Someone needs to deepfake Assange into the closing moments of the Dexter finale.
I believe that conspiracy theory first appeared in an article by Israel Shamir in Counterpunch. Shamir also happened to be the father of Johannes Wahlström, who at the time was the spokesperson for Wikileaks Sweden and a possible defense witness for Assange. Shamir is also the guy who managed to get direct access to tens of thousands of the State Department cables and pass them on to the government of Belarus, and oh yes, he’s an anti-Semite and holocaust denier.
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Hmmm. . .
I’m usually on board with Chris Hedges’ commentary, but he may be leaving out significant details here.
Assange had just returned to London from Sweden where he had attempted to create the legal framework to protect WikiLeaks’ servers in Sweden. Shortly after his arrival in Stockholm, his personal bank cards were blocked. He had no access to funds and was dependent on supporters. Two of these supporters were women with whom he had consensual sex. As he was preparing to leave, the Swedish media announced that he was wanted for questioning about allegations of rape. The women, who never accused Assange of rape, wanted him to take an STD test. They had approached the police about compelling him to comply. “I did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange,” texted one of them on August 20 while she was still at the police station, but “the police were keen on getting their hands on him.” She said she felt “railroaded by the police.” Within 24 hours the chief prosecutor of Stockholm took over the preliminary investigation. He dropped the rape accusation, stating “I don’t believe there is any reason to suspect that he has committed rape.” Assange, although not charged with a crime, cancelled his departure and remained in Sweden for another five weeks to cooperate with the investigation. A special prosecutor, Marianne Ny, was appointed to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct. Assange was granted permission to leave the country.
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Thought the same thing and what is the balance of power here? I guess London is England is Britain and London is the ‘Capital’ player here.
Welp, he’s all yours, Russia.
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“Baraitser then immediately gave her decision. She stated that Assange had been a fugitive from British justice since 29 June 2012 when he failed to report to court as ordered. His entire motive for his residence in the Ecuadorean Embassy had been avoidance of a US extradition request. Assange therefore still had a motive to abscond. He had the backing of a powerful international network of supporters who could facilitate his escape.”
Well Im glad the judge has settled that question. A lot of folk had argued there was no risk of US extradition, and that his motive was avoiding a Swedish rape prosecution. Vanessa Baraitser clearly disagrees with that view.
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Trump appears to have already made some prophylactic pardons. Assange wasn’t one of them.
Trump is still president unfortunately. He still has pardons left to “drop”
He was going to wait until Assange was extradited here then pardon him. That way he doesn’t face any penalties at all. Now he’s still stuck in UK custody.
Jonathon Cook notes the following.
“Baraitser even let the cat out of the bag herself at the bail hearing, disrupting her own narrative that he had “absconded” in 2012, when she stated – as evidence against Assange! – that he entered the embassy to evade the threat of extradition to the US.”
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I dont think he has to wait if he wishes to pardon him. He doesn’t need there to be charges in place. I think I read that he has given members of his own family prophylactic pardons without formal charges being in place. Perhaps its different in the case of foreigners.
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I learn from another Jonathan Cook article that: “The investigation relating to the second woman, AA, was for a sexual assault specific to Sweden.” Since Assange’s supporters are adamant that he was never investigated for rape, I can only presume that this particular type of “sexual assault” would not be charged as rape in England.
My understanding is that is true. But one might argue that that reflects badly on England rather than well on Assange.
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Just got this Tariq Ali article in my inbox. It doesn’t mention his sexual assaults, but they didn’t actually have anything to do with the extradition nor the Interpol red notice. The women will never have justice because the US and the UK never, ever cared about that not did anyone looking for him to be made an example of for publishing information. And the disgusting hypocrisy of those supporting the US line claiming to care about sexual assault is beyond ironic and straight into disgusting.
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I mean… same as it ever was.
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