Now
that Andrew Kreig, of the Justice Integrity Project, has confirmed Karl
Rove’s role as an advisor to the Swedish government in its prosecution
of Julian Assange on sexual misconduct charges, it is important that we
note the many glaring aberrations in the handling of Assange’s case by
the authorities in Sweden.
Dr.
Brian Palmer, a social anthropologist at Uppsala University, explained
on Kreig’s radio show last month that Karl Rove has been working
directly as an advisor to the governing Moderate Party. Kreig also
reported, in Connecticut Watchdog, that the Assange accusers’ lawyer is a
partner in the law firm Borgström and Bodström, whose other name
partner, Thomas Bodström, is a former Swedish Minister of Justice. In
that office, Bodström helped approve a 2001 CIA rendition request to
Sweden, to allow the CIA to fly two asylum-seekers from Sweden to Egypt,
where they were tortured. This background compels us to review the case
against Assange with extreme care.
Based
on my 23 years of reporting on global rape law, and my five years of
supporting women at rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters, I
can say with certainty that this case is not being treated as a normal
rape or sexual assault case. New details from the Swedish police make
this quite clear. Their transcript of the complaints against Assange is
strikingly unlike the dozens of such transcripts that I have read
throughout the years as an advocate for victims of sex crimes.
Specifically, there are eight ways in which this transcript is unusual:
1) Police never pursue complaints in which there is no indication of lack of consent.
Ask
Sweden to produce ANY other police report in which any action was taken
in a situation in which there is no stated lack of consent or threat of
force. Police simply won’t act on a complaint if there is no indication
of a lack of consent, or of consent in the face of violence. The
Assange transcripts, in contrast to any typical sex crime report, are a
set of transcripts in which neither of the women has indicated a lack of
consent. (There is one point at which Miss W asserts she was asleep –
in which case it would indeed have been illegal to have sex with her –
but her deleted tweets show that she was not asleep, and subsequent
discussion indicates consent.)
The
Assange transcript is therefore anomalous, as it does not suggest in
any way that either woman was unconsenting, or felt threatened. On this
basis alone, therefore, the Assange transcript is completely aberrant.
2) Police do not let two women report an accusation about one man together.
The transcripts seem to indicate that the police processed the two accusers’ complaints together.
This
is completely unheard-of in sex crime procedures; and the burden should
be on Clare Mongomery, QC, or Marianne Ny, to produce a single other
example of this being permitted.
Never
will two victims be allowed by police to come in and tell their stories
together–even, or especially, if the stories are about one man.
Indeed,
this is a great frustration to those who advocate for rape victims. You
can have seven alleged victims all accusing the same guy — and none
will be permitted to tell their stories together.
It
doesn’t matter if they coordinated in advance as the Assange accusers
did, or if they are close friends and came in together: the police
simply will not take their complaints together or even in the same room.
No matter how much they may wish to file a report together, their
wishes won’t matter: the women will be separated, given separate
interview times and even locations, and their cases will be processed
completely separately.
The
prosecutor, rather than being able to draw on both women’s testimony,
will actually have to struggle to get the judge to allow a second or
additional accusation or evidence from another case.
Usually
other such evidence will NOT be allowed. Miss A would have her case
processed and then Miss W — with absolutely no ability for the
prosecutor to draw form one set of testimony to the next.
The
reason for this is sound: it is to keep testimony from contaminating
separate trials–a source of great frustration to prosecutors and rape
victim advocates.
Thus
the dual testimonies taken in this case are utterly atypical and
against all Western and especially Swedish rape law practice and policy.
3) Police never take testimony from former boyfriends.
There’s
another remarkable aberration in this transcript: the report of a
former boyfriend of “Miss A,” testifying that she’d always used a condom
in their relationship.
Now,
as one who has supported many rape victims through the reporting
process, I have to say that the inclusion of this utterly atypical–and,
in fact, illegal–note will make anyone who has counselled rape victims
through the legal process’ feel as though her head might explode.
There’s
a rape shield law in Sweden (as there is throughout Europe) that
prevents anyone not involved in the case to say anything to the police,
whether it be positive or negative, about the prior sexual habits of the
complainant. No matter how much a former or current boyfriend may want
to testify about his girlfriends’ sex practices — even if that woman
wants him to — the courts will, rightly, refused to hear it, or record
it, or otherwise allow it in the record.
4) Prosecutors never let two alleged victims have the same lawyer.
Both
women are being advised by the same high-powered, politically connected
lawyer. That would never happen under normal circumstances because the
prosecutor would not permit the risk of losing the case because of
contamination of evidence and the risk of the judge objecting to
possible coaching or shared testimony in the context of a shared
attorney.
So
why would the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, allow such a thing in
this case? Perhaps — bearing in mind the threat that Assange will be
extradited to the US once he is in Sweden — because she does not expect
to have a trial, let alone have to try to win one.
5) A lawyer never typically takes on two alleged rape victims as clients.
No
attorney–and certainly no high-powered attorney– would want to
represent two women claiming to have been victimized by the same man,
for the reasons above: the second woman’s testimony could be weaker than
the other one’s, thus lessening the lawyer’s chances of success.
There also is a danger that the judge may well object to the potential cross-contamination of the women’s stories.
Again,
the only reason why a lawyer would thus weaken his own clients’ cases
us that s/he does not expect the case to come to trial.
6) A rape victim never uses a corporate attorney.
Typically,
if a woman needs a lawyer in addition to the prosecutor who is pursuing
her case (as in the Swedish system) she will be advised by rape victim
advocates, the prosecutor and the police to use a criminal attorney —
someone who handles rape cases or other kinds of assault, who is
familiar with the judges and the courts in these cases. She will never
hire a high-powered corporate attorney who does not specialize in these
cases or work with the local court that would be hearing her sex crime
case if it ever got to trial. Given that a law firm such as this one
charges about four hundred euros an hour, and a typical rape case takes
eight months to a year to get through the courts – given that legal
advice will cost tens of thousands of euros, which young women victims
usually do not have access to – it is reasonable to ask: who is paying
the legal bills?
7)
A rape victim is never encouraged to make any kind of contact with her
assailant and she may never use police to compel her alleged assailant
to take medical tests.
The two women went to police to ask if they could get Assange to take an HIV test.
Sources
close to the investigation confirm that indeed Assange was asked by
police to take an HIV test, which came back negative. This is utterly
unheard of and against standard sex crime policy. The Police do not act
as medical mediators for STD testing, since rapists are dangerous and
vindictive. A victim is NEVER advised to manage, even with police
guidance, any further communication with her assailant that is not
through formal judicial channels. Under ordinary procedures, the women’s
wishes for the alleged assailant to take medical tests would be
discouraged by rape victim advocates and deterred and disregarded by
police.
First,
the State normally has no power to compel a man who has not been
convicted, let alone formally charged, to take any medical tests
whatsoever. Secondly, rape victims usually fear STD’s or AIDS infection,
naturally enough, and the normal police and prosecutorial guidance is
for them to take their own battery of tests – you don’t need the man’s
test results to know if you have contracted a disease. Normal rape kit
processing–in Sweden as elsewhere–includes such tests for the alleged
victim as a matter of course, partly to help prevent any contact between
the victim and the assailant outside legal channels.
8)
Police and prosecutors never leak police transcripts during an active
investigation because they face punishment for doing so.
The
full transcripts of the women’s complaints have been leaked to the US
media. The only people who have access to those documents are police,
prosecutors and the attorneys. Often, frustratingly, rape victims
themselves cannot get their own full set of records related to their
cases. In normal circumstances, the leaking of those transcripts would
be grounds for an immediate investigation of the police and prosecutors
who had access to them. Any official who leaks such confidential papers
faces serious penalties; lawyers who do so can be disbarred. And yet no
one in this case is being investigated or facing any consequences. It
seems quite likely that the Assange documents were leaked by the police
or prosecutors because they got a signal from higher-ups that they could
do so with impunity.
Indeed, these are all major aberrations–suggesting that somebody at the top has interfered.
And
who is at the very top in Sweden? Players working with Karl Rove, who
was a party to the Swedish government’s collusion in the Bush regime’s
rendition/torture program. As Britain holds its hearings into Julian
Assange’s fate, we must take careful note of that connection.
