

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange accused of rape - blntechie
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11047025

======
vaksel
He'd be the dumbest criminal in the world to rape someone while everyone is
watching his every move.

To do it twice within a few days?

And to do it to women who both know each other?

This just doesn't pass the smell test.

~~~
ugh
People do, from time to time, stupid things. There is no reason to come up
with crazy conspiracy theories. The jury’s out. (Although they probably don’t
have juries in Sweden.)

I don’t really know, though, how this is supposed to change my opinion of
Wikileaks in any way. What they do is valuable, no matter what Assange did or
did not do.

~~~
jbjohns
Just because there are nuts out there with insane conspiracy theories don't
mean there are no such thing as a conspiracy. It's very open what Wikileaks is
doing and it's very obvious that a lot of powerful people want it stopped. If
you always take everything at face value you're never going to understand
politics.

~~~
ugh
I just don’t think there is any good evidence for this being a conspiracy.
Hence crazy conspiracy theory. That’s all.

Just take a moment and think about what would be necessary to frame someone.
That doesn’t seem like a simple task to me. We are talking about Swedish
police and prosecutors here, police and prosecutors who know that they would
be in the spotlight and under intense scrutiny the moment they decided to
prosecute Assange. Sweden is not exactly known for its corrupt police and
prosecutors, taking that route seems like a stretch.

How do you get two completely normal women (and not any random women, women
which have some, however torturous, connection to Assange) to lie to the
police? They, too, must know that they would be under intense scrutiny the
moment they talked to the police. Lying to the police is no joke, it’s a
crime. It’s also a risk for the briber. Who’s to say that one of those women
doesn’t break under the intense scrutiny and reveal the conspiracy? If there
ever is a trial it will be public and intense stress for the two women. They
will also be evaluated, probably several times, by a psychologist. Those two
women are not professionally trained super agents.

~~~
jbjohns
>I just don’t think there is any good evidence for this being a conspiracy.

For us, there's no evidence for anything. All we know is that someone powerful
governments don't like has been accused of some very suspicious sounding
charges right before releasing some kind of potentially sensitive document.

>Just take a moment and think about what would be necessary to frame someone.
That doesn’t seem like a simple task to me.

It's very simple in the case of things like rape. You just get someone to make
a claim and sit back and wait. Did you read the article? The women simply
asked advice of the police and the police filed charges without any evidence
from them. This is how rape is handled in Sweden (among other places) since
women are often afraid to come forward. There is nothing to go on but the word
of two anonymous women.

>They, too, must know that they would be under intense scrutiny the moment
they talked to the police.

So far it appears that they've only talked over the phone (that's all it
takes). As far as I understand they haven't even given a statement or any
evidence.

> Lying to the police is no joke, it’s a crime.

If you can prove it. How are you going to prove they're lying? Even if you
could prove they didn't have sex that wouldn't prove they didn't believe what
they told the police. You would have to prove they were never alone with him.

> It’s also a risk for the briber.

If they even know who the briber was.

~~~
ugh
Long interviews. Psychological evaluation. Media inquiries. Maybe a trial.
That’s what those two women will face. And if they were indeed bribed they
know that they were bribed even if they don’t know who bribed them. Seems
awfully risky to me, both for the women and the briber. To me there doesn’t
seem to be a rational reason to do it.

~~~
jbjohns
Then why is it done if there's no reason? There is a huge risk for certain
people to leave wikileaks alone. I'd say that if there is a briber there is
virtually no risk for him/her what-so-ever.

------
lhnz
1\. Innocent unless proven guilty.

2\. Whether or not the validity of the accusations can be proven or not, this
is slanderous and a well-timed smear. It is a huge shame that it has been
leaked to the media.

3\. Regarding Julian Assange, at the very least I admire his resolve against
incredible mounting pressure.

4\. If he is found guilty does that mean the afghanistan war logs are fake and
the government are right? ;)

5\. For now this is just a baseless accusation. I would prefer to only traffic
in facts.

------
JeanPierre
Just for people questioning whether this is a dirty trick or not:

1) From what I know, there hasn't been any mentionable cases where the Swedish
police has been either bribed or done something questionable. At least not in
recent time.

2) The two women went to the police for consulting about the two claimed
events. The police looked at both cases, and decided that both cases were
serious enough to prosecute Assange. The two women did apparently not want to
prosecute Assange due to his "position of power". (From expressen.se - Whether
that's reliable or not)

The most reasonable to guess if Assange has not raped them, is that the girls
are lying. However, I'm questioning whether it's easy to make a horrible
foolproof lie so bad that the police wants to prosecute him.

No, I'm not going to guess on anything at the current moment. I'm going to
wait until all the facts have been laid on the table. Much easier that way.

~~~
rickmb
On what do you base this first claim? Because a little Google search on the
subject of Swedish police and corruption turns up quite a number of (recent)
hits.

Not to mention the legally dubious raids by the Swedish police on the hosters
of the Piratebay, that seemed to have been bought and paid for by Hollywood.

By the way, is it normal police procedure in Sweden to tell the world's media
that some dude is wanted for rape within a few hours of the accusation?

~~~
Hagelin
It was reported by the media _after an arrest warrant was issued_.

------
Typhon
Mr Assange is innocent until proven guilty. There's _nothing_ else to say
about this. Nothing. And I don't think this particular accusation should be
anymore newsworthy than any other rape accusation.

What matters concerning wikileaks is the authenticity of the leaked documents.

Not the various crimes that the founder may or may not have committed.

~~~
riffic
Hans Reiser was innocent until proven guilty too.

~~~
stfp
And a lots and lots of people were innocent until proven innocent.

Why you'd bring Reiser of all people in this is beyond me... Is it because
Assange is kind of a geek and Reiser a programmer ? If this seems like a valid
connection to you, I wonder how much persuading you'd need before agreeing
with throwing, say, all muslims in jail right away.

------
orborde
I'm glad to see an actual news organization checking into this story by
talking to Swedish police. It's a nice change from the thousand blogs
reposting that single Swedish tabloid article and Twitter post.

------
AlexMuir
There's an interesting problem here. Any criminal accusations against him are
going to be presumed false by virtually everybody. Imagine if he'd been
arrested for possession of drugs. Would you believe that? No way. So he's
pretty much alright to smuggle drugs, because if he gets caught it'll look so
much like a setup that any jury will struggle to convict.

~~~
jacquesm
Accusations are never enough. The proof is in the evidence.

Assange is not free to smuggle drugs, just as the government is not free to
plant drugs on him to try to accuse him of something that he didn't do.

Both are illegal.

The problem is in separating fact from fiction and making sure that you do the
right thing. Juries have that problem anyway.

------
Snoddas
Charges dropped

Jag anser inte att det finns anledning att misstänka att han har begått
våldtäkt, säger Eva Finné i ett pressmeddelande från Åklagarmyndigheten.

Quick translation: I dont think there is any reason to suspect that he has
comitted rape says prosecutor Eva Finné.

[http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/assange-inte-langre-
missta...](http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/assange-inte-langre-misstankt-
for-valdtakt_5167469.svd)

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316>

------
burgham
The story is over:

"Chief prosector Eva Finné has come to the desicion that Julian Assange is not
suspected of rape. Considering that, Assange is no longer arrested in his
absence."

<http://www.aklagare.se/In-English/> [== Swedish prosecutor's office news
announcements, swedish version:
[http://www.aklagare.se/Media/Nyheter/Anhallen-i-sin-
franvaro...](http://www.aklagare.se/Media/Nyheter/Anhallen-i-sin-franvaro/)

------
jacquesm
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1622556>

------
swah
Why are so quickly defending this guy? What's so special about him?

~~~
mrleinad
Because he's someone who has the guts to face the most powerful government in
the world, uncover their lies, and give them the finger. That's why.

~~~
tome
Is there anywhere a quick summary of the most extreme lies [edit: made by the
US] that Assange has uncovered?

As far as I've seen (and I've only really read stories about Assange that have
been posted here) what he's demonstrated is "war is horrible, and it's not
going very well". That's important for us to know, but it's hardly ground-
breaking.

~~~
tome
Those who downvoted, and the other replies to this have missed the point.

I know what Wikileaks has done. None of it fits the description "fac[ing] the
most powerful government in the world [and] uncover[ing] their lies" any more
than the most banal of broadsheets does.

~~~
shadowfox
You seriously believe that?

~~~
tome
I haven't seen anything about the US that I wouldn't expect a broadsheet to
turn over as a matter of course. This is why I asked my original question.

Since you seem to know the answer, perhaps you could point me to one of two
examples of extreme lies that Assange has helped uncover.

------
rimantas
Interesting. Now: will there be any documents about this case leaked and
appear on wikileaks? Variaton: will there be any documents appearing on
wikileaks if they are incriminating against Assange?

~~~
kilian
This happened before, when the names of anonymous Wikileaks donors was posted
on Wikileaks: <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/02/wikileaks-force/>

I'm sure that, even if documents incriminate Assange, they will be posted.

------
Entlin
Oh c'mon, that's just bullshit and slander. A very dirty trick. Disappointing
of Sweden, to say the least.

~~~
frooxie
"Disappointing of Sweden"? Really? Are you saying that the Swedish police
should NOT investigate when rape is reported? Or are you saying that you are
disappointed by Sweden as a whole because you suspect that a couple of Swedish
women lied about rape?

~~~
jacquesm
What's disappointing is that this was leaked to the media.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Leaked? CNN interviewed the prosecutor. Not much of a leak if you're doing
public interviews.

[http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/21/sweden.wikileaks....](http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/21/sweden.wikileaks.charge/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1)

~~~
jacquesm
But somewhere this story was made to go, and if it wasn't the women talking to
the press and it wasn't Assange then it must have been some person working for
the Swedish authorities that broke the story first in such a way that the
Swedish press knew to go fishing.

CNN is just following up.

There is a bit of information in how this story first made its way in to the
world.

~~~
Hagelin
It made it’s way in to the world _after an arrest warrant was issued_. There
has been some debate in Sweden over the choice of publishing names or not,
this is hardly a unique case.

------
nazgulnarsil
just to throw a cog in the "dirty trick" reasoning...why wouldn't they simply
use child porn? it's a much more effective effective accusation for this sort
of thing and much harder for outsiders to call bullshit on.

~~~
jacquesm
It would have to be planted in a way that it could not be proven to be
planted.

Now I don't know Julian Assange personally, but I do know one dutch hacker
that he hangs out with and if there is anybody that I'd be very wary of when
pulling such tricks that would be the guy.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
as opposed to rape which involves people, places, and times?

------
Ardit20
That is quite clever. You can't just arrest him. You can't just kill him
either because then we all would know who dun it, but rape is well, anyone can
be accused of rape, it would be your word against the "victim".

It would be quite a circus show though. We would get to learn about every
little detail. In this kind of case, it should not be a sample of the public,
that is the jury of 12 ordinary people of the public who decide, but the
entire public. Have the entire trial in public, in front of the cameras, and
let the public know everything the jury does.

~~~
rickmb
Small addition: you can't kill him because of this:
[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-
insurance...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-
file/)

But anything that damages the man that can not be directly traced back to the
source will do fine. In that case, the obvious choices are either possession
of child porn or rape. And the first would be hard to pull off with a paranoid
tech-savvy guy.

Which leaves accusing him of rape, which is the perfect crime to frame someone
with, since you can take it all the way to court without a shred of physical
evidence.

None of this excludes the possibility that he actually did it, but it is the
perfect scenario for a frame-job.

Don't think it will come that far though. I would put my money on the
following scenario: 1) Assange turns himself in.

2) He is led away in front of the cameras in an unnecessarily humiliating and
public way, making him look like a criminal, which is a very powerful image.

3) The victim mysteriously disappears, making sure there will always be
lingering doubts.

Damage done, operation successful. Even if it won't stop Assange, it will
scare the crap out of anyone thinking of helping him.

~~~
jacquesm
I was with you until '3'.

