haymarket and talked about what they’d do next. Julian’s companion asked him if he wanted to come along and help move furniture for his parents and Sofia offered Julian a visit at the natural history museum where she worked. It was decided Julian would accompany Sofia to the museum and his companion left them. Julian and Sofia went into the Haymarket subway station where she purchased a blue access card good for the day as he didn’t have the monthly commuter card and no money either as he said. They took the train towards Mörby Centrum and stepped off at the university stop. A man in the subway recognised Julian and told him how much he admired him.

The Natural History Museum

On the way from the university subway station Julian stopped to pet a few dogs, which Sofia thought was charming. In the museum they went to the staff room where Julian sat down and starting surfing the net, he was looking for tweets about himself. They sat there waiting for a film that was to be shown at Cosmonova at 18:00.

They were let into the cinema by Sofia’s colleague and Julian held Sofia’s hand. In the darkness of the cinema he started kissing her. A few latecomers arrived and sat behind them and so they moved to a row at the back. Julian continued kissing her, touched her breasts under her jumper, undid her bra, unbuttoned her pants, caressed her buttocks, and sucked her nipples. He muttered about the armrest being in the way. She was sitting in his lap when the lights went on and he tried to put her bra back on. She thought it embarrassing to sit there in view of her colleagues who she knew could have seen it all.

They went out through the inner courtyard and she went to the toilet. When she came out, he was lying on his back on a picnic table resting, he said he was very tired. He was supposed to be at a crayfish party at 20:00 and wanted to sleep 20 minutes before leaving. They lay down together in the grass next to each other and he had his arm around her. He fell asleep and she woke him twenty minutes later. Then they promenaded over lawns, passed cows and Canadian geese, he held her hand, it was wonderful in all possible ways and he told her ‘you’re very attractive to me’. He’d also told her in the cinema she had pretty breasts. She asked him if they’d meet again. He said of course they would, they’d meet after the crayfish party.

She accompanied him to the Zinkensdamm subway station where he caught a cab back to Anna Ardin’s where the party was to take place. He gave her a hug and said he didn’t want to part from her and encouraged her to charge her cellphone. She went home to Enköping, arriving at home at 23:00. She had a voice message waiting from Julian from 22:55 when she’d recharged her phone, telling her to ring him when her phone was working again. She rang back at 23:15, realising he was still at the party. She’d developed a stomach cramp from a sandwich she’d eaten on the way home and told him she wanted to go to bed. He insinuated it wasn’t about stomach cramps as much as a feeling of guilt.

On Monday

She rang Julian twice on Sunday but his phone was turned off. She told her colleagues at work on Monday what had happened at the weekend. They told her Julian felt dumped and therefore hadn’t rung back so that the ball was in her court. She rang him and he answered. She asked if they should do something together. He said he’d be at a meeting which could take a long time up until 20:30 but he could ring her back later. He also asked about her stomach cramps. He insinuated she’d lied about her cramps and he used the third person to tell her. She promised to wait for him so after she finished work at 19:00 she went to Kungshallarna and had sushi. Afterwards she strolled about town and ended up in the old town where she rang him back at 21:00 when he still hadn’t got back to her, asking what was going on. He said he was in a meeting in Hornsgatan and he wanted her to come there. She got the address and went there. She couldn’t find the address when she arrived, rang Julian, and spoke with a man who spoke Swedish who explained she was to get in through a side entrance. She stood there and waited for him when he came out together with a another man, they said goodbye to one another and looked very happy.

Julian and Sofia walked up Hornsgatan towards Slussen and from there to the old town. They sat by the water at Munkbroleden and he commented on girls who sat there as ‘lonely and abandoned’ and who ‘probably need saving’. They lay down and starting making out, heavily. Amongst other things he put his hands under her jumper and when they left the area she noticed people were looking at them. They decided to go home to her place. They went into the subway where his card was now invalid and she got him through by swiping her own card twice. They took the train to Enköping from the central station, she paid for the tickets, SEK 107 (~$10) each. He claimed he didn’t want to use his credit card, he didn’t want to be traced. They sat in the direction the train would move all the way back in the car. Julian connected his computer and started reading about himself on Twitter on the computer and on the phone. He devoted more attention to the computer than he did to her. She’d suggested they take in at a hotel but he said he wanted to see ‘girls in their natural habitat’.

To Enköping

It was dark when they got off the train and they passed old industry buildings where he went off to pee. She also took a pee. When they arrived at her flat she went in before him into the bedroom to clean up a bit before he saw it. They took off their shoes and the relationship between them didn’t feel warm anymore. The passion and excitement had disappeared. They made out in the bedroom but she wanted to brush her teeth. It was midnight, pitch black outside, and they brushed their teeth together – it felt banal and boring.

When they want back in the bedroom Julian stood in front of Sofia and grabbed her hips and pushed her demonstratively down on the bed, as if he were a real man. He took off his clothes and they had foreplay on the bed. They were naked and he rubbed his penis against her nether regions without penetrating her but he got closer and closer to her slit. She squeezed her legs together because she didn’t want sex with him without protection. They carried on for hours and Julian couldn’t get a full erection. Julian had no interest in using a condom.

Suddenly Julian said he was going to go to sleep. She felt rejected and shocked. It came so suddenly, they’d had a really long foreplay and then nothing. She asked what was wrong, she didn’t understand. He pulled the blanket over himself, turned away from her, and fell asleep. She went out and got her fleece blanket because she was cold. She lay awake a long time wondering what had happened and exchanged SMS messages with her friends. He lay beside her snoring. She must have fallen asleep for later she woke up and they had sex. She’d earlier got the condoms and put them on the floor by the bed. He reluctantly agreed to use a condom even if he muttered something about preferring her to latex. He no longer had an erection problem. At one point when he mounted her from behind, she turned to look at him and smiled and he asked her why she was smiling, what she had to smile about. She didn’t like the tone in his voice.

They fell asleep and when they woke up they could have had sex again, she’s not really sure. He ordered her to get water and orange juice. She didn’t like being ordered in her own home but thought ‘whatever’ and got the water and juice anyway. He wanted her to go out and buy more breakfast. She didn’t want to leave him alone in the flat, she didn’t know him well enough, but she did it anyway. When she left the flat he lay naked in her bed and was working with his phones. Before she left she said ‘be good’. He replied ‘don’t worry, I’m always bad’. When she returned she served him oatmeal, milk, and juice. She’d already eaten before he woke up and spoken with a friend on the phone.

The Assault

They sat on the bed and talked and he took off her clothes again. They had sex again and she discovered he’d put the condom only over the head of his penis but she let it be. They fell asleep and she woke by feeling him penetrate her. She immediately asked ‘are you wearing anything’ and he answered ‘you’. She told him ‘you better not have HIV’ and he replied ‘of course not’. She felt it was too late. He was already inside her and she let him continue. She couldn’t be bothered telling him again. She’d been nagging about condoms all night long. She’s never had unprotected sex. He said he wanted to come inside her, he didn’t say when he’d done it but he did it. There was a lot running out of her afterwards.

She told him what happens if she gets pregnant. He replied that Sweden was a good country for raising children. She told him jokingly that if she got pregnant then he’d have to pay her student loans. On the train to Enköping he’d told her he’d slept in Anna Ardin’s bed after the crayfish party. She asked if he’d had sex with Anna but he said Anna liked girls, she was lesbian. But now she knows he did the same thing with Anna. She asked him how many times he’d had sex but he said he hadn’t counted. He also said he’d had a HIV test three months earlier and he’d had sex with a girl afterwards and that girl had also taken a HIV test and wasn’t infected. She said sarcastic things to him in a joking tone. She thinks she got the idea of taking the drama out of what had happened, he in turn didn’t seem to care. When he found out how big her student loan was he said if he paid her so much money she’d have to give birth to the baby. They joked that they’d name the baby Afghanistan. He also said that he should always carry abortion pills that actually were sugar pills.

His phone rang and he had a meeting with Aftonbladet on Tuesday at noon. She explained to him that he’d not make the meeting on time and he pushed his entire schedule forward an hour. Then they rode her bicycle to the train station. She paid his ticket to Stockholm. Before they parted he told her to keep her phone on. She asked if he’d ring her and he said he would.

Afterwards

She rode her bicycle home, showered, and washed her bed sheets. Because she hadn’t made it to work she called in sick and stayed home the whole day. She wanted to clean up and wash everything. There was semen on the bed sheets, she thought it was disgusting. She went to the chemist’s and bought a ‘morning after’ pill.

When she talked with her friends afterwards she understood she was the victim of a crime. She went into Danderyd hospital and went from there to the Söder hospital. There she was examined and they even took samples with a so-called ‘rape kit’.

Forensic Certificate

Sofia gives her permission for obtaining a forensic certificate.

Claimant Counsel

Sofia desires a claimant counsel she will identify later.

Sundry

Julian says his name is Julian Paul Assange and was born 31 December 1971.

Interrogator’s Comments

Sofia and I were notified during the interrogation that Julian Assange had been arrested in absentia. Sofia had difficulty concentrating after that news, whereby I made the judgement it was best to terminate the interrogation. But Sofia had time anyway to explain that Assange was angry with her. I didn’t have time to get any further details about why he was angry with her or how this manifested itself. And we didn’t have time to get into what else happened afterwards. The interrogation was neither read back to Sofia nor reviewed for approval by her but Sofia was told she had the opportunity

to do this later.

First a statement of interest. I have given talks to classes at London Metropolitan University, attended a couple of conferences there, and been quite heavily engaged as an unpaid adviser to the Ghanaian side in (so far successful) negotiations for LMU acourses to be taught in Ghana.

There is no doubt that LMU is a real university, with some of its teaching and courses of world class. There is also no doubt that it does more than perhaps any other UK university to bring in students from communities which have not traditionally been high-achieving in education.

There is also no doubt at all that LMU had many hundred genuine, hard working overseas students who were performing well on their courses, and who have now been forced out, without notice. For the government to say they are being helped to find other universities is not good enough. In many cases they will be disadvantaged by lack of commonality of content with their new co-students on the first two years of the course, not to mention the massive disruption of moving home, losing part-time jobs, friends, babycare or healthcare arrangements etc. Suddenly to ban a university not just from accepting new international students, but from teaching all those it already has, is an act of monstrous disproportion affecting two thousand of people.

That there has been virtually no public outcry is a measure of just how accustomed we have become to extreme abuse of arbitrary power by government – and of the easy acceptance of the anti-immigrant agenda by mainstream media.

There is no doubt there was a massive problem with illegal immigration disguised as education. It focused on language schools in particular. There are of course some excellent language schools which do a good job, but there were certainly hundreds which scarcely functioned at all. I know, as personal friends, a number of “students” who have been here – in one case for over eight years – and literally never once visited their supposed place of education. It is also a fact that several of these fake colleges were owned and run by organised crime, as one of a number of rackets of the interests that established them. The government has closed down many scores of these fake colleges in the last three years. That is good. As Margaret Hodge was complaining yesterday, it had deported very few of the 60,000 or so identified fake students here from those colleges.

Unlike Ms Hodge, I regard that as good also. While in favour of preventing illegal entry, I am not in favour of uprooting people forcibly from wherever they have succeeded in making a home.

The root of London Metropolitan University’s problems was a stupid “anti-elitist” New Labour decision that real, large, world-respected universities must be treated in the immigration rules exactly like a pretend language school housed in one room above a laundrette.

A university is perfectly capable of judging who is and who is not performing their studies adequately – indeed that is one of the prime functions of a university. Yet the UK Border Agency has imposed a whole new raft of extra criteria like percentage of lectures attended, and bank balances to be maintained, and forced the universities at their own cost to put in place resource expensive systems for monitoring it (yes, even the bank balances).

Yet these criteria are nothing to do with academic achievement – I attended less than 5% of lectures over my university career, and the bare minimum of tutorials I could get away with, yet I got a first. Similarly the university is best placed to know what level of English language understanding is needed for which particular course, but again the UK Border Agency imposes its own criteria – and indeed this has been the major reason given for acting against London Metropolitan University.

Universities are supposed to be self-governing institutions. The intrusion of the immigration authorities into their running is an appalling development which should alarm everyone. Overseas students who fail cease to be students; at that stage the university should and will inform the immigration authorities of their change of status. It is not the job of UKBA to determine who has passed and who failed. As long as the university recognises an individual as part of the university community; that is their legal status. The UK Borders Agency is not a degree-awarding body. It should attend to its own business.

These stupid and intrusive regulations must be repealed.

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.

I cannot raise an iota of interest in which Conservative Tory, or which Lib Dem Tory, occupies which Cabinet post. I am much more concerned that the government has made squatting a criminal act, ending 35 years of statute law and 400 years of common law protection for the homeless. How did this happen without significant public debate when the legislation was going through?

Most Cabinet jobs provide extremely posh taxpayer funded housing, in addition to the several other homes most politicians of rank appear to own. Meantime an estimated 50,000 people in England and Wales have just become criminals for living in what are, indubitably, their homes if not their property.

The right and wrongs of squatting are complex and highly dependent on the individual circumstances. But I have little sympathy for the owners of second (holiday) homes, or investment properties which attract squatters. My own home in Ramsgate is one of three identical properties in a row, one of which has been completely empty for at least two years. Homelessness, housing shortage and housing misallocation are complex problems. But the idea that the solution is to use the full weight of the state against whe weakest and most disadvantaged individuals in the conundrum, is not one any decent person should entertain.

Yet again, I find myself completely perplexed by the coalition government doing things nobody genuinely in the tradition of British liberalism could possibly entertain. More puzzling still, I know Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, and he is friendly, kind, earnest and well-meaning. I cannot understand the strange power of collective ativism which appears to take over those in government.

The police, of course, instantly have 50,000 new criminals to arrest, and indeed a bounden duty to go out and arrest them. Several chief constables will be keen on this, as squatters are a very easy target compared to real criminals and their clear-up statistics will look good. I am trying to rationalise this extraordinary excrescence of the arrogance of the propertied classes. Perhaps the Occupy Movement and this are symptoms of a kind of Reformation and Counter-Reformation in modern thought. Or perhaps the UK really is becoming a particularly horrible kind of place to live.

Here at last is a good working version of my Straight Talk Interview with Occupy News Network. It shows what I might have said on Newsnight had Gavin Esler and Joan Smith been concerned to hear what I had to say, rather than stop me from saying it.

With many thanks to Occupy News Network, and to Michael for overcoming the video problems.

I learn the interesting news that David Aaronovitch tweeted to Joan Smith and Jenny Jones that I am:

“an angry and dangerous man who could as easily be on the far right as the far left”.

I had no idea I was on the far left, though I suppose it is a matter of perspective, and from where Mr Aaronovitch stands I, and a great many others, look awfully far away to the left. I don’t believe you should bomb people for their own good, I don’t believe the people of Palestine should be crushed, I don’t believe the profit motive should dominate the NHS, I think utilities and railways were better in public ownership, I think education should be free. I guess that makes me Joseph Stalin.

But actually I am very flattered. Apparently I am not just angry – since the invasion of Iraq and the banker bailouts everybody should be angry – but “dangerous”. If I can be a danger to the interests represented by a Rupert Murdoch employee like Aaronovitch, I must have done something right in my life. I fear he sadly overrates me; but it does make me feel a little bit warmer, and hold my head that little bit higher.

Glenn Greenwald has joined the Guardian from Salon. His first article is an absolute corker. I don’t think this means he has moved to London, (though I may be wrong) as it is part of the Guardian’s drive to get more online US readers. I expect it won’t be too long before Greenwald, like Seumas Milne, becomes the target of dreadful in-house backstabbing and Blairite attempts to oust him.

But wherever he writes, Greenwald is one of the few journalists really worth following.

.

From tomorrow I shall be at Duncarron Fort to help out (mostly behing the bar) at the Doune the Rabbit Hole Festival of which Jamie is Director. I may give a talk at some stage in the Spoken Word programme about Adam Werritty, Anna Ardin and other neo-con agents. Or I may just hang out, serve pints and drink beer.

As you can see, the location is miles from anywhere and has no internet, or mobile phone signals either – what bliss! – so you may not hear from me for a while. Do not worry, I am probably not in a jet in an orange jumpsuit, despite my proximity to Prestwick. I hope to find a way of doing a few posts anyway. If you can come to the festival, do come and say hello.

Not only have the BBC hierarchy ruled Anna Ardin’s name must not be mentioned. Also Irmeli Krans’ name is banned from the airwaves. And no, she’s not an alleged “victim” in the Assange case.

I put in an official request to the BBC for an explanation as to why it was OK for the BBC to use Nafissatou Diallo’s name but not Anna Ardin’s, in identical circumstances. I have not got an answer yet, but my request did result in a mole within the BBC telling me reporters had been banned from mentioning Irmeli Krans.

Anybody might think they were hiding something.

A number of mainstream media attacks on me today. Astonishingly, not a single one admits that Anna Ardin gave media interviews accusing Assange and put her own name in the public domain. Despite the fact I spent most of yesterday being interviewed by journalists and repeating that point over and over again.

Anna Ardin herself went to the media, under her own name, as long as two years ago to publicise her allegations against Assange. From the New York Times, 25 August 2010:

Anna Ardin, 31, has told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that the complaints were “not orchestrated by the Pentagon” but prompted by “a man who has a twisted attitude toward women and a problem taking no for an answer.”

So Ardin went very very public herself. 190,000 internet articles – a great many from major mainstream media – and 10 million mentions on twitter and two years later, I use her name on Newsnight and am attacked for “revealing it”.

Fortunately the public recognise a fake campaign of indignation when they see one. Where the mainstream media have online comment threads, they are overwhelmingly supportive of me. Even in the Daily Mail! They have a voting system on their comments and the results are very interesting.

The Headline of that piece is “Former Ambassador Sparks Anger”. It would better have been “Former Ambassador Sparks Overwhelming Agreement from our Readers”.

The Telegraph makes a claim that I was censured by the Swedish Prosecutor’s office, out of a statement in which they did not mention me at all. They rather make the perfectly reasonable point that they would prefer people, in general, not to name victims of crime. The Telegraph failed to ask the Swedish prosecutor what they thought of Anna Ardin having already named herself all over the Swedish media. They also failed to ask them why the Swedish Prosecutor’s office themselves two years ago leaked the allegations against Julian Assange to the Swedish media, and thus the world.

You may be surprised to know that I regard the Telegraph in general as one of the few places real journalism can still be found. I am therefore genuinely disappointed and surprised that they do not mention the key fact that Anna Ardin revealed herself in statements to the Swedish media, a point which I explained to their journalist repeatedly yesterday afternoon. They also say that I “alleged” that the BBC repeatedly named Ms Diallo, the accuser in the DSK rape case, while the case was still ongoing, as though there could be any doubt about the truth of the matter.

A couple of pieces from the blogosphere. My favourite piece is this very considered one from James Kelly, which makes some very valuable points.

But the all-time prize goes to Carl Gardner, former junior government lawyer and now the go to right wing “legal expert” brought out by the BBC and the Guardian. In his blog “Head of Legal” (Gardner has never been head of anything), Gardner argues that what I said was not illegal, but that we need a new law to stop me saying it!

Yes! Absolutely! What this country lacks is enough laws to stop people bloody well saying things! I feel Mr Gardner is going with the zeitgeist here.

The BBC repeatedly named Nafissatou Diallo, the alleged rape victim of Dominique Strauss Kahn, while the criminal investigation into the alleged rape was still in progress. Yet they have a policy that Anna Ardin, the accuser of Julian Assange, must not be named – or investigated.

Why the contradiction?

Nafissatou Diallo and Anna Ardin had both gone public and given statements to the media in support of their allegations.

From the New York Times, 25 August 2010:

Anna Ardin, 31, has told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that the complaints were “not orchestrated by the Pentagon” but prompted by “a man who has a twisted attitude toward women and a problem taking no for an answer.”

There was no legal barrier to my mentioniong Anna Ardin last night; the case is no longer sub judice in the UK and there is no expectation of any legal proceedings here. Those are precisely the grounds on which the BBC mentioned Diallo very often. I did not see Oliver Kamm, Charles Crawford, Harry Cole, Charles Murray or any of the other far right commenters trolling about my “disgrace” last night, make a single protest at the naming of Diallo on scores of occasions by the BBC. Why their sudden new-found concern in the case of Assange?

Why the difference? Why is Ardin protected from scrutiny in the entire British mainstream media when Diallo was not, in precisely the same legal circumstances? Has Ardin been D-noticed in the UK when she is reported widely everywhere else in the world?

Anybody who still believes that the Assange allegations are a genuine criminal proceeding following due process, should think very hard indeed.

Anna Ardin herself went to the media, under her own name, as long as two years ago to publicise her allegations against Assange. From the New York Times, 25 August 2010:

Anna Ardin, 31, has told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that the complaints were “not orchestrated by the Pentagon” but prompted by “a man who has a twisted attitude toward women and a problem taking no for an answer.”

The furore that I “revealed” her name on Newsnight is a pathetic spasm of false indignation by establishment supporters.

A google search on “Anna Ardin” reveals 193,000 articles, virtually all relating to her sexual allegation against Julian Assange. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation last week broadcast nationwide a documentary investigating Ms Ardin’s allegations and not only naming her repeatedly, but showing several photographs of her and Assange together; it is a documentary everybody interested should watch. Literally thousands of newspapers and magazines all over the world have named her, including the New York Times and the Times of India, aside from those near 200,000 internet entries. The Twittersphere numbers are astronomical.

Gavin Esler, Joan Smith and I all knew her name – what special rights do we three enjoy that entitle us to know that, but would intend to debar the viewers from knowing that? I am willing to bet that virtually all those tweeting and pretending outrage that I named Ms Ardin, already themselves knew her name. They just somehow think nobody else should be allowed to. There is virtually nobody in Sweden – which is after all where she lives – who does not know her name. It is a cause celebre there.

If what I did was illegal, as is being claimed, then somebody had better come and arrest me. As however there are no legal proceedings on this issue in the UK and no prospect of a prosecution here, I know of no lawful reason I should not have named her. I suspect that the number of Newsnight viewers who heard the name for the first time is very small indeed. It might, of course, give some a tool to research further for themselves the facts of the case. That would be very useful indeed.

As for the interview, I was sorry that Aaronovitch was not there (as I had been told he would be) as I might have been more robust – I felt rather constrained arguing with Joan Smith as I generally like and respect her. Strangely enough, as I did the interview I was much less worried about it than I was on subsequently hearing it, because I did not realise the extent my microphone had been turned down compared to Gavin’s and Joan’s when they were speaking across me – which was most of the time I was speaking. It would be interesting if someone with the patience could tot up how many seconds I had speaking with nobody speaking over me, compared to Joan.

To sum up, I was insufficiently assertive and allowed myself to be shouted down, than which I really should know better. But I did succeed in getting over the fact, with examples, that whistleblowers are routinely fitted up with unrelated charges. And all the manufactured fury at my naming Anna Ardin might well lead people to research her claims and behaviour, which would be a good thing. So I am reasonably relaxed.

UPDATE

I have just found the transcript of the Australian Broadcasting Company’s documentary on the Ardin claims against Assange. This is genuine and painstaking investigative journalism from the flagship and long-established “Four corners” programme and shows a glaring contrast between the British and Australian Broadcasting Company approach. The BBC won’t even allow you to mention Ardin’s name, let alone question her story or her motives. The ABC does a full investigation and comes up with some extremely important facts.

It is also interesting that ABC interview Ardin’s own lawyer, as well as Assange’s, and neither shows any concern at the repeated use of Ardin’s name in the interview, of a piece with the fact that it has frequently appeared in the Swedish media.

The documentary is entitled “Sex, Lies and Julian Assange.” This extract starts about twenty minutes in. Click on the title for the full thing. Another interviewee, politician Rick Falkvinge, is obviously extremely conscious of what he may and may not say legally while extradition proceedings are in train, but again appears to have no problem with the interviewer using Anna Ardin’s name.

What is such a big issue for the BBC, and the politically correct media twitterers of London, is apparently not an issue for those in Sweden most closely connected to the case.

ANDREW FOWLER: At the heart of the matter is whether the Swedish judicial authorities will treat him fairly. Certainly, events so far provide a disturbing picture of Swedish justice. Using facts agreed between the defence and prosecution and other verified information, we have pieced together what happened during those crucial three weeks in August.

On August 11th, 2010, Assange arrived in Sweden to attend a conference organised by the Swedish Brotherhood – a branch of the Social Democratic Party. He was offered Anna Ardin’s apartment while she was away, but Ardin returned home a day early on Friday the 13th. She invited Assange to stay the night, and they had sex. She would later tell police Assange had violently pinned her down and ignored her requests to use a condom. Assange denies this.

The following day, Assange addressed the conference with Ardin at his side. Later that afternoon Ardin organised the Swedish equivalent of a top-notch barbeque – a Crayfish Party. She posted a Twitter message. “Julian wants to go to a crayfish party. Anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow?”

The crayfish party was held that night in a court yard off her apartment. It went on until the early hours of the morning. Ardin tweeted at 2am: “Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world’s coolest, smartest people! It’s amazing!”

A guest at the party would later tell Swedish Police the event was a very hearty evening. When he offered to put Assange up at his apartment, Ardin replied, “He can stay with me.”

In the past 24 hours, Ardin had worked closely with Assange, had sex with him, organised a crayfish party on his behalf – and, according to one witness, turned down alternate accommodation for him. It is during this same period that police will later investigate whether Assange coerced and sexually molested Anna Ardin.

PER E. SAMUELSON: Well, if you send text messages like that, “I’ve just spent some time with the coolest people in the world”, the night after you then say you were raped – I mean you shouldn’t write such text messages if you had been raped by that person the night before.

ANDREW FOWLER: Your client described Julian Assange as a “cool man”. I think, one of the “coolest men in the world” that she’d had in her bed.

CLAES BORGSTROM: I will argue in court. I have of course arguments concerning exactly what you’re talking about now, but I will not tell any media of how I am going to represent the women in in court. I’m sorry.

ANDREW FOWLER: But can you see how that looks as though…

CLAES BORGSTROM: Yes, of course I can.

ANDREW FOWLER: …it’s a fit up. It looks as though they are in fact setting him up.

CLAES BORGSTROM: I’m quite aware of that.

ANDREW FOWLER: Sunday August 15th – the next day. Assange attended a dinner party at Stockholm’s Glenfiddich restaurant, organised by pirate party founder Rick Falkvinge.

RICK FALKVINGE: I think a lot of people at the… at the table had meatballs. I think Julian might have been one of them. Now, Swedish meatballs that, that’s a little bit like mum’s apple pie in Sweden – as in, you can call my wife ugly, you can kick my dog, but the instant you say something bad about my mother’s meatballs I’m going to take it personal.

ANDREW FOWLER: Also at the dinner was Anna Ardin.

(to Rick Falkvinge) So, just to get this straight: Julian Assange arrived with Anna Ardin and he left with Anna Ardin.

RICK FALKVINGE: Yep.

ANDREW FOWLER: What was their behaviour like towards each other?

RICK FALKVINGE: Well, I was discussing mainly with Julian and the… again I can’t go into too much detail here, but it was at least a very professional dinner. There were two high level organisations, both intent on changing the world behaving professionally.

ANDREW FOWLER: The fact that Anna Ardin accompanied Julian Assange through this dinner and left with him – what does that say to you?

RICK FALKVINGE: Well that’s going into speculating on merits of extradition, and I can’t really do that. I think that be… you’re presenting an objective fact, as did I, and if people want to read something into that that’s obviously ripe for doing so, but I can’t spell it out.

ANDREW FOWLER: Four Corners has obtained a photograph, lodged with police investigators, from that evening. Anna Ardin is on the left. Afterwards, Assange would again spend the night at her apartment.

The following day, August the 16th, Assange had sex with Sophia Wilen at her apartment. According to police records, Ardin was aware that he had slept with Sophia. A witness told police he contacted Anna Ardin looking for Assange. She texted back: “He’s not here. He’s planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?” That same day, the witness asked Ardin, “Is it cool he’s living there? Do you want, like, for me to fix something else?” According to the witness she replied: “He doesn’t, like, sleep at nights so that’s a bit difficult. So he has a bit of difficulty taking care of his hygiene. But it’s ok if he lives with me, it’s no problem.”

Three days later on August 20th, Wilen, accompanied by Ardin went to the Klara police station in central Stockholm to seek advice about whether Assange could be forced to take an STD test. Ardin had gone along primarily to support Wilen. Sometime during Wilen’s questioning the police announced to Ardin and Wilen that Assange was to be arrested and questioned about possible rape and molestation. Wilen became so distraught she refused to give any more testimony and refused to sign what had been taken down.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: The circumstances leading up to the issue of the arrest warrant gave cause for grave concern for Julian about the procedures that were adopted in the investigation. We have to remember that when the announcement was put out that he would be subject to a warrant, one of the complainants was upset by that, and later said that she felt railroaded by the police.

KARIN ROSANDER, SWEDISH PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE: Well what happened is what was that the duty prosecutor got a phone call from the police and the duty prosecutor decided that he should be arrested.

ANDREW FOWLER: And what happened?

KARIN ROSANDER: He was arrested in his absence, but he… they never got in… got in contact with him so, but he was arrested in his absence. It’s a technical… technical thing in Sweden, Swedish law, yeah.

ANDREW FOWLER: The Prosecutor’s Office might not have contacted Assange but within hours they let the whole of Sweden know what was going on – leaking to the Expressen Tabloid the statements of Ardin and Wilen. The newspaper front page read: “Assange hunted for rape in Sweden”.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Julian wakes up the following morning to read the newspapers to hear that he’s wanted for double rape and he’s absolutely shocked.

THOMAS MATTSSON: Two of our reporters had information about Julian Assange, and we also had a confirmation from the prosecutor which confirmed on record that there was a police investigation against Julian Assange.

ANDREW FOWLER: It was now the case took a strange twist. Within 24 hours, a more senior prosecutor dismissed the rape allegations, leaving only the lesser accusation of molestation. Assange willingly went to the police on August 30th and made a statement.

During the interview he expressed his fears that anything he said would end up in the tabloid newspaper Expressen. The interviewing police officer said: “I’m not going to leak anything.” The interview was leaked.

PER E. SAMUELSON: Why did you leak his name to a tabloid paper? How… how can you drop the case and reopen the case and how can you… how can you not say that he waited for five weeks in Sweden voluntarily to participate in the investigation? Why do you have to arrest him? Why do you have to keep him in handcuffs? Why can’t you conduct this in a proper manner? The rest of the world sees it, but Sweden unfortunately doesn’t.

ANDREW FOWLER: It is perhaps understandable that Assange had doubts he would receive fair treatment from the Swedish authorities. On September 15th, the prosecutor told Assange he was permitted to leave Sweden. Assange, back in England, would later offer to return within a month. The Swedish Authorities said too late – a second warrant had already been issued for his arrest.

ANDREW FOWLER: He says that he left the country and then was prepared to come back at any time. Is that your understanding?

CLAES BORGSTROM: I don’t believe that.

ANDREW FOWLER: He says that he was prepared to come back in October but the prosecutor wanted him back earlier.

CLAES BORGSTROM: I don’t know. I don’t believe he wanted to he was he wanted to come freely back to Sweden. I don’t think so.

ANDREW FOWLER: Can you understand that the Australian people may not understand how somebody can be accused in their absence when they haven’t even been interviewed, then have that rape case dropped, the arrest warrant removed and then have it re-instituted, all in the space of a few days?

KARIN ROSANDER: Yeah I can very well understand the confusion and, and, I… that is very difficult to understand, well, exactly how it works.

ANDREW FOWLER: Well you call it confusing, it’s… it may be slightly more than that.

KARIN ROSANDER: Well that’s the way it works here in Sweden so, well… but I can understand the confusion, definitely

.

Newsnight tonight, BBC2, live.

A first class documentary from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation which exposes the risibility of the sexual allegations about Assange. The truth the UK media will not tell. For just the key points, start viewing at 20 minutes in.

Today’s Guardian editorial quotes directly from my speech at the Ecuadorean Embassy, in a sneering way:

their remarks concerned western Europe’s “neocon juntas”

The Guardian editorial makes the direct claim that I, and the other speakers, omitted all mention of the sexual allegations against Julian Assange in Sweden. That is a direct lie by the Guardian. In fact over half my speech – 23 sentences to be precise – were dedicated to the allegations against Assange and putting them in the context of the irrefutable evidence of the serial use of such allegations against various whistleblowers, including myself, in order to damage their reputation and brand them as criminals unconnected to whistleblowing.

Despite quoting my speech in its editorial, and mentioning it three times in its liveblog of the rally, the Guardian at no stage made any attempt to indicate the gist of what I actually said. Even the New York Times, without giving any of my explanation, at least got the point when it reported that:

a former British diplomat, Craig Murray, asserted that Mr. Assange had been “fitted up with criminal offenses” as a pretext

Of course the Guardian did not overlook what the NYT picked up. You could not overlook all 23 sentences of it. But simply the Guardian wished to run an editorial arguing that the Swedish allegations had been completely ignored. The facts did not suit Rusbridger’s comment. So Rusbridger’s comment remained free and lies were sacred.

The Guardian’s shrill and vitriolic campaign against Assange is extraordinary in its ferocity, persistence and pointless repetition.. The sad truth is that its origins lie in the frustration of the Guardian’s hopes to make a great deal of cash from involvement in Assange’s putative memoirs. That such a once great paper should fall sway to such a mean-minded little neo-con lickspittle as Rusbridger and his Blair supporting coterie is a great tragedy.

This is what, contrary to Rusbridger’s lies, I actually said:

Anybody with time and patience might like to keep posting links to it under the Guardian editorial once they open comments on it tomorrow morning.