POLITIK & SAMHÄLLE
Artikel av William Butt publicerad 23 nov 2011 kl. 12.05:


Foto: flickr/espenmoe (BY CC 2.0)

Julian Assange should listen to me

"If you continue to provoke Sweden, despite it's known faults (especially in cases like your's) the tabloid media here will gladly construct the cross for your eventual crucifixion."
If he is to wangle himself out of the legal dilemma he finds himself in, it is imperative that Julian Assange gets a grip of himself very quickly and starts to understand a few things about the political, legal and media infrastructure of not only Sweden, but also of the European Union. The first thing he ought to do is to get rid of most of the people who he is paying for the bad advice they are giving him! He is welcome to listen to me, because my advice is free of charge and it is based on my having lived in Sweden for almost four decades and also on my having gone through almost the exact same type of situation which Julian himself is facing. 18 years ago I was wrongfully sentenced to a term of imprisonment for alleged rapes which never took place - the case is well known in Sweden.

If Julian Assange's expensive British lawyers had been as keen about their client's best interests as they were in exploiting the situation in order to fill their own coffers, they would have listened to the advice given them by their Swedish colleague Mr Björn Hurtig. Anyone with an ounce of basic knowledge about European Law knows that that it is easier for camel to go through the eyes of a needle than for the legal system of one EU member state to reject an extradition order requested by another member state, especially if, as is the case here, an arrest warrant is issued by a High Court in the applying member state. Instead of giving Julian Assange the best advice, his previous lawyer Mark "the shark" Stephens spent 90% of his time badmouthing the Swedish justice system and increasing his own ridiculous guise in the British media. If Stephens had been a better lawyer than the media clown he showed himself to be, he would have advised Julian Assange to go to Sweden quietly from the start of this circus. The whole matter would have been over and done with ages ago, and the damage which has been caused to Julian Assange's trademark would have been minimal. But by listening to Stephens who spent more time badmouthing Swedish prosecutors rather than concentrating on the legal situation at hand, Julian made his own bed which he is now forced to lie in.

So my advice to Mr Assange is this: Get all those fantasies about CIA conspiracies out of your mind. They don't exist! Get to grips with the fact that you are the unfortunate subject of a common everyday date-rape case in modern day Sweden. Fire all your UK lawyers and take a taxi out to London's Heathrow Airport and get on the first plane to Stockholm, and do what you should have done from the very first day. This way you will regain the confidence of the Swedish jurists whose prestige your expensive British lawyers have managed to provoke the hell out of!

If you do this, the chances are the Swedish media will look at you in a favourable way, and the legal system will give you credit for having come to your senses. But if you continue to provoke Sweden, despite it's known faults (especially in cases like your's) the tabloid media here will gladly construct the cross for your eventual crucifixion. This is how things work in Sweden. If you do it the right way, you can survive this situation. Believe me - I am living proof of that fact!