The on again off again rape investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is on again:
Public Prosecutions Director Marianne Ny said there was “reason to believe a crime has been committed” and that the crime was classified as rape. …
In a statement about her decision to review the case, Ms Ny said of the rape allegation that “more investigations are necessary before a final decision can be made”.
She also said that an accusation of molestation – which is not a sex offence under Swedish law – against Mr Assange should be reclassified and investigated as a case of sexual coercion and sexual molestation.
The statement said Ms Ny would lead the new inquiries. …
It is the second time a Swedish prosecutor has been overruled by a prosecutor of higher rank in relation to the claims against Mr Assange.
According to accounts the women gave to the police and friends, Swedish officials said, they had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual. One woman said that Mr. Assange had ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke. The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals for him to stop when it was no longer in use. …
One of the women, identified only as “Ms. A,” gave an interview to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Aug. 22 in which she said: “The charges against Assange are, of course, not orchestrated by the Pentagon. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a twisted attitude to women and a problem with taking ‘no’ for an answer.”
Jezebel has what you need to know about the WikiLeaks rape scandal. James Fallows cautiously ventures an “alert to a possibility that deserves consideration but that I can’t prove myself:”
It is worth reading in order the series of posts on the Fabius Maximus site — from earliest to latest here, here, here, and here — making the case that the “official” story of the rape accusations against Julian Assange of Wikileaks is too strange and coincidence-ridden to be easily believable. The first post in this series, more than a week ago, starts with a summary of his hypothesis: “The CIA used to overthrow governments. Now they cannot even frame a rape charge against the leader of Wikileaks.” Nothing is “proven” as of the latest update today; but individually and collectively, the posts do something most newspaper articles haven’t. They put the whole story together and say: this part doesn’t match that part, and this other part is extremely improbable, and if we’re to believe the official version, then the following ten coincidences must all have gone the same way.
I do not know the truth here and am not in a position to dig into it myself. But if his suggestions prove to be true, they would have wide ramifications, and they are worth being aware of now. (Also, see this summary today by the Atlantic’s Heather Horn.) So it becomes a test of which is harder to believe: That there was a conspiracy to frame Julian Assange? Or that there wasn’t?
Techmeme discussion around the BBC story.