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Jen-Rob Meets Carl Bildt

And has a casual conversation.


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ALMEDALEN (Rixstep) — Sweden's political elite are spending the week in the city of Visby on the island of Gotland to (of course) talk politics. This is a tradition begun by the assassinated Swedish prime minister Olof Palme nearly fifty years ago. Today it's become more partying than politics, but Julian Assange's legal adviser Jennifer Robinson is there along with Kristinn Hrafnsson as guests of the 'FuturePerfect' group and they were invited to speak to the crowds.

By pure coincidence, Jennifer spotted Sweden's minister for foreign affairs Carl Bildt afterwards and decided to confront him in the interests of her client.


'I went up to him and introduced myself. We talked for a good ten minutes. It was a very friendly conversation', said Jennifer afterwards.

No Guarantees, No Nothing

As Julian Assange's current predicament hinges on the demonstrative eagerness of small dog Sweden to accede to the wishes of big dog US and send him through a revolving door and over the pond if ever he should arrive - and as a lower level clerk already stated nothing could be done to untangle the situation - Jennifer chose to put it to the nobleman point blank.

'I asked him to guarantee that Assange wouldn't be rendered to the US if he came to Sweden, and Carl Bildt said that they couldn't give us that guarantee, that it's a judicial process. I told him that at the end of the day it's a political decision by the government.'

Jennifer also asked Bildt why no one's traveled to the UK to interrogate Julian Assange or carried out an interrogation by telephone as ordained by the EU agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in the near two years Assange has been wearing that ankle bracelet.

'He told me it's not allowed. And when I pointed out that Sweden had only recently done just that in a murder investigation in Serbia, he had no reply.'

But that's coincidentally the same thing Marianne Ny told TIME and a number of Swedish news organisations two years ago.

And when she realised what a stir she'd caused, all the original stories (at least in the Swedish media) were made to mysteriously 'disappear' much like her chronology of events in September and October 2010 at her website.

Mutual Legal Assistance

There is of course no reason Marianne Ny or someone else couldn't have interrogated Julian Assange by now. By now it's more than apparent that this case isn't about broken condoms anyway. There isn't even a hidden clause in the MLA agreement to back Bildt and Ny up. They simply refuse to interrogate Assange and explain why - and EU jurisprudence be damned.

Perhaps the most comical part of Jen-Rob's interchange with Bildt was when he told her no one is above the law in Sweden. Coming from the likes of Carl Bildt what with his history of hanging out with the US Strategic Air Command, flying 'Top Gun' F-14s, taking government documents to his friends in Langley, and above all his involvement in the genocides in Africa during his time with the Lundins, that's quite the statement.

See Also
Industry Watch: Our Man Bildt

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