2 ms·

The charge was always pretty consistent as "sexual assault" as you described, yes, with "rape" having a specific definition in Swedish law. https://www.theguar

by geofft 7y ago

The charge was always pretty consistent as "sexual assault" as you described, yes, with "rape" having a specific definition in Swedish law. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange... It sounds like the women didn't really want to pursue the case (which is not at all uncommon in sexual assault cases!), they just wanted to track down Assange and make him take an STD test after he had unprotected sex with them, and the police said, well now that you've told us this, we're going to tell the prosecutor. (One plausible interpretation is that the assaults did in fact happen as described and that the Swedish justice system was pressured by the US to prosecute it aggressively with the goal of getting him into US custody - the two are not necessarily contradictory.)

vidarh 7y ago
Personally I think Assange may well genuinely have believed it was US involvement - rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else. But of course that does not tell us anything about whether or not he was right. At the same time I suspect the oddities in how the case was pursued is more likely to simply have been about domestic Swedish politics - both the prosecutor and one of the lawyers involved are known to have favoured a stricter handling of rape cases, and it's plausible they saw Assange as someone getting away with something they wanted to make an example of. So he may well have been genuinely worried for all the wrong reasons. Of course this is just a hypothesis.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  > rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else Yes he was obviously not running from the Swedish sentence. I used to think that must have meant he ran from the US. But another theory could be that he ran from the reputation hit.

by geofft 7y ago

vidarh 7y ago

Personally I think Assange may well genuinely have believed it was US involvement - rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else. But of course that does not tell us anything about whether or not he was right. At the same time I suspect the oddities in how the case was pursued is more likely to simply have been about domestic Swedish politics - both the prosecutor and one of the lawyers involved are known to have favoured a stricter handling of rape cases, and it's plausible they saw Assange as someone getting away with something they wanted to make an example of. So he may well have been genuinely worried for all the wrong reasons. Of course this is just a hypothesis.

im3w1l 7y ago
> rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else Yes he was obviously not running from the Swedish sentence. I used to think that must have meant he ran from the US. But another theory could be that he ran from the reputation hit.