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Home » Learning Curve » Red Hat Diaries » Assange in Sweden: The Police Protocol (Translated)

Assange in Sweden: The Catalyst

Where catalysts come from is of secondary importance.

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STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Rixstep) — It's pretty obvious after a first 'prima facie' reading of the official police protocol in the preliminary investigation into the allegations against Julian Assange in Sweden that none of this would have happened without a catalyst.

Everyone was in good company, everyone was 'buddy-buddy' with each other, there were slight misunderstandings as there always can be in situations like this, but none of this reached outright 'conflict'. Anna Ardin even comes off as a bit of an angel.

A catalyst was needed to skew everything and cause an outbreak of hostilities. That catalyst was Sofia Wilén.

The retired brass at Fabius Maximus picked her out from the get-go as the 'trigger' of the events that followed. Few people focused on her because she wasn't well known and because Anna Ardin was such an easy target.

Anna Ardin is indeed an easy target, and is responsible for a lot of what transpired afterwards, but there's no way she can be the 'mover'. She exhibited a care for Julian that was tangible, washing his clothes, joking about adopting him, joking about his dallying with the 'cashmere girl', joking about him having no taste in women, etc.

Anna Ardin was indeed chuffed she'd landed 'the world's coolest guy' in her small (25 square metres) flat (with its narrow bed and single sofa) and in her bed. She and Julian didn't have much 'bed time' together because he was often up all night working - something she found made sleep a bit difficult.

There were people who planned on putting Julian up. There were two representatives of the Pirate Party who'd literally planned on taking him in after the crayfish party; there was at least one other person fully aware of how cramped things were in Anna's flat who on a daily basis rang her and offered to move Julian into another flat.

Yet on each occasion the decision was it was no big deal and he could stay where he was. This is not the talk and logic of someone who's felt sexually violated.

Everything changed in the middle of the following week. Suddenly Julian's second biggest supporter in the country focused on something else instead. Something else that yet again yanked at her motherly instincts. Anna ostensibly felt it became her role to 'protect' this 'younger innocent girl' of 26 who somehow made the impression she couldn't take care of herself.

Sofia comes across as 'slow' (something remarked by Anna and others) and as totally devoid of humour. There are of course two immediately accessible explanations for this. She also comes across as 'special' as one of the others kindly put it.

And her presence - her 'intrusion' - into the inner circle was criticised and even fought. She had no connection to WikiLeaks and no connection to Anna Ardin's 'brotherhood' - she was suddenly there and warning lights started to flash for the others.

She was invited to the Saturday lunch over protests but the others made sure she sat at the table's end so she wouldn't be privy to confidential conversation. And she said not a word through the entire meal - something the others also found 'weird' - until Julian picked up a piece of knäckebröd and put butter and cheese on it. Whereupon she said something cringeworthy to the effect:

'How does that taste?'

Whereupon Julian recognised the neglected guest and gave her a bite.

Reading Sofia's testimony is a journey into the bizarre - it's not the events related, it's the way they're related. Such as making a point that when she and Julian went for a walk they passed by 'Canadian geese'. Who needs to know that?

One also gets the impression Julian was often engaged in joking banter with her but she really didn't get it. Two members of the 'inner circle' described her as 'too slow for Julian' and that might be part of the explanation. But they also joked (and one of them was Anna Ardin) that 'shocking pink cashmere jumpers, breasts, and a groupie attitude might weigh up against that'.

Translating the entire protocol takes time. The goal is to have everything ready this week and to publish it 'in toto' pursuant to an already established 'harm minimisation process'. But what can already be seen is that everything would have gone absolutely famously without the catalyst.

So there's an evil TLA involved? Does it matter? So there's not only a catalyst but an authentic agent? Does it matter?

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