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Assange in Sweden: 'Extortion is a Crime'

And it's not Julian being accused this time.

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DUCKPOND (Rixstep) — Swedes hate extortion. Their penal code is harsh.

https://lagen.nu/begrepp/Utpressning

Utpressning är ett brott enligt 9 kap 4 § brottsbalken och straffet är fängelse i högst två år.

Brottet består i att någon genom hot om våld, skandalisering eller polisanmälan tvingar annan till handling eller underlåtenhet.

Or in workable GT English:

Extortion is a crime under Chapter 9 § 4 of the Penal Code and the penalty is imprisonment for up to two years.

The crime is that someone through threats of violence, defamation or filing police charges forces another person to an action or the omission of an action.

What's interesting here is that it's a crime in Sweden to threaten someone with filing police charges to force them to do something (or not do something).

From the police testimony of Donald Boström:

http://rixstep.com/1/20110202,04.shtml

And so [Anna Ardin] goes there and follows along with Sofia. And we ring a few times back and forth, we send SMS messages a bit about this. And I ring as well and contact Julian a few times. Uh, they want Julian to test himself for HIV, uh, otherwise they're going to file a complaint. That's how they express it. Uh, they don't want to speak with Julian themselves. But Julian's talking to Sofia he says and he thinks things are blown out of proportion. But I tell Julian that, the girls want you to test yourself and if you do it, they won't press charges but if you don't, they'll press charges. So I just conveyed that, I was the messenger. I didn't have any of my own, uh, and that's the way it is.

First a faked condom, now this. Someone isn't too clever.

Thanks as always to Flashback and in particular to BaalZeBub for the digging. Assange in Sweden will go live in April in conjunction with the release of the printed version of the police investigation.

I'm so sick of it all. Will it never end? At any rate I want to say the other girl's just as much to blame.
- Anna Ardin

Apparently Swedish laws are unique. If you have a penis you're half a rapist before you even get through customs.
- Scott Adams

If I am able to reveal what I know, everyone will realise this is all a charade. If I could tell the British courts, I suspect it would make extradition a moot point.
- Björn Hurtig

I can tell you that the Swedish prosecution still hasn't provided copies of those SMS texts that have been referred to. Those texts are some of the most powerful exculpatory evidence. In Australia prosecutors have a very grave duty to disclose such evidence to courts when seeking the grave exercise of a court's power against an individual. Yet in Sweden in this case, in the first hearings to obtain an arrest warrant, those texts were not submitted to the Swedish court, which is highly improper.
- James Catlin

The prosecutor could achieve this broadening of the law during Assange's trial so he can be convicted of a crime that didn't exist at the time he allegedly committed it. She would need to. There is no precedent for this. The Swedes are making it up as they go along.
- James Catlin

Julian Assange will surely learn that considering what WikiLeaks has published, he's got a few enemies in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the White House. Sweden began an investigation into rape which was later dismissed. Assange was even denied residence in Sweden. One can only speculate to what extent the security agencies of the US were involved. And considering the obvious interest of the US to silence WikiLeaks, is it likely Assange will have an accident of the 'Boston brakes' kind in the coming years? Or will he be snared with compromising information of the 'honey trap' kind?
- 'Drozd' at Flashback 23 October 2010

The truth will out, the truth wins out. Let no journalist ever again speculate into what the protocols say. Six months of digging and the people at Flashback have the actual documents. The sleaze printed by rags such as the Daily Mail, Sweden's Aftonbladet and Expressen, and perhaps above all the toxic Nick Davies of the Guardian, can stand no more. Yet more: these documents are an indictment of the 'news organisations' who've printed deliberate inaccuracies all along or even worse: refused to print anything at all. Nick Davies' account of the protocols was maliciously skewed; both Aftonbladet and Expressen had copies early on and printed nothing. Bloggers had copies but arrogantly kept the information to their Smeagol selves.
- The Assange Police Protocol: Translator's Note