John Pilger: I have read almost every scrap of evidence in [the Julian Assange case] and it's clear ... that no crime was committed.

you know that if assange is extradited to sweden, it will be a very short period of time before sweden hands him over to the u.s... while i certainly don't have any special insight in to the particulars of the allegations against assange in sweden, i do know that sexual entrapment is the oldest kind of dirty trick and the incidences of it being used right up to the present day are legion...

an extract from an interview of pilger conducted by the swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter...

[T]he attempt to extradite Assange is unjust and political. I have read almost every scrap of evidence in this case and it's clear, in terms of natural justice, that no crime was committed. The case would not have got this far had it not been for the intervention of Claes Borgstrom, a politician who saw an opportunity when the Stockholm prosecutor threw out almost all the police allegations. Borgstrom was then in the middle of an election campaign. When asked why the case was proceeding when both women had said that the sex had been consensual with Assange, he replied, "Ah, but they're not lawyers." If the Supreme Court in London rejects Assange's appeal, the one hope is the independence of the Swedish courts. However, as the London Independent has revealed, Sweden and the US have already begun talks on Assange's "temporary surrender" to the US - where he faces concocted charges and the prospect of unlimited solitary confinement. And for what? For telling epic truths. Every Swede who cares about justice and the reputation of his or her society should care deeply about this.

[...]

One of the most fundamental human rights - that of the presumption of innocence - has been breached over and over again in Assange's case. Convicted of no crime, he has been the object of character assassination -perfidious and inhuman - and highly political smear, of which the evidence is voluminous. This is what Britain's most distinguished and experienced human rights lawyer, Gareth Peirce, has written: "Given the extent of the public discussion, frequently on the basis of entirely false assumptions ... it is very hard to preserve for [Assange] any presumption of innocence. He has now hanging over him not one but two Damocles swords of potential extradition to two different jurisdictions in turn for two different alleged crimes, neither of which are crimes in his own country. [And] his personal safety has become at risk in circumstances that are highly politically charged."

pilger goes on to point out that it was the original wikileaks revelations contained cables that described the close and secret relationship sweden maintains with both the u.s. and nato...

pilger...

[The] Swedish elite ... has forged sinister and obsequious links with Washington. These powerful people have every reason to see Julian Assange as a threat. For one thing, their vaunted reputation for neutrality has been repeatedly exposed as a sham in US cables leaked by WikiLeaks. One cable revealed that "the extent of [Sweden's military and intelligence] co-operation [with NATO] is not widely known" and unless kept secret "would open up the government to domestic criticism."

what a travesty...

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