Marcello Ferrada de Noli om Wikileaks
Professor: Mismanagement of the Assange case devastating to Sweden’s international reputation
The University of Adelaide’s Law School, Australia, has
publicly announced that Justice Stefan Lindskog “Chairman of the Supreme Court
of Sweden, Sweden's highest Court of Appeal will deliver a keynote public
lecture on the Assange affair, and freedom of speech, from the Swedish
perspective. As one of Sweden's most eminent jurists he is uniquely able to
provide an authoritative view of the Assange affair.“
It is of course not completely known what will be the
final content of his address at Adelaide, scheduled for April the 3, 2013. But the
fact that the event has been announced as officially sponsored “in association
with the Embassy of Sweden” indicates on the other hand a new interference by
the Swedish government in the juridical case.
Stefan Lindskog has himself declared in Financial Review
that his public note will be dealing with such political issues (i.e. human
rights, freedom of expression) “from the Swedish perspective” and specifically
relating to the case Assange. Considering that this is a case under
investigation by ranks in the Swedish legal system; and that they have
manifested they are studying the possibility of indictment (Assange HAS NOT
been charged), the public statements of a chairman of the Supreme Court prior
to that formal decision from the prosecutors is highly noteworthy.
It must be noted that Stefan Lindskog shares the opinion
- as referred by Justice Marianne Lundius – that “the role of (Supreme Court)
judges, by a matter of principle, is not compatible with the role of engaging
themselves in criminal investigations”. This was said in the context of
declarations with regard to the investigation of Olof Palme assassination.
Since the instigation of this case against Mr. Assange,
Swedish media has worked as an arm of the Swedish State and perpetrated a Trial
by Media, which has been widely marked by hearsay, misinformation, and
attempted character assassination of Mr. Assange (see my article in Newsmill,
English text, “(Swedish) Media reports on Assange are untruthful and
identical”). The fact that the chairman of the highest court in Sweden is being
sponsored by the Embassy of Sweden in Australia to opine publicly on a case
that may come before his court has been widely commented in social media
reaching millions of international viewers and participants, yet neither the
Swedish media nor the Swedish authorities have mentioned the issue at all to
the Swedish public. The silence is deafening.
I recently delivered an invited lecture on human rights
at The University of Örebro, about some similar topics that are to be taken up
by Stefan Lindskog in Adelaide. In the presentation I listed facts that
seriously contradict the message of the “Swedish law and order” abiding
principle that Justice Stefan Lindskog is generally conveying in his column
“Julian Assange: Swedish Justice”.
In the first place, the Prime Minister of Sweden,
followed by prominent political leaders and journalists, has made declarations
on behalf of the accusers of Assange, directly intervening in the process,
which, as mentioned above, is still in the pre-investigation stage under one
prosecutor.
Secondly, this prosecutor unilaterally decided to reopen
the “case against Assange” at the initiative of the law firm run by the Swedish
politicians Thomas Bodström (former Minister of Justice) and Claes Borgström
(former Ombudsman on gender issues). They, together with the prosecutor of the
case, Marianne Ny, have been directly involved in government appointed
committees studying the enhancement of the sexual-offences legislation in
Sweden. However, when the prosecutor was reported for alleged irregularities in
the case Assange, this was rapidly dismissed on technical grounds by the
“Swedish legal system”.
Thirdly, in Sweden, “according to the law”, it is
forbidden for prosecutors to reveal the identity or details in cases of
sensitive accusations like the one against Assange. Once more I remind that
these are only allegations under investigation, not charges, no trial. However,
one prosecutor revealed the name of Julian Assange and details of the
accusations directly to the tabloid Expressen, which ran a front page smear
article on the basis of uninvestigated allegations. The prosecutor was reported
by human right organizations, but the Swedish legal system dismissed the case
against the prosecutor on technicalities.
Then we have the facts that are better known in the
international community about the interrogation-issue of Mr. Assange in London,
a procedure that has been flatly denied, without any juridical grounds, by the
Swedish prosecutors. Swedish prosecutors are fully able to go abroad to pursue
cases, including questioning. In fact, Swedish prosecutors and judges travelled
during 2012 all the way to Africa to put up a hearing in situ (in Africa)
regarding allegations against a person living in Sweden.
The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an initiative
revealed after the visit of Foreign Minister Carl Bildt to Australia, is behind
the unethical, opportunistic sponsoring of Justice Stefan Lindskog, of the
Supreme Court, traveling all the way to Australia in a bid to counter the
international embarrassment Sweden has suffered through its own actions in the
case Assange. They have chosen this route instead of ending the embarrassment
by ethically (and totally according to the Swedish law praxis) conducting the
interrogation of Assange in London, which is just a couple hours’ flight from
Stockholm. It is left to see whether Associate Professor Stefan Lindskog will
have an independent stance in spite of the official embassy sponsoring, and
whether such stance would or not represent prospective rulings of the Supreme
Court.
Let us make clear that Mr. Assange, through his legal
representatives, has stated that it is his wish to clear the Sweden case and
that he would come to Sweden if they guarantee no onward extradition to the
United States. Indeed, Ecuador’s decision for granting Mr. Assange asylum is
based in part on Sweden’s refusal to grant such assurances. In the case that
Mr. Assange would face extradition from Sweden, it is the Supreme Court,
chaired by Justice Stefan Lindskog, who would decide the legality of any extradition.
If extradition is ruled legal, then it would be up to the government to decide
whether to allow extradition.
Nevertheless, there are cases in which the Swedish government has
facilitated extrajudicial extraditions at the behest of the United States.
These are the cases of “extraordinary renditions” authorized by the Justice
Ministry and of the Foreign Office of Sweden. One of these cases was exposed
and occasioned the sanctions from the part of the UN against Sweden, for
serious violations against the Absolute Ban on Torture, which Sweden had
signed.
Justice Lindskog has announced he will be arguing around
the extradition-issue of Assange to the US. For that, he has prepared a long
list of law-paragraphs that he presented in Financial Review. Let me just
remind that in contrast with the legal wording of documents signed by Sweden on
matters of extradition, we have the praxis of the Swedish government. These
facts cannot possibly be washed away with a fancy lecture or a pseudo panel of
arranged questions and deceptive responses.
Sweden is not a neutral country. Rather, it is now fully
committed to Intelligence and military operations led by the US armed forces
Sweden participated actively with logistical and
engineering aid in the US bombardment of Iraq. Sweden participated in the
military surveillance of the bombardments of Libya, an initiative from the
government, which received the support of all the Swedish political parties
represented in Parliament, from the conservatives (Moderater) to the Left Party
(Vänster), and with the exception of Sweden Democrats (SD). Sweden is actively
participating, under the command of US, in the military occupation of
Afghanistan.
In connection to the above, WikiLeaks has exposed that
the Swedish surveillance-legislation (FRA-lagen) which, in spite of great
controversy, the government put forward in 2008, was a “made-to-order-job”
directly requested by the US government. Most recently, a legislation
initiative was put forth by the Swedish government aiming to protect the
interests of the countries with which Sweden has on-going collaboration. The
proposed legislation is also known as the anti-WikiLeaks legislation.
Whatever the concrete formulation of an indictment of
Assange in the US, it will be inevitably related to allegations of
whistleblowing military secrets, etc. Sweden, as a close military partner with
the US, has largely complied with and even collaborated on matters of
renditions of individuals regarded as enemies of the US. Swedish reporters have
revealed very recently, with sources independent of WikiLeaks, that Minister
Carl Bildt has been an informant of the US government for decades. These
episodes have irritated his old political partners of previous government
coalitions, who claim they did not know, and that they do not approve of
Bildt’s position as it has been revealed. However, it is none other than Carl
Bildt who is deciding extradition and rendition matters in Sweden. Let’s recall
that the recent rendition to the US of Swedes in Ethiopia, was done with the
knowledge of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in spite that Swedish
prosecutors have cleared these individuals from suspicions of being terrorists.
The words printed in the Swedish law books tell that
agreements with foreign powers compromising sovereignty-issues should be known
and approved by the Swedish Parliament. The current praxis has been, however,
that military intelligence endeavours such as gathering of information about
Swedish nationals is nowadays controlled by agreements of officials of the
Justice Ministry and of the Foreign Office of Sweden with US government
Intelligence organizations. This, totally unknown by the Swedish Parliament, is
one of the items exposed by WikiLeaks. A prominent journalist from Expressen, Mike
Ölander, wrote about these Intelligence tasks led by the US that the “Swedish
government officials got the impression that they were working under direct
orders of the CIA”.
Sweden’s real praxis on political extraditions is not
concerned with judges or legislation
If we now examine the praxis of Sweden in the issues of
political extraditions that Professor Stefan Lindskog will be referring in his
address:
To start with, referring to the US requests on
extraditions: Regardless of what is written in the multiple extradition
agreements mentioned by Stefan Lindskog, the reality in Sweden regarding
extradition is that, since over a decade, ALL THE CASES requested by the US of
individuals in Swedish territory to be extradited to the US were approved by Sweden.
Additionally, there are further treaties ruling extraditions issues between US
and Sweden, and which would enable Sweden to deliver Julian Assange to the US,
such as in the case he would be requested as a witness in the trial against
Bradley Manning.
Does the government of Sweden really need any written law
or agreement to comply with political requests of extraditions from the US,
particularly in the frame of “terrorist” accusations – such as Assange has been
named in the US, for instance Vice President Biden had likened Julian Assange
to a “high-tech terrorist”; and his Republican counterpart Sarah Palin, former
US Vice Presidential Candidate declared, “Julian Assange should be targeted
like the Taliban”.
Sweden’s unsavoury behaviour regarding political
extraditions can be traced through the historical record. Over half of the 4
000 Russians refugees that Sweden secretly extradited at the request of Stalin
were soldiers in the Red Army who fled to Sweden after being confined in German
camps, for which they were refugees in Sweden
(see “Interpellation 2001/02:12” of the Swedish Parliament; the
corresponding link Interpellation 2001/02:12 Riksdagen has now been removed).
Also in the post war year Sweden extradited ca. 150 Baltic soldiers to the
Soviet Union, and they clearly were political refugees in Sweden. These
extraditions proceeded despite there being “no legal ground for the extradition
according to the Hague Conventions”, which Sweden had also signed.
Episode after episode (see my article “In the history of
Swedish extradition of political prisoners to foreign powers“) indicate that
what Sweden signs about extraditions, what is “written in the law” and the
jurists repeat, are in drastic contradiction with the praxis executed by Sweden
in their secret agreements with foreign powers.
During the last years Sweden has been taken countless
times upon the European Court for the extradition/deportation of political
refugees that have face such ominous fate at arrival in their original
countries, after being airborne there with the escort of Swedish police. In
many cases the deported have encountered immediately arresting upon arrival. I
know about also because I have professionally participated in the past with
documentation on diagnostic assessments on behalf of those refugees, whose
cases have eventually been taken to such European tribunals.
Politically appointed judges
Further, in Sweden, the majority of judges in the lower
courts (of the kind that would eventually try the Assange case if it goes to
court) are appointed by the established political parties. It must be
understood here that those established parties – according to the Swedish
praxis of political consensus on issues of foreign policy - are backing the
government on geopolitical issues according to the Bildt doctrine, and it is
alleged that the organization WikiLeaks and his founder Julian Assange are
compromising the national interests of Sweden. In these lines, the Swedish
military establishment spreads (i.e. the statements of Mike Winnerstig, at the
time Deputy Director of Research, Swedish Defence Research Agency – institution
under the Swedish Ministry of Defence) in the state owned television the false
notion that WikiLeaks and Assange are “blackmailing Sweden”, and also
suggesting that WikiLeaks would be favouring Russian interests while focusing
in the exposure of NATO. The state-owned Swedish National Television (SvT), in
its turn, has equated Julian Assange “Sweden’s
No. One Enemy”. The Trial by Media against Assange has been compact. So
far no judge, no prosecutor, no legal authority whatsoever has protested about
these events, and we therefor wondered: What guarantees of a fair trial could
Assange expect in Sweden?
Now Judge Lindskog have declared abroad, although - to
the best of my knowledge - not in Sweden:
"At the end of the day, many years from now, I think
Assange will not, even in Sweden, be associated with his efforts to escape the
laws of Sweden. He will be thought of as the person who made public some pieces
of classified information to the benefit of mankind. Crimes against humanity
such as the [WikiLeaks images of Iraqi civilians being killed in a] helicopter
shooting need to be made known. The good made by leakage of such information
cannot be underestimated. It should never be a crime to make crimes of state
known."
This may be a promising development. We will listen with
much care and interest to Justice Stefan Lindskog’s keynote public lecture on
the Assange affair. And we really hope that, in honouring the Swedish
perspective, he will be addressing also the issues mentioned here. The
mismanagement of the Assange case has been devastating to Sweden’s
international reputation and to the credibility of its legal system. A positive
outcome of Justice Lindskog’s public presentation would be to tell the
international community the complete truth about this case. Justice Lindskog
may have an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate that at least Swedish
professors, such as him, have independent academic voices and are not, as
otherwise customarily read in Swedish media, instruments and actors of an
uncritical consensus, which definitely do not help this noble Nation.
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