WikiLeaks founder baffled by sex assault claims

[kpete]

WikiLeaks founder baffled by sex assault claims

* Marie Colvin
* From: The Sunday Times
* December 27, 2010 12:00AM

ONE of the women claiming she was sexually assaulted by Julian Assange took a "trophy photo" of him lying naked in her bed, he says.

The white-haired computer impresario had been invited to stay in her empty flat when he visited Stockholm to give a lecture last August, shortly after WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of classified US documents on the Afghanistan war.

Mr Assange, 39, and unmarried, said the woman had returned home early and insisted he sleep in her bed. He does not feel he needs any excuses for what happened next. "We went to bed, and things went on from there," he said.

However, the 31-year-old woman, who is identified in legal documents as Miss A, subsequently went to the police.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/wikileaks-founder-baffled-by-sex-assault-claims/story-fn775xjq-1225976459286

[FreakinDJ]

1. She felt so assaulted she cooked him breakfast too

I am so thoroughly convinced of wrong doing here

[hlthe2b]

2. I don't know what the truth is...

But, the whole story stinks to hell and what facts have come out hardly make Assange the poster boy, nor this the hallmark incident, for those who strive to bring justice to true victims of rape and sexual assault. Given one woman has fleed to an NGO in the Middle East to avoid testifying or speaking publicly to her original charges, it does give one real pause re: the true objectives and agendas of all involved.

[Angry Dragon]

3. She gave him a cold breakfast??

:evilgrin:

[Bobbieo]

4. The truth appears to be that embarrassed governments are trying to nail him for his Wikileaks.

[Systematic Chaos]

5. We're talking chilled sloppy seconds, baby!

:shrug:

:rofl:

[FreakinDJ]

6. L is next to K on the keyboard

[Systematic Chaos]

8. It is?

I wouldn't know, seeing as how I always run computers by sheer telepathy.

[pnwmom]

7. The Swedish head of Wikileaks supports at least one woman's story.

She went to this man to help her eject Assange from her apartment.

We don't have nearly enough facts yet to know what went on.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden

"On Wednesday 18 August, according to police records, Miss A told Harold and a friend that Assange would not leave her flat and was sleeping in her bed, although she was not having sex with him and he spent most of the night sitting with his computer. Harold told police he had asked Assange why he was refusing to leave the flat and that Assange had said he was very surprised, because Miss A had not asked him to leave. Miss A says she spent Wednesday night on a mattress and then moved to a friend's flat so she did not have to be near him. She told police that Assange had continued to make sexual advances to her every day after they slept together and on Wednesday 18 August had approached her, naked from the waist down, and rubbed himself against her.

"The following day, Harold told police, Miss A called him and for the first time gave him a full account of her complaints about Assange. Harold told police he regarded her as "very, very credible" and he confronted Assange, who said he was completely shocked by the claims and denied all of them. By Friday 20 August, Miss W had texted Miss A looking for help in finding Assange. The two women met and compared stories.

"Harold has independently told the Guardian Miss A made a series of calls to him asking him to persuade Assange to take an STD test to reassure Miss W, and that Assange refused. Miss A then warned if Assange did not take a test, Miss W would go to the police. Assange had rejected this as blackmail, Harold told police."

[FreakinDJ]

10. From the link you posted

However, his Swedish lawyer has been shown evidence of their text messages which indicate that they were concerned to obtain money by going to a tabloid newspaper and were motivated by other matters including a desire for revenge."

I don't care what story they can concoct after the fact - their motivation is quite clear to all parties concerned

[TexasObserver]

11. The world has already judged them, and properly, too.

THIS is all they can come up with to discredit Assange? THIS pile of lies and resentments?

How anyone can believe these tall tales is a mystery.

Sometimes an international conspiracy to discredit Wikileaks by the world's most powerful country is just that.

[pnwmom]

12. And what is "Harold's" motivation then? n/t

[FreakinDJ]

13. Some things are never clear cut

Its like saying -

A man never lies to get sex
A woman never marries for money
And a child won't cry with his hand caught in the cookie jar

For a persons who honestly works hard for honest victims of rape this must be a very agonizing dilemma. For people who honestly care about an open and fair government this is also an equally painful task.

[pnwmom]

14. The facts in this case are indeed murky. As to the allegation

about text messages about tabloids, those text messages have never been produced.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BJ5AX20101220

Q: What about claims that text messages undermine the women's stories?

A: During bail proceedings, one of Assange's lawyers told a London court his Swedish lawyer had been shown text messages in which his accusers indicated an interest in obtaining "money by going to a tabloid newspaper and were motivated by other matters including a desire for revenge."

But in a statement to Swedish investigators, a co-worker of Miss W. said that on the night of the alleged incident between Assange and her colleague, Miss W. had sent the co-worker "a lot of texts ... that were not positive. There had been bad sex and Julian had not been nice."

The co-worker did say that she remembered Miss W. talking about going to a newspaper after Assange himself had spoken to the media, but that "this was just something she said and had no intention of doing." The co-worker said Miss W. had been contacted by an American newspaper and had "joked that she should get well-paid." No copies of the women's alleged Tweets or text messages have surfaced in public.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pnwmom]

16. And most of the DU world were sure that the Duke lacrosse players

were guilty as hell. Funny how the reaction to a woman's claim of rape seems to depend on a person's politics. Where are all the people who were insisting back then that any claim of rape should be taken very seriously? If not automatically believed?

In the first few months after the Duke students were charged, I thought the same thing that I think now: we don't have enough information.

[FreakinDJ]

17. Duke Lacrosse Hahahahahahahahaha - LMAOROTF

Lady - thanks for the Very Good Laugh

NOW was so Correct on that 1

HaHaHaHa

It was a nice ending to a very sad story when a MAN stepped forward and got that woman into a DRUG REHAB and then helped her to get an Education

If she had done what NOW wanted her to do she would have been held CRIMINALLY COMPLICIT and probably just getting out of prison about now

Nifong was disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation", making Nifong the first prosecutor in North Carolina history to lose his law license based on actions in a case. Nifong was found guilty of criminal contempt and served one day in jail.<10> Mangum never faced any charges for her false accusations as Cooper declined to prosecute her

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

and in an unrelated matter

On 17 February, 2010, police were called to Mangum's residence by her nine-year old daughter. When they arrived, they claimed that a fight was in progress between Crystal and her live-in boy friend. They alleged that she set fire to some of his clothing in a bathtub in their presence. The building suffered heavy smoke damage. She was arrested on charges of attempted murder, first-degree arson, assault and battery, identity theft, communicating threats, damage to property, resisting an officer and misdemeanor child abuse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

[pnwmom]

18. And that is my point. People who took a position based on progressive

politics were wrong then and could be equally wrong now, in their support of Assange against his accusers. We may never know though, since I would think this case would be very hard to prove, even if he is guilty of forcing himself on one or both women.

[FreakinDJ]

19. Well you may have a point there

But my assessment of the merits of the case has almost nothing to do with my politics - It just plain don't pass the SMELL TEST

Purely has nothing to do with the Innocents Project finding "Over 30% of the Men serving Life for Rape were proven INNOCENT by DNA evidence"

And I also believe for the DEFENDERS of Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen it is not a matter of justice - It is a means to extract power

Once, feminist reformers rightly fought against laws that required a rape victim to fight her attacker "to the utmost." But removing any element of actual or threatened force from the crime of rape makes it too easy to criminalize miscommunications and morning-after regrets. Should non-consent require a firm "Stop!" or does it cover a hesitant or coy "Maybe we should stop"—perhaps accompanied by actions that contradict the words? Is the man guilty of rape if the woman says early in the evening that she does not want to have sex, but does not rebuff his overtures later? Is the woman a rapist if the roles are reversed? Writing the "forcible" part out of the definition of rape makes it much more of a two-way street.

Earlier generations of feminists argued that rape should be treated the same as any other violent crime: The victim should not be subjected to special standards of resistance or chastity. These days, the demand for special treatment is so blatant that some activists openly support abolishing the presumption of innocence for rape cases and requiring the accused to prove consent (a proposal Valenti cites with obvious approval). In an ironic twist, these activists actually seem to hold women in very little esteem: in their world, women are too timid to push a man away if he won't take no for an answer and too addled to know that they have been raped.

Additionally I don't believe the Feminist Movement in America aka NOW votes Democratic or Progressive. They are solely in it for what ever power they can garner and from who ever will grant it. The sooner we divest ourselves from this "Jonna" Hanging around our collective neck the better we'll be for it

[Ohio Joe]

23. Link?

"Over 30% of the Men serving Life for Rape were proven INNOCENT by DNA evidence"

I cannot find this anywhere, nor any "Innocents Project" listed anywhere.

[TheDebbieDee]

9. I can't believe that Mr. Assange is surprised that these women

(governments) are trying to discredit him by crawling out of the woodwork claiming to have been raped/molested/assaulted by him. How much of an innocent can he be?

Surely, he should have been expecting as much..........I'm surprised that no woman has come forward swearing up and down that he has a small penis and is sexually dysfunctional! Maybe that will happen on Wednesday.

[Bonobo]

20. "Trophy Photo"?? Holy Double Standards, Batman!!!!

It's a good thing HE didn't take a 'trophy photo'!

One can only imagine what would be said of him for THAT!!

Sounds illegal.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

21. Sounds like a dog case to me.

And I went to law school and have a J.D.

[eShirl]

22. What is a dog case?