The story of Julian Assange’s asylum and arrest is about more than WikiLeaks.
Now that he has been expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces extradition to the United States over a charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
But he took refuge in the embassy in the first place because two women accused him of sex crimes.
In 2010, a Swedish woman initially referred to in the press as Miss A said that Assange had tampered with a condom during sex with her on a visit to Stockholm, essentially forcing her to have unprotected sex. She has since spoken publicly under her name, Anna Ardin. Another woman, referred to as Miss W, said that during the same visit, Assange had penetrated her without a condom while she was sleeping.
Assange denied the allegations, but a court in England, where he lived at the time, ruled that he should be extradited to Sweden to face investigation. So he sought political asylum in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. Eager to bolster its reputation as a defender of free speech (and probably to make things inconvenient for the US, with whom it was feuding), Ecuador granted Assange’s request, and he remained in the embassy until this week.
Ardin and Miss W, meanwhile, were treated with widespread skepticism, accused in the media of being “honeytraps” or of acting on jealousy. Left-wing thinkers from Michael Moore to Naomi Wolf defended Assange, with Moore calling the allegations “hooey.”
Now Swedish authorities are considering reopening the case. “We are hopeful that they will make the right decision” and request that Assange be extradited to Sweden “so that he will finally face justice,” said Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a lawyer for Miss W, in a statement to Vox.
If both Sweden and the US seek extradition, it would likely be up to the UK to decide where to send Assange — and a debate is brewing in England over where, if anywhere, British authorities should send him. Assange’s arrest could lead to a public reexamination of the sex crime allegations against him, allegations that might get a more serious hearing in the #MeToo era.
The sex crime allegations against Assange stem from a visit he made to Stockholm in August 2010, a few months after WikiLeaks gained international notoriety by publishing material leaked by then-Army private and whistleblower Chelsea Manning about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Assange was visiting Sweden to meet with a political group there; according to police documents viewed by the Guardian, Ardin said she set up his visit and hosted him in her apartment.
At her apartment, Ardin said he began stroking her leg, then removing her clothes, breaking her necklace in the process. She said she tried to put her clothes back on but he took them off again. She told police she then allowed Assange to undress her, because “it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far.”
Assange tried to have unprotected sex with her, she said, but she asked him to use a condom. He agreed, but, she said, he had “done something” to the condom so that it ripped before he ejaculated.
Assange told police that he had sex with Ardin but did not tear the condom, according to the Guardian.
