How Julian Assange was entrapped

by Pavel Telyagin • Colonel Cassad • Opinions
Note: This is a very conservative voice, and we do not quite agree with it on several aspects, but the value here is in the piecing together of what looks like an irrefutable case of entrapment by Western intel services with Swedish judicial collaboration.  (If you know Russian, check out the original on Colonel Cassad's blog, as the translation is of poor quality and we had a tough time making it legible to anglophone audiences.)
Translated from Russian by Google with minor edits. The gist of the story is clear —People's Information Bureau (PIB)

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The story of how Julian Assange came to Sweden at the invitation of Swedish newspapers and hackers, then fled from Sweden from the courts is generally known to many. He had too idealistic a view of Sweden and fell into a “honey trap” in a country where he hoped to find refuge from the United States and their special services. Alas, the US special services in many other countries cannot even dream of the level of assistance provided by Swedish lawyers.

The idea of coming to Sweden in August with the aim of finding a job in the newspapers was particularly stupid, but this is obvious only to someone who knows Sweden, not to an outsider: to look for work in August in Sweden, as Assange did, is completely useless -- all bosses are traditionally on vacation. In addition to this detail in the case of Assange, there are several important features of Sweden which are obvious only to those who know this country well. These features should be considered more carefully - with them the whole story with the charges against Assange will sparkle with new colors.

Another important feature of Sweden is that all mainstream media are controlled by just three players: the state, the Bonnier group and the Schibsted group. It’s completely useless to get a job there for an Assange-type dissident -- everyone is quickly forced to write “as it should” and work “as expected.”

Assange's offer to work in a Swedish newspaper was just a pretext to lure him to the country and to the apartment of Anna Ardin, who was a key player in this whole fairy tale, with many invisible faces.

The first side: the soul and brain of the honey trap Anna Ardin -- a lesson on how to be everything at once…

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Anna Ardin is the woman who in July 2010 invited Julian Assange to Sweden, promising that he would quickly find work in the free liberal Swedish media. Now one can only complain that an experienced dissident (with experience of nomadic and secret life) Assange did not check her biography, did not find there any obvious oddities.

Anna Ardin combines many opposites: she is a progressive humanist, a former lecturer at Uppsala University (diploma in politics, defended at the government department), trained and worked at Swedish embassies abroad. She is a vegan and animal rights defender, a Social Democrat and a member of the workers' ruling party in Sweden (although the party was originally composed of atheists). But at the same time she is supposedly a Christian (this is in a country where 85% are non-believers!) And one of the secretaries of the youth Christian wing of the party! She is one of the "believers of the ecumenical Komsomol" board for all religions -- the Brotherhood of Swedish Christian Social Democrats group (Broderskapsrörelsen Sveriges Kristna socialdemokratet). Their program documents and atypical slogans speak best about them: “We are Christian Social Democrats. We are a little redder, a little greener. We are Christian left and radical believers who are for peace, solidarity and justice. ”

Anna Ardin is against adultery and for feminism. At university she read a course on feminism, intimidated male students with complaints of harassment, and taught students how to file [against] a former boyfriend for breaking up or cheating with the police, calling it “seven steps to legal revenge"; she also described in her blog, backed by reasoning, that in her opinion revenge is not prohibited for Christians. It remains only to marvel at how convenient and flexible Christian principles are for such ambitious people as Anna…
However, feminist and Christian Anna Ardin loves to travel to Palestine with humanitarian missions to poor Palestinians without even talking about the rights of local women, and especially about criticism of polygamy in Islam. She loves being photographed there in a scarf and baggy dresses, like some Islamist's wife. And she even defends her right to dress like this. Talk about split personality and splitting of consciousness!

However, the most interesting thing for us is that she is an agent of the American special services, she was expelled from Cuba by Cuban counter-intelligence as a spy. In 2005–07, Anna Ardin was associated with the pro-American feminist group Las Damas de Blanco -- “Ladies in White”. But the leader of this group, is a man, not a woman (which is especially interesting for the feminist movement) by the name of Carlos Alberto Montaner and he is associated with the CIA. Already this information alone would have been enough for Assange to stay away from Anna Ardin. Alas, he did not have this information…

How Assange was trapped

Anna invited Julian to Sweden in August 2010, brightly described to him the opportunity to get a job as a journalist in the free Swedish press. She offered Assange to live in her two room apartment in the bohemian district of Stockholm, Södermalm, while she was away, which Assange did when he entered there on 11 August. On August 13, Anna “accidentally” arrived earlier and “found” Assange in her apartment. They had dinner, and then decided that they would be able to live in this apartment together. That night an intimacy occurred, which then (August 20) was declared by Anna to the police as “harassment”, later described by her in detail during the interrogation on August 21. Then, with the help of experienced lawyers, this event was reclassified many times, each time "legally true."

During her stay in Sweden, Anna Ardin was proud of her closeness to him, she happily wrote about it on social networks, including during that “rape”. Then she erased all these messages, but people managed to keep copies of the cache file of August 19th.

Why didn’t she file a complaint with the police immediately after such a brazen crime committed by a visiting tour performer Assange (who at any moment could leave again)? As the lawyer of the [supposedly] injured women (more below about him) explained later: “because of the lack of legal education, the victims simply did not know that it was rape, [and] they could not determine the fact of rape without the help of a lawyer. And with his help and with his explanations, suddenly everything became clear to them at once! How complicated modern life has become - nowhere can we get too far without a lawyer…

There was one glitch: Anna Ardin skillfully controlled all Asange's working contacts in Sweden ... but, alas, not love ones. Here and there competitors showed up (which she had arrogantly overlooked, apparently believing herself irresistible). This betrayal by Assange apparently hurt Anna deeply; there was now a personal interest in punishing him with “the revenge of 7 steps” in her own statements.

The next day, after dinner with crayfish and intimacy with Anna, at a joint seminar in Stockholm (the presentation was organized by Anna Ardin) Assange -- not on his own initiative -- met a certain Sofia Wilén. Her later statement to the police suggests she was just a "groupie" attracted to celebrities. She helped Assange with a laptop cable right before the seminar, spending her time and money, but didn’t even get a “thank you” from him. She pestered Anna Ardin to find out when and how it would be possible to talk with Assange after the seminar. Anna simply dismissed her. After a long wait in the background, Sofia was able to start a conversation with Assange only on the street, and inviting herself  to dinner with Anna and his new friends. During lunch, Assange finally paid attention to her, and Sophia offered him to buy a charger for his laptop. Everyone broke up, and Sophia and Assange went to look for a charger in the stores. After buying a charger, Sofia invited Assange to the State Museum of Natural History (Naturhistoriska Riksmuséet), where she worked. Their hot erotic adventures began right while watching a popular science film in the non-empty Cosmonova auditorium (aka planetarium) of this museum. After the film, they stepped out into the garden, where Assange slept in the embrace of Sofia. Only then she finally got a bit of his attention and his phone number. Then she escorted Assange through the entire city almost to the apartment of Anna Ardin.

Reading the transcript of her statement in Swedish, I involuntarily felt sorry for the police investigators, listening to her irrepressible stream of consciousness with intimate details about a very fast, turbulent affair with Assange — these investigators clearly were not trained for such work, they obviously didn't expect to defend their Swedish fellow citizens from such tedious crimes. Their constant sniffing, "oh!", "Uh", "aha", "oh" in the right places in the transcript of the interrogation speak much more eloquently than you can imagine...

Assange, as if nothing had happened, returned to Anna's place and they began discussing plans for the evening. Especially interesting are two posts by Anna Ardin in a blog on the night of August 14 to 15, when Julian enjoyed the Swedish habit of eating crayfish dishes these days:

“Julian wants crayfish for dinner, will someone offer a couple of empty seats tonight or tomorrow?”

"We sit outside at 2 am, it's a little cold and I'm with the coolest smart people in the world, it's just amazing!"

After enjoying some cheerful company,  oblivious to the previous night's “rape”,  Anna and Assange were left alone in her apartment again, again enjoying each other.

On August 15, Assange met with activists from the Pirate Party, where it was decided that Anna Ardin would be Assange’s personal press secretary. And on August 16-17, Assange arrived and visited Sofia Wilen in the neighboring town of Enkoping (she paid for his train tickets). Assange enjoyed sex with her 2-3 times, once unprotected, later joking about Sofia’s fears and offering to call their possible future child a rare name: “Afghanistan”. Assange received a call from the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and was invited for an interview on the morning of August 18th. Sophia paid him again for the train ride back to Stockholm. Assange arrived in Stockholm and applied for a Swedish work visa (on October 18, his application was rejected).

On the evening of August 18, the tireless Assange in Anna Ardin’s apartment undressed and started approaching Anna for some intimacy, but she for some reason didn’t like it; she took the mattress and went to bed separately, outside the bedroom. On August 19, in the morning, Anna accidentally found out about Assange's affairs with Sophia Wilen from Sofia herself, answering her phone call. Only then, “the victim of rape,” Anna moved from her apartment to an apartment with friends and began to take revenge.

Time to go to the police...

On August 20, at about 2 pm, both women came to the police, complaining that Assange had unprotected sex with them on different days, but refused to do tests for sexually transmitted diseases (this is Sofia’s main fear since childhood, and Anna played it up). Assange was out of sight, but they themselves could not find him, they also failed to contact him by phone. Therefore, he must be caught and forced to take tests.

There are transcripts of Sofia Wilen's statement of August 20 and Anna Ardin's of August 21. There is a statement by Anna Ardin herself. This statement was already backdated by phone by Anna, according to Swedish police officer Sara Wennerblom. It says bluntly: “I myself freely agreed to have sex with Assange, but I would not have done this if I had known that he did not have a condom with him.” Senior Prosecutor Eva Finne looked at this document, read this passage several times and logically decided: there was no crime against Anna Ardin.

With Sofia Wilen's statement everything is more complicated. Later it turned out that police officer Irmeli Crans (Irmeli Krans), quite accidentally an old girlfriend of Anna Ardin's, lived like Anna Ardin in Stockholm, in the same bohemian district of Södermalm, which had quite accidentally stepped in at this time to change in the police station of the Klara district in the center of Stockholm. It was she who took Sofia’s statement about the rape at the Clara police station from 16:21 to 18:40. This plot has nothing to do with Anna’s residence, Sofia’s residence, or the “crime” place. Here everything is by chance, so completely by chance, that there is nowhere else. But this is not the most interesting thing!

Irmeli Crans on Facebook among more than a thousand friends has a lot of high society and the country's elite, especially journalists and diplomats (including Swedish diplomats in Moscow). Yes, Anna Ardin knew where to lead Sophia, where and to whom to apply! She and Irmeli were once elected to the municipal council for the Social Democrats, Anna took 12th place, and Irmeli took only 38th place. All appeals and lawyers of Assange and activists to the police leadership and prosecutors about the incompetence of interrogations, conflicts of interests, friendly relations between the victim and the interrogator Irmeli Crans did not yield anything. Police Superindendent Ulf Göransson (Ulf Göranzon) told the Expressen newspaper in March 2011: “Since I have no other facts than rumors, I will not comment on this.” It seems that he doesn’t know how to use Facebook friends search (although he has a profile there) -- would go into the profile of Irmeli Krans, type there in search of friends “Anna Ardin” and there she is, a strong female friendship.

Officer Irmeli Krans is like Anna Ardin a feminist, but not just a feminist - she is also a fighter for the rights of sexual minorities, a lesbian, a member of a gay police union (www.gaypolisen.se/). Blog Irmeli Crans (now erased, but something else from her left on other sites) was full of pictures from the gay parades in Tallinn, Riga and Stockholm, she was in the night gay club Feber on Fr. Gotland, which on July 20, 2007, was solemnly opened by Anna Ardin “with comrades” (http://rixstep.com/1/20110311,00.00).

Later it turned out that the police, represented by Irmeli, interviewed both women together, which is prohibited by the rules of investigation and Swedish law. The police stubbornly denied this, but the facts are as follows: Anna Ardin was present at the Sofia Wilen survey. The most interesting thing is that the police did not have either the text or the record of that poll by Sofia on August 20, ostensibly there was no dictaphone in the entire precinct! Irmeli Krans was removed from the investigation as being too biased and her boss Mats Gehlin took up the business. He decided to check the records of Sophia’s testimony and the correctness of the protocol, but instead of accessing the document, he received a message from Irmeli: “I don’t want an unsigned document with my name circulating in the DurTvå electronic archive. Especially now, when this business is developing. ”The chief had to put pressure on Irmeli for several days, until she agreed to submit to her immediate superior - what an interesting subordination they have there in the central police stations of Stockholm! But by the time Irmeli condescended to the requests of her boss, the electronic archive of DurTvå refused to allow her to change the records unnoticed (there is a special defense against falsification of backdating police documents). She had to create a new protocol allegedly of the survey of Sofia Wilen dated August 26. From the old survey on August 20, nothing remained in the police database, if anything at all. Even the signature of Sophia Wilen of August 20 is not there. A year later, Irmeli, for these gross violations of the rules for interviewing and registering applications for crime, they were sued.

But all these flaws in the protocol did not prevent the prosecutor of the city, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, on the evening of August 20, on the basis of one phone call from the police (before the end of the interrogation of the victims) to issue an arrest for Assange on August 20. A group of human rights activists then filed a protest through the ombudsman of justice against this prosecutor for a detention order without clear grounds.

The same evening, a journalist moving in parliamentary and government circles, received an SMS from someone in the police about the sensational accusation against Assange, requested documents from the police, and by the morning of August 21 the Swedish newspaper Express had published a sensational news story about the accusations against Assange of rape and harassment. By 8 am on August 21, the case was transferred to the senior prosecutor. By 5 pm on August 21, despite the day off, the senior prosecutor Eva Finné, having talked over the phone with the prosecutor on duty who made the decision (they refuse to tell the press what they were talking about), suddenly suspended the rape charges and the arrest warrant was canceled.

On 25 August, Senior Prosecutor Eva Finne again reviewed both cases and decided to close the rape investigations, but left suspicions of “harassment”. On August 27, Feminist lawyer Klaes Borgström was brought in to handle the case; he immediately appealed the decision of the prosecutor Eva Finne and demanded that the rape case be reinstated.

On August 30, Assange was interrogated by the police. The case was resumed only on September 1, by the higher prosecutor Marianne Ny of Gothenburg and her deputy Erica Leinefors (Erika Lejnefors). This is Erica, then, on September 13, who suddenly decided that there were suspicions about 4 cases of rape. But then it was all done by another prosecutor from another city, Marianne Neu.

Then in the case of Assange, a legal circus began: on September 14, Marianne Neu informed Assange that he could leave Sweden freely. On September 21, she contacted his lawyer about the new interrogation of Assange. On September 27, she decided that there are suspicions about sexual harassment, and decided to interrogate Assange remotely.

On October 10, forensic experts inform the police and the prosecutor's office that there are no traces of Assange's DNA on the main “physical evidence” - on the used condoms from Anna Ardin's apartment (like this!). But on condoms from Sofia Wilen's apartment there are traces of Assange's DNA. For some reason, the criminologists didn’t file the official report until October 25th. On October 28, the police discussed with the criminalists strange conclusions of the examination and even doubt the "authenticity of material evidence." We will not go into these biological details, we only note that multi-page examinations could not answer the “question of the century”: why did the condom break in Anna Ardin's apartment? And only by November 18, the arrest warrant for Assange on suspicion of rape and other sexual charges is issued again. On November 24, the arrest warrant for Assange becomes international. On December 7, Assange is detained in Britain, on December 16 he is released on bail, he lives in Britain for half a year and tries to avoid extradition to Sweden. From June 19, 2011 Assange is hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Yes, Anna Ardin managed to do a lot: she lured Assange to Sweden to her apartment, and she didn’t accidentally find her rival not very intelligent, and even assisted her to the correct police department to get matters moving. And, after collecting strange "material evidence" in her apartment, she then used her connections not only with the police, but also in other circles. But only 3 times this “rape” case was brought to a real arrest - when it was no longer Anna Ardin, but the Swedish legal mafia who found the “right” prosecutor. Note that in some countries, prosecutors are so corrupt and obedient, that it would not be necessary to go through three prosecutors - the first prosecutor would easily declare Assange to be the source of hell.

Anne Ardin is the most obvious case of the unmasked US agent (who completed the Assange mission almost 90%). An agent who does not hide at all, but works in humanitarian organizations in his beloved Middle East. Continuously promotes twitter.com/therealardin on Twitter and is used to the idea of protecting all Muslim refugees across all borders, running a fanatical blog http://ardin.se/ annaardin.wordpress.com/, fighting for the rights of all, participating in politics from the Christian wing of the Social Democrats, constantly criticizing the "Nazis" and the "racists" of Sweden, even the local Jews.

One thing is completely incomprehensible: what does she live for?

The second line: the Swedish legal mafia, which hunted Assange

Number 1 in this mafia: the already mentioned feminist prosecutor Marianne Ny, allegedly a specialist in sexual crimes and a political activist, who reopened the case against Assange on September 1 and unexpectedly issued a warrant for Assange on November 18, 2010, after waiting 27 days after his last interrogation. In principle, she was not supposed to decide the fate of Assange, as she works in Gothenburg, while she constantly lives supposedly in the south of Sweden, in the resort town of Bromölla (Bromölla) - there is such a way in Sweden to get a tax rebate from home from work (and pay for rent a temporary apartment), but not in Stockholm! She resolved the issue of reviewing Assange’s case for a month and a half, dragged out time, and then suddenly issued an international arrest warrant.

This may seem ridiculous, but even in September 2016, prosecutor Marianne Ny again officially stated that Assange should be detained and brought to Sweden (the statute of limitations for rape will expire only in 2020). What has changed now, in May 2017? Why is the Assange criminal case suddenly closed by the Swedish prosecutor's office?

Number 2 in this mafia: Ostensibly not familiar with the prosecutor Marianne Ny, the lawyer of the "injured" women, the famous feminist, the left politician, also a Social Democrat, then very well-known lawyer Claes Borgström. This lawyer managed, after two closings of the Assange case on the fact of “lack of corpus delicti,” to push the protest higher and appoint a review of the case at the prosecutor’s development center (Åklagarmyndighetens utvecklingscentrum) in Gothenburg, where his acquaintance, the prosecutor Marianne Ny, took up the matter.

Claes Borgström has an interesting biography: he, the son of the ombudsman, received a law degree, worked as a lawyer, in 1992-2000 he was the chairman of the disciplinary committee of the Swedish Bar Association, in 2000-2007 he became (like his father) an ombudsman, but on gender equality. After this extraordinary career, he is now the owner of an expensive law firm http://www.advokatborgstrom.se/, which he founded on shares with his friend Thomas (below).

Number 3 in this mafia: A close friend, colleague, comrade Klaesa and Minister of Justice in 2000-2006, Thomas Lennart Bodström. Provided support to the entire process over Assange in the press and in government circles, since he is the son of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (you can say an aristocrat), a former football player, the Minister of Justice of Sweden in 2000-06, in 2006-2010, the secretary of the committee of justice in parliament. And then also just Borge's partner in a law firm in the center of the capital. Since 2014, Thomas seems to have split his firm into another: http://advbyra.se/ ... But, this is only the accountant's, as separate addresses for these firms is still common.

By the way, Thomas is familiar with the same Irmeli Crans (also Krantz?) from the police who interrogated Sophia Wilen first.

Number 4, etc. In addition, the pro-American adviser to the government and the Swedish Prime Minister personally since 2010, Karl Rove, invisibly steered all support from justice. This fraternity certainly has other accomplices from the Ministry of Justice.

These two (Claes Borgström and Tomas Budström) are sufficiently connected to make us marvel: how they promoted each other to different posts and then took each other to work. And most importantly, how they covered their own in a dirty story with a fake of the investigation into the case of Thomas Quick in 1990-2001.

Claes Borgstrom (being the chairman of the disciplinary committee of the Swedish Bar Association) was a lawyer for a Swedish psycho named Thomas Quick. This psycho loved fame and pretended to be a maniac. Claes persuaded this psycho "to cooperate with the investigation" and thus performed the work of a lawyer on the contrary - he hung up on his client crimes that he did not commit! Police and prosecutors were also involved in this unpleasant business. Kwick's case is a disgrace for the Swedish legal system: 8 murders of 1964-1993 were pinned on an innocent man with the help of “brilliant” interrogations under the drug Benzodiazepin. Under such a drug you can confess to the Kennedy murders. Poor Kwick took those deaths with great enthusiasm, having learned the clues of the investigation. Then the “law enforcers” got into the act and another 10–20 corpses from all over Scandinavia were going to be pinned on him, but then the Norwegian police were outraged and said: “don’t touch our bodies!”

Only in 2009-2013, when both Claes and Thomas lost their influence, were the relatives of Kwick able to release an innocent person through the courts. The police investigator, on his own initiative, repented of fraud and resigned, but the prosecutor did not, and still stubbornly believes that this psycho still killed, “but not everyone whose death he was accused of”. None of this legal mafia was particularly affected, as seen in their careers. Thomas Bodström was Minister of Justice from 2000 to 2006 and managed to save them all from punishment.

So in this small, but very tight circle of the Swedish legal elite, I saw the principle “that one hand washes the other and both wash the face”— familiar to us in Russia and a striking resemblance to our realities and exclaimed: Well, just like ours!

We live in a rather cramped world, entangled by global media that seem to be informing us about this world. Alas, we often have unclear and even incorrect information about other countries. The story of Assange, who has been developing alternative media since 2006, shows that even such a “citizen of the world” and information wars gurus can be trapped in a seemingly neutral and safe country, of which he did not even have a rough idea of the true mechanisms at work.

PS. Assange, of course, is also to blame for being caught in the networks that had been deployed against him - indiscriminate sex and the lack of necessary precautions in dealing with unfamiliar people were brought to the Zugunderra. At the same time, the fabricated nature of the case against him is quite obvious and highly indicative of how all the clients of the “empire of good” revealed themselves joyfully approving the arrest of a man who pulled out a hegemon's dirty laundry. In relation to the arrest of Assange in a liberal environment, you can clearly judge that this public will approve anything that is beneficial to American interests.

See also: Assange’s stitch-up is a lesson for us all