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Assange in Sweden: Dare Swedes Talk About It?

The Assange case is about politics. From an op-ed by Jonny Sundell.

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Julian Assange has now been in the Ecuador embassy for over three years. Jonny Sundell looks back at the twists and turns in the case, with questionings that never happened, and he asks what's really going on.

If the media and the citizenry are the effective executive judicial instance in Country of Sweden, then the matter is already dealt with: Julian Assange's character has already been assassinated and a verdict has been rendered by a united media choir from the political right to the political left. Not in the least: the radical left, with rags such as ETC, have rushed to the defence of state and country. ETC in particular illustrates narrow-mindedness in our nation.

For the longest time, the story was spun that Julian Assange was evading justice and fleeing accusations where he was most likely guilty - or why else would he stay away from beautiful Sweden? Academics and politicians in the US have gone public with their desire to see Assange assassinated. Sweden kept insisting that the government could not guarantee that Assange wouldn't be surrendered to the US - was it because that would be ministerial interference?

Many Swedes also bought the lie that questioning of Assange must take place in Sweden. There was dissenting opinion from Johan Pehrson of the Liberal Party, but he was chastised by Prosecutor-General Anders Perklev. 'This violates the basic separation of legislators and government institutions in Sweden', Perklev tried.

Anders Perklev never found reason to chastise prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt for his statement for the state wire service. 'Let's not forget what's at stake here - the right of the women to see to what an extent they're the victims of assault.' Or the statement from Göran Hägglund that Assange is a 'creep' and a 'coward'.

On 28 October 2014, Swedes could read in tabloid Expressen that the British government would love if the Swedish prosecutor could come to London. 'We welcome Marianne Ny to London.' As if by coincidence, the Svea Appeals Court told Marianne Ny, on 20 November the same year, to try alternate means to continue the case.

Wire service: 'What do you mean by alternate means?' Appeals Court: 'That's for Marianne Ny to decide. One way would be to simply travel to London.'

In mid-June it's claimed that Sweden sent people to London but that they weren't allowed to enter the Ecuador embassy. But it's also said 'we weren't really there and we didn't actually knock on the door', and they weren't given guarantees they'd be admitted.

And so the Swedes flew back home again.

The Guardian claimed the Swedes said 'it's a summer holiday month' and that 'this makes it difficult to get things done' - but that's later denied. The British government came to Sweden's defence and blamed Ecuador, where the poor British authorities are stuck holding a bill for £12 million. Of course Great Britain can't guarantee they'd not surrender Assange either...

The Assange case is driven by political agenda. Sweden's primary argument for not traveling to London - because things aren't done that way - was blasted to smithereens when it was discovered that during the same time Marianne Ny refused to consider questioning Assange in Great Britain, Sweden held 44 (forty-four) such questionings in the same country.

Marianne Ny has shown that she's not following the rules, and doing so to harm Julian Assange. One must therefore ask if this case has ever been about alleged sex crimes and misdemeanours. Even the two women didn't accuse him of a crime. We Swedes have every reason to ask what this case is really about. This farce can in theory continue for another five years. Assange attorney Carey Shenkman expressed it as follows.

'And after all these years that Assange has been detained, you have to ask yourself what this case is actually about: it's about the United States.'

But dare we Swedes talk about it?