Monday, May 13, 2019
Why does Sweden behave like a lapdog of the US?
Sweden Reopens 9-Year Old Rape
Investigation Against Julian Assange; Seeks His Extradition
May 13, 2019 • 17
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The Swedish prosecuting
authority announced at a Stockholm press conference Monday that Sweden would
seek Assange’s extradition from Britain to face investigation on a nearly
decade-old allegation of sexual assault.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Sweden’s deputy director of
public prosecution, Eva-Marie Persson, said Monday that Sweden would seek the
extradition of Julian Assange to face a nearly ten-year old allegation of rape.
Assange is serving a 50-week
sentence at Belmarsh prison in London for skipping bail in the rape case in
2012. Assange had lived inside the Ecuadorian embassy from June 2012 to April
11 this year, when Ecuador lifted his asylum and allowed British police to
enter the embassy and arrest him.
On the same day the United
States unveiled a sealed indictment accusing Assange of intrusion into a
government computer. The U.S. also filed an extradition request for Assange.
Persson told a press
conference in Stockholm on Monday that it would be up to British authorities to
determine which extradition request—to Sweden or to the U.S.— would take
precedence. She also said she wouldn’t speculate on an extradition request from
the U.S. to Sweden since one had not yet been made.
Persson said her decision was
based on the evidence, which she said was sufficient to suspect Assange of
rape. Swedish authorities had twice dropped the investigation. The first time
was just weeks after the allegations were made in August 2010. An arrest
warrant was canceled on
Aug. 21. Then Swedish chief prosecutor Eva Finne said that day: “I
don’t think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape.”
Assange left Sweden for
Britain with Sweden’s permission in September. When he arrived in Britain
an international arrest warrant was issued for him on Nov. 18, 2010.
Assange turned himself in on
Dec. 7 and was released on bail. He fought Sweden’s extradition requests after
Sweden refused to give his lawyers an assurance he would not be then extradited
to the U.S. When his final appeal was lost, Assange asked for and
received political asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy.
In cryptic tweet, Ardin says
she wasn’t raped.
Assange said he would welcome Swedish
prosecutors coming to the embassy to question him, and prepared a written
statement, but documents uncovered in a FOIA request by Italian journalist
Stefania Maurizi showed heavy pressure from the British government on Sweden
not to come to London. In 2017, Swedish prosecutors ultimately visited
Assange at the embassy and in May of that year ended
the investigation, which has now been revived. At the time the
investigation was dropped for a second time, Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff
of Women Against Rape wrote:
“The allegations against
[Assange] are a smokescreen behind which a number of governments are trying to
clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously revealed to the public their
secret planning of wars and occupations with their attendant rape, murder and
destruction… The authorities care so little about violence against women that
they manipulate rape allegations at will. [Assange] has made it clear he is
available for questioning by the Swedish authorities, in Britain or via Skype.
Why are they refusing this essential step in their investigation? What are they
afraid of?”
The statute of limitations on
the rape allegation runs out in August 2020.
Persson said the investigation
would end after that if no charges are filed against Assange. The rape
allegation was made by Anna Ardin, a Swedish national, who later admitted in a
cryptic tweet she was not raped. Ardin’s lawyers held a press conference at
7:30 a.m. EDT on Monday. Ardin said through her attorney that she was
“relieved” that the investigation will be restarted.
Greg Barns, Assange’s
Australian lawyer, tweeted: “Sweden request to re open questioning after
closing their files twice is extraordinary. This is abuse of process.”
Catherine Vogan contributed to
this article.
Biden flunkies conceal corruption
Schiff: Biden Ukraine Scandal
Should Be Off Limits
by Tyler Durden
Sun, 05/12/2019 - 21:45
628
SHARES
House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on Sunday that Joe Biden's Ukraine
corruption scandal should be off limits as the 2020 US election approaches,
and that President Trump shouldn't be allowed to investigate - or encourage
Ukraine to investigate.
Biden has come under fire for
a March, 2016 incident in Kiev in which he threatened to
withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro
Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who
was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm
Burisma Holdings. As it so happens, Joe's son Hunter Biden sat on
Burisma's board, and was indirectly paid as much as $50,000
per month.
'I said, ‘You’re not getting
the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours.
I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not
fired, you’re not getting the money,’" bragged Biden, recalling the
conversation with Poroshenko.
"Well, son of a bitch, he
got fired," Biden gloated.
Biden claims he didn't
know Hunter was on the Burisma board for an entire two years (Hunter reportedly
joined in April 2014, two years before Biden's threat), and that the effort to
remove Shokin had nothing to do with the "
"Shokin was fired because
he attacked the reformers within the prosecutor general’s office,"
And this should be completely
off limits to Trump, according to Adam Schiff
Schiff told 'This Week' that
Congress should take up legislation banning political campaigns from
working with foreign governments in an effort to influence US elections,
responding to news that Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, had planned to travel
to Ukraine to encourage them to further investigate the Biden matter. Giuliani
has since canceled the trip.
"Going after his son is
just a method of going after someone the president believes is his most
formidable opponent," Schiff told ABC's 'This Week.' "So let the
president go after him, but don’t seek the help of a foreign government in
your election."
In March, The
Hill's John Solomon revealed that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy
Lutsenko has launched an investigation into the head of the Ukrainian
National Anti-Corruption Bureau for allegedly attempting to help Hillary
Clinton defeat Donald Trump during the 2016 US election by releasing
damaging information about a "black
ledger" of illegal business dealings by former Trump campaign chairman
Paul Manafort.
Trump made a comment that he
should ask Barr to investigate Joe Biden’s foreign ties and suddenly like magic
now the entire Left is saying presidential candidates shouldn’t be spied on
Meanwhile, President Trump
told Politico on
Friday that it would be "appropriate" for him to ask Attorney
General William Barr about launching an investigation into Biden, or his son
Hunter.
"Certainly it would be an
appropriate thing to speak to him about, but I have not done that as of yet. …
It could be a very big situation," said Trump during a 15-minute phone
interview Friday afternoon.
The New York Times earlier
this month reported on Giuliani’s efforts to investigate and publicize the
issue.
The president argued that the
alleged conflict of interest, or appearance thereof, was not mushrooming into
an all-out scandal because Biden is a Democrat.
“Because he’s a Democrat,”
Trump said, the report had about “one-hundredth” the impact as it would have if
he “were a Republican.” Politico
To recap; Biden didn't know
his son Hunter was on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas firm for a
full two years, before threatening to withhold $1 billion in US loan
guarantees if the President of Ukraine didn't fire the guy investigating
the Biden-linked Burisma, and Adam Schiff thinks that should be off limits
to investigate, or for voters to consider, going into the 2020
election.
Start at 52 minutes
Sunday, May 12, 2019
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