Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Wiki-Warrant












Have you seen this man? If so, please contact Interpol, which has issued a "Red Notice" (see below) to request the assistance of its 188 member countries in locating Assange with a view to his arrest and extradition to Sweden. Prosecutors there would like to speak with him regarding certain allegations of sex crimes.



Wanted
ASSANGE, Julian Paul
Legal Status

Present family name: ASSANGE
Forename: JULIAN PAUL
Sex: MALE
Date of birth: 3 July 1971 (39 years old)
Place of birth: TOWNSVILLE, Australia
Language spoken: English
Nationality: Australia

Offences

Categories of Offences: SEX CRIMES
Arrest Warrant Issued by: INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC PROSECUTION OFFICE IN GOTHENBURG / Sweden

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONTACT

YOUR NATIONAL OR LOCAL POLICE



GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF INTERPOL


©Interpol, 1 December 2010.

7 comments:

Rob Pugh said...

I am Jack's utter lack of surprise.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

TSB said...

Irony of ironies, the Swedish prosecutor who is handling this case is herself being investigated by another Swedish government body for violating Assange's right to privacy by leaking inofrmation to the press.

Rob Pugh said...

For those playing the Julian Assange sex crime Bingo home game - first it existed. Then it didn't. Then they were going to arrest him. Then all charges are dropped. Now there's an Interpol notice. Two days after the release of massive batch of cables. I'll take the center square, to block, Alex.

Nothing to see here & nothing untowards. Move along. Though I am shocked - shocked! - to learn gambling was taking place here.

TSB said...

As best I can tell, there really are serious charges against Assange stemming from multiple incidents, and the prosecution has been forced, after several weeks of non-response to their request for a voluntary interview, to issue a warrant.

If I understand the charges correctly, they sound much worse in English translation, using words like "rape" and "coercion", than they actually are. They amount to successfully persuading two groupies to have consensual but misguided sex with him, and of refusing to wear a condom for the entire duration of a sex act. The specific charges seem to be fluctuating between rape and molestation, and that back-and-forth is reported as the rape charges being on and off and then on again.

It would have been much smarter for Assange to do a voluntary interview and try to settle the matter. With this warrant hanging over him, he won't be able to move freely from country to country, as he seems to like doing.

Rob Pugh said...

"It would have been much smarter for Assange to do a voluntary interview and try to settle the matter."

He submitted for an interview on Aug 31 and was interrogated. Additionally, he's made himself available for further interview, not being in country anymore, at the Swedish embassy or Scotland Yard or via video link "and that all of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor..."

I can't speak to the man's guilt or innocence about anything. But find the timing of the matter highly suspicious. 40 years after Watergate, people act as if a setup job by people in government is a philosophical impossibility.

TSB said...

Maybe it's a complicated conspiracy by the USG to retaliate against Assange, but I suspect his legal problems are more likely of a gonadal simplicity.

Rob Pugh said...

Probably. But given the 'here it is, now it isn't, back again' nature of the charges, the idea that some pressure is being brought to be some higher authority, I wouldn't be shocked by that either.