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Assange in Sweden: 'Operation Persuasion'

There may have been two.


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DUCKPOND (Rixstep) — Take a break for a moment from following the NSA revelations and try to recall why the leader of WikiLeaks is currently sitting in an embassy in Knightsbridge. An earlier well researched scenario had the one of the two Swedish girls (SW) engineering a plot with minimal 'push' (outside interference) to get to the other girl's buttons and get her to the Klara police station.

Now there's another theory, based on what's known today about NSA surveillance, postulated years ago by this site, albeit back then in a much simpler form - namely that both girls were being closely shadowed and that outside forces moved in to 'persuade' them to go to the police.

This scenario has now been collated by Flashback doyen 'trenterx'.

Trenterx

If you happen by the forum and see trenterx there, you'd be forgiven for mistaking his avatar for Tom Hanks. But it's actually a photo of famed Swedish detective novelist Stieg Trenter.

'Operation Persuasion'

Trenterx leads off a very elaborate post today with the following.

Why are there two different stories about the reason Anna and Sofia went to the Klara police?

He next cites four separate sections from the preliminary investigation.

1.

Sofia and I were notified during the interrogation that Julian Assange had been arrested in absentia. Sofia had difficulty concentrating after that news, whereby I made the judgement it was best to terminate the interrogation. But Sofia had time anyway to explain that Assange was angry with her.

 - Testimony of Sofia Wilén as taken down by Irmeli Krans


2.

[Marie] wants to point out that when Sofia was at the hospital and went to the police, things didn't turn out as Sofia wanted. She only wanted Julian to test himself. She felt she'd been overrun by the police and others around her.

 - Testimony of Marie Thorn


3.

Sofia has later said that she didn't want to file a complaint against Julian but only wanted him to test himself. She sought the police for advice and the police filed the complaint.

 - Testimony of Joakim Wilén (Sofia's brother)


4.

[Hanna] says Sofia wanted Assange to take an STD test. Sofia took a test but it takes a lot longer to get the results. Things would go faster if Assange took a test. [Hanna] doesn't know how it happened that Sofia went to the police.

 - Testimony of Hanna Rosqvist

'Smokescreen'

The witnesses testify in unison that Sofia told them she had no intention of filing a complaint against Assange, only to force an HIV test. But police inspector Mats Gehlin instead writes in his report on the 'conceptual interrogation' that it's Sofia who filed the complaint. Sofia evidently didn't want to be behind a police complaint. So did she file a complaint or no?

From Sofia's testimony:

When she talked with her friends afterwards she understood she was the victim of a crime. She went into Danderyd hospital and went from there to the Söder hospital. There she was examined and they even took samples with a so-called 'rape kit'.

Here Sofia is claiming it's her friends who have convinced her she was raped, and that's why she has a test with a rape kit.

[Note: this test takes place on Tuesday 17 August, three days before Sofia accompanies Anna to the police. She visits the same hospital on Friday morning 20 August, but no one knows why. Ed.]

Police constable Linda Wassgren wrote in her memo that day:

'Initially the crime of rape was mentioned and that both women were victims.'

But Linda doesn't say who said it. Was it Anna or Sofia or both? Or Linda herself? Is Linda trying to hide who it was who said 'rape'? Later they were 'all passionately in agreement (rörande överens) it was rape'. That must also include Anna and Sofia.

Years later, when Sofia replaces Claes Borgström with Elisabeth Massi Fritz, the old question bubbles back to the surface again. Does Sofia still not want to admit she filed a complaint against Assange? From the Massi Fritz press release 22 May 2013.

'My client has the right to her day in court for the rape she's reported to the police and for which Assange is today suspected of.'

But in a later press release, written in June but backdated to 21 May, Massi Fritz writes instead:

'My client has the right to her day in court for the rape perpetrated on her.'

So they're still keeping up the smokescreen over whether Sofia herself filed the complaint or not. And we must assume at this point that the smokescreen is put out now at Sofia's expressed request.

It's not just Sofia and her lawyer who are employing double-entry bookkeeping - so is Anna Ardin. From the testimony of Donald Boström:

'Before that Anna rings me frequently. Uh, and above all that we want him to test himself so then we won't file a complaint she says.'

A clear example of double-entry bookkeeping is found in the Rebella blog which is run by Anna and her friends. A version of their piece a few days after the police complaint:

'It can be about something as simple as two women who want to know if they can force someone to take a test for sexually transmitted diseases.'

https://www.flashback.org/sp25175567

Version 2 of the same article changes the wording as follows.

'It can be about something as simple as two women who want to stand up for their right to their bodies, who don't accept assault and who talk about it.'

https://www.flashback.org/sp27722872

That's the same kind of smokescreen Sofia laid out, but in version 2 they say the women themselves file the complaint.

Why is it so important to hide the identity of the person filing the charges? It should have something to do with the events leading up to the complaint. Those events perhaps include pressures put on the girls that people now want to hide?

Let's postulate that there were two separate external attempts to influence Anna and Sofia in the week before the police complaint. The one of those attempts exploits Sofia's phobia for HIV. She's given a motive to go to the police - she's persuaded to go to the police to force Assange to test himself, or at least to go to the police to get advice. But that motive would never have been enough for Anna. There's no way she can have believed the police were the right people for advice about HIV tests. And with Anna's background, she must have known that the police have a duty to file a complaint if they suspect rape. The other of those attempts to influence the chain of events must therefore build on the idea of teaching Assange a lesson, more or less in line with Anna's 7-step revenge plan when one's betrayed by a lover.

My suggestion is therefore that there were two separate instances of 'Operation Persuasion'. One with Anna, one with Sofia. Very powerful operations. Based more or less on the motives discussed above. I won't speculate right now about who was behind these operations. It can have been close friends, with other forces behind them acting on entirely different motives. Or it can have been direct pressure with threats or promises.

Postscript: One Hour Thirty Four Minutes

So when in such case did that smokescreen first get laid out? Take the recent Assange police complaint about the missing laptops. This led to a new preliminary investigation into their disappearance at Arlanda airport 27 September 2010. Buried in the affidavit are a few text messages sent by Sofia Wilén on 20 August 2010, yes the very ones Marianne Ny is trying to keep from public view, for the very day and the very police station visit where she's only going to try to force someone to take an STD test.

[Sofia] did not want to put any charges on JA but that the police were keen on getting a grip on him... (sv: få tag på honom) (14:26)

And Sofia was:

'... chocked [sic: shocked] when they arrested JA because she only wanted him to take a test' (17:06)

Take a second look at the time stamps again. The first is 14:26. The girls arrived at the Klara station at 14:00, so the message is sent less than half an hour after they arrive but it's still nearly two hours before Sofia's formally interrogated.

Perhaps some readers won't find it remarkable that, as Sofia tells it, the police are keen to 'get a grip on' Assange almost as soon as she and Anna enter the station. What in such case could Sofia have said? One thing's fairly certain: asking questions about HIV testing doesn't scramble the RAF.

And 17:06? That's precisely 6 minutes after Assange's arrest warrant is issued. But Sofia's giving a formal statement to Irmeli Krans at that time - the interrogation started at 16:21 and concluded at 18.40.

Could Sofia know something about this arrest warrant? Of course - if someone came in and told her and Irmeli. So far so good. But how does this apply to the claim by Krans that Sofia 'broke down' when hearing of the warrant and could not continue their interrogation? Was there a magically delayed reaction for one hour thirty four minutes?

According to Krans, Sofia only had time, after hearing of the arrest warrant, to say Assange was 'angry' with her. She didn't have time for Krans to read back her statement. How can a simple statement 'Julian is angry with me' account for one hour thirty four minutes?

Or is there something else going on? Are Sofia's SMS messages a mere 'decoy' to disguise her true motivation for visiting the Klara police station? Are they part of what trenterx describes as a 'smokescreen'?

And if they are, then it's beginning to look like the smokescreen may have been laid out with the full complicity of Sofia Wilén right from the start.

Sofia's friends were also scrubbed from the web, and this happened before the police protocols were leaked, it happened only a day or two after Sofia's identity was established, only her brother and father have some bits remaining, they had a lot more before. A certain beauty salon in Enköping can play a bigger role than we think...
 - Duqu at Flashback

See Also
Assange in Sweden: The Lab Results
WL Central: UK news site censors discussion of Sofia Wilén

Industry Watch: The Many Faces of Massi Fritz
Industry Watch: Assange Case: Sofia Wilén Puts on the Fritz

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