Assange's Dream Team

They're in another league entirely.

Get It Try It

STOCKHOLM (Rixstep) — Julian Assange switches his Swedish legal counsel and picks what many pundits felt was an impossibility: not one but both of Sweden's absolutely best attorneys, working for many years in a class of their own: Per E Samuelson and Thomas Olsson.

Thomas Olsson

The choice of Thomas Olsson is superb for several reasons. Olsson's a partner with Assange's original counsel Leif Silbersky. He's also known as the sharpest in the land when it comes to unraveling fabricated sex abuse cases - so much so that he once swore to never again take such a case, as the entire system in this regard is so thoroughly corrupt. And finally: Olsson's the one currently unraveling the corruption in the notorious Thomas Quick cases where one of the major culprits is none other than Claes Borgström.

Per E Samuelson

Per E Samuelson is no less in any way. Per's perhaps best known for his part in the trial of The Pirate Bay where he formidably plucked apart the IFPI leader John Kennedy with his subtle approach and razor edge logic - and he was able to do this through an official court translator to boot.

Per made another sensation in that trial with what became known in the media as the King Kong Defence™. 'King Kong' was a real TPB user, seen in the TPB logs, but Samuelson took the ball and ran with it.

'This film has been uploaded by user King Kong. You can read that clearly. But the prosecutor hasn't established who King Kong is or where King Kong is. He can have been in Stockholm, he can have been in Malmö, he can have been in the jungles of Cambodia. Above all else the prosecutor hasn't even tried to show how any of the defendants should have encouraged this King Kong in the jungles of Cambodia to break IP law.'
 - Per E Samuelson

Within minutes 'King Kong Defence' began spreading around the InterWebs to Digg, to Wikipedia, to Google.

That the defendants didn't win can have more to do with the fact the White House had already dictated the verdict and less to do with Per's performance.

Per's also written the definitive book on trial cross examination.

Assange's dream team: Per E Samuelson (left) and Thomas Olsson.

Unraveling 'Thomas Quick'

Thomas Olsson's role in unraveling the corruption surrounding the case of Sture Ragnar Bergwall aka Thomas Quick is also key: the institutionalised Quick was desperate to not be released from psychiatric care and began making up stories left and right to get convicted again. Quick's first attorney resigned in protest after two years because of all the corruption.

None other than Claes Borgström was called in, and Borgström made sure to not rock the boat for over seven years, and for next to no labour involved was able to pick up a cool US $750,000 taxpayer money (in addition to his government salary).

The stink surrounding Borgström, with so many articles and even books written about the corruption, got Borgström to try a clever tack not long ago: he filed a complaint against himself with the Swedish bar association. But that doesn't fool the likes of Thomas Olsson. In one Swedish language interview, Quick's attorney - who's already had several of the old cases reopened and their verdicts thrown out - points out that Borgström was actually bluffing - as he presented no evidence whatsoever, the bar couldn't take the matter up for consideration, something lawyers might understand but the public at large would not.

Olsson also:

1. points out Borgström was part of a 'cult' - even the courts didn't know what was really going on;
2. reminds viewers Borgström's predecessor resigned in protest - it was Borgström's ethical duty to do the same;
3. takes care of his little toddler in the pram who wakes up towards the end of the interview.

[The interview, the property of the powerful Bonniers, has since been removed from the web. Ed.]

What's Borgström Up To?

Claes Borgström, who so hoped for - counted on - a victory for his political party in last year's national elections, who has been desperate for a career comeback after the Thomas Quick scandal, has been using the past year with Julian Assange in Norfolk to systematically smear the WikiLeaks founder in the Swedish media, something that in another country with a more sophisticated legal system would long ago have resulted in a prison sentence for 'contempt of court'.

But now he's taken a step he may regret - Claes Borgström is going to be a game show contestant.



The show - 'På spåret' ('On the track') - has teams competing to recognise obscure villages from their railway approach.

Ullman Was Up!

Harald Ullman doesn't exactly let the grass grow between his toes. Ullman was on television screens by 09:00 this morning to refute attacks by Bonnier's TV4.

What's Mattsson Up To?

The premier Bonnier attack dog Expressen has been laying low of late. Some of the explanation may be found in the fact their chief editor Thomas 'Humpty Dumpty' Mattsson's been house-hunting.

A newspaper threatened with hundreds of layoffs and already suffering from the resignation of reporters tired of the editor's autocratic policies suddenly can reward the person at the epicentre of the scandal with a million dollar domicile in Stockholm's super-exclusive inner city? So it would seem.

The price has gone down by $100,000 since being put on the market. And it's been in disrepair for quite some time, meaning one has to add that $100,000 back on to the total cost.

But a million dollar house for a tabloid editor? People are starting to ask what Bonnier are paying Humpty Dumpty. And why.

Humpty Dumpty's new house? SEK 9.6 million ($1,000,000) + repairs.

The property even has room for Candypig (aka Karin Olsson) if she wants to visit when the family are away.

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

See Also
Industry Watch: For Harald Ullman, Dealing with Smears is Old Hat