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Julian Assange: rapist or not?

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Skeptic Ginger said:
That's all well and good but as far as my position (there are many positions here) it is a straw man.

It's not date rape that I'm saying didn't happen.

First, how do you prove the women's accounts are truthful?
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You investigate. You know, the thing Sweden is trying to do. How does this objection differ from other cases? Should other allegations not be investigated because women could be lying?

And if you can't prove it in a court, why waste all these resources on trying to?
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And how do you know if you can prove it in court? Though an investigation. At least two courts have said there is enough there to continue investigating.

Even if the date rape scenario were true, and it couldn't be proved in court, it happens. Life is not fair. The legal system is not perfect.

If the claims of the women were false, and it JA was found guilty, life wouldn't be fair to him either.
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So why bother trying to figure it out right? This is something I object to highly. There are imperfections in the system crying out to be addressed, but you don't address them by simply giving up. Good police work and techniques can be employed to increase the rates of valid convictions for rape besides either just giving up, or assuming rape victims always tell the truth. If memory serves, this was you position in other rape threads.

The bottom line, why is the default position here that they are describing exactly what happened, no exaggerations and no adjusted stories in order to meet a legal standard?
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Because that's not true, that's a straw man you've repeated continually despite being corrected at every turn.


My assessment of the scenario puts a lot of weight on the fact these women did not complain until they learned about each other, and, they initially only wanted JA to get an HIV test and he brushed them off.

It has nothing to do with date rape not being a real crime.
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See, that seems to make them more credible in my view. They just wanted some minimal reinsurance that they weren't harmed more than they already felt they were. Then they learned that some rape myths they apparently believed weren't true and what they reported did match sexual assault.

You certainly have minimized date rape and 'rape by surprise' in your posts. You've objected to it being called rape, brought up standard rape apologetic about the women really wanting it if they didn't object enough at the time and possible jealous motivations, and in doing so reinforced rape myths. I'm sure you don't believe you have, but you have. You've been quoted at it. There is no context that obviates the use of these discredited arguments surrounding rape.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
The case is completely in the public sphere.
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No, it's not. Sweden has some pretty extreme rules on making information publicly available, but even they don't make ongoing police investigations a matter of public record.

Do you think the prosecutor has secret evidence?
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"Secret"? No. "Unpublished"1? Possibly, but I'm not in a position to know and neither are you.

[1] Or rather, "not known to the public", as the prosecutor hasn't published anything -- the evidence we do know they have is known from leaks, not publication.
 
BenBurch said:
The default position is that all allegations deserve full legal process. No more than that. And no less than that.
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And what is that? What is the prosecutor possibly going to find that is not already known? You keep asserting this. I find it a blind assertion.

The facts are known. JA answered an hour of questions.

What are the possible things this magical "full" investigation could possibly uncover?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
And what is that? What is the prosecutor possibly going to find that is not already known? You keep asserting this. I find it a blind assertion.

The facts are known. JA answered an hour of questions.

What are the possible things this magical "full" investigation could possibly uncover?
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Please read paragraphs 142 and 144 in the High Court judgement. (I can't copy the relevant text from this document).
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
What are the possible things this magical "full" investigation could possibly uncover?
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There's a lot of of possible things that could be uncovered by an investigation. That's rather the point of an investigation -- we go in with a lot of possibilities and we come out with, well, hopefully at least fewer possibilities.

Look, two separate people have laid specific charges against a named person, and the easily verifiable parts of their story (Assange's identity and that he was in the given locations at the given times) are consistent with known facts. The police would be remiss if they didn't at least do a thorough questioning of the alleged perpetrator -- and no, a one hour interview is not a thorough questioning.

Now, granted, maybe nothing will come off that questioning. He says X, they say Y and there's no way to know which is true. Still, it does happen that people confess or incriminate themselves under questioning, so it's worth actually conducting the interrogation before concluding that nothing will come of it.
 
nathan said:
Wow, just wow. For someone who just posted a hyperbolic anecdote about a married couple. Just wow.
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Oh yeah, I forgot the old, 'consented to other acts so probably consented to this too' chestnut in my list of apologetics.
 
It's only rape if the so-called rapist has different political views than I do. Otherwise the women are sluts and golddiggers and were asking for it anyway.
 
Per Samuelsson - JAs legal counsel in Sweden (after Hurtig made a fool of himself in Magistrates court) has writting in the comments is free section in the Guardian.
Per Samuelsson said:
My client Julian Assange would not get a fair trial in Sweden
I have enough experience of the Swedish legal system to know its poor treatment of suspects marks them out as guilty
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From a quick read through - this is just a translation of what he wrote in Svenska Dagbladet a month ago.

There he was answered by one professor of law (Mårten Schultz) and one director in the prosecution authority.

I don't have the time to translate all of their writings, but some of what Mårten Schultz wrote is available in English in his blog entry.

Regarding the criticism from UN, those that want to know more may find this blog post by Jeremy Duns interesting to read.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
And what is that? What is the prosecutor possibly going to find that is not already known? You keep asserting this. I find it a blind assertion.

The facts are known. JA answered an hour of questions.

What are the possible things this magical "full" investigation could possibly uncover?
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I'd love to live in your world where police can talk with a suspect for one hour only and know everything they will ever find out about what he can tell them.

You can't seriously believe that, can you?
 
WildCat said:
It's only rape if the so-called rapist has different political views than I do. Otherwise the women are sluts and golddiggers and were asking for it anyway.
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I think it's not exactly that. It's the idea that if the FBI/CIA/NSA/MIB are after somebody, anything that happens to that person has to be some sort of a plot, or so it seems to me.

I wonder why they don't extend their thinking to ask why he was lured into the Ecuadorian embassy? ;)
 
Korren said:
There's a lot of of possible things that could be uncovered by an investigation. That's rather the point of an investigation -- we go in with a lot of possibilities and we come out with, well, hopefully at least fewer possibilities.

Look, two separate people have laid specific charges against a named person, and the easily verifiable parts of their story (Assange's identity and that he was in the given locations at the given times) are consistent with known facts. The police would be remiss if they didn't at least do a thorough questioning of the alleged perpetrator -- and no, a one hour interview is not a thorough questioning.

Now, granted, maybe nothing will come off that questioning. He says X, they say Y and there's no way to know which is true. Still, it does happen that people confess or incriminate themselves under questioning, so it's worth actually conducting the interrogation before concluding that nothing will come of it.
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What you are saying is reasonable. What I don't understand is why they haven't been able to question him for the last 2 years, he's been under house arrest, they've had ample opportunities.
 
Silhouette said:
What you are saying is reasonable. What I don't understand is why they haven't been able to question him for the last 2 years, he's been under house arrest, they've had ample opportunities.
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You can read about it in the court documents I've linked to, but from what I understand, it comes down to several things:

The prosecutors want him in Sweden, since they may want to do several questions sessions, and in between talk to other people.

He has put up specific requirements - for example to gain access to all of the investigation documentation which may not be shared until/if he's charged.

Sweden started the EAW when it wasn't possible to reach him and agree on a date for a meeting.


In the courts documents from the Magistrates Court and the High court you can read more.

JAs legal team argued about this before the courts, but the UK courts did not agree with them, and decided that he should return to Sweden.
 
Korren said:
There's a lot of of possible things that could be uncovered by an investigation. That's rather the point of an investigation -- we go in with a lot of possibilities and we come out with, well, hopefully at least fewer possibilities.

Look, two separate people have laid specific charges against a named person, and the easily verifiable parts of their story (Assange's identity and that he was in the given locations at the given times) are consistent with known facts. The police would be remiss if they didn't at least do a thorough questioning of the alleged perpetrator -- and no, a one hour interview is not a thorough questioning.

Now, granted, maybe nothing will come off that questioning. He says X, they say Y and there's no way to know which is true. Still, it does happen that people confess or incriminate themselves under questioning, so it's worth actually conducting the interrogation before concluding that nothing will come of it.
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This sounds like a 'Romney', my new slang for a long answer that says nothing.

That JA had sex with these women is not in question. The women gave their story, Assange said it was consensual. One of the women had a condom no DNA was found on.

I'll ask again, hypothetically, what is possibly left to discover?
 
BenBurch said:
I'd love to live in your world where police can talk with a suspect for one hour only and know everything they will ever find out about what he can tell them.

You can't seriously believe that, can you?
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I asked you for examples of things the police could uncover talking to JA more and you had none.

Oh, and your straw man exaggeration is duly noted.
 
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