Lawyer: Assange is being persecuted in Sweden

[Joanne98]

Source: WP

LONDON -- The lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says that the decision to add the 39-year-old Australian to Interpol's most wanted list shows that his client is being persecuted.

Media lawyer Mark Stephens says Assange and his attorneys have not been provided with any information beyond what has been reported in the press about the sexual misconduct case against him in Sweden.

He says Assange has repeatedly sought meetings with Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny. Stephens said Wednesday that it was bizarre that Ny sought an arrest warrant after having ignored or rejected Assange's offers of voluntary cooperation.

Stephens said that this appears to be "a persecution and not a prosecution."




Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120101876.html

[midnight]

1. After two women find out he was sleeping with both of them they file charges.

However, even the substance of the allegations, as revealed to the press through unauthorized disclosures do not constitute what any advanced legal system considers to be rape; as various media outlets have reported "the basis for the rape charge" purely seems to constitute a post-facto dispute over consensual, but unprotected sex days after the event. Both women have declared that they had consensual sexual relations with our client and that they continued to instigate friendly contact well after the alleged incidents. Only after the women became aware of each other's relationships with Mr. Assange did they make their allegations against him.

The warrant for his arrest was rightly withdrawn within 24 hours by Chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who found that there was no "reason to suspect that he has committed rape." Yet his name had already been deliberately and unlawfully disclosed to the press by Swedish authorities. The "rape" story was carried around the world and has caused Mr. Assange and his organization irreparable harm. http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/11/18/assange-lawyer-sweden-breached-human-rights-law/

Lawyer for Assange indicates that these moves by prosecutor to be illegal...