As long-time readers know, I tend to avoid news stories about celebrities or people in the public eye if the stories feel like a breach of the individual’s privacy. The ongoing investigation of Julian Assange on molestation charges in Sweden is a bit of an exception – not because I enjoy reading about or referring to allegations of misconduct, but because Assange raised the possibility that there was a Pentagon plot to discredit him and because in Sweden, it seems that law enforcement makes copies of police reports available to the media.
And so a redacted copy of the police report on Assange is being reported and discussed in the overseas media now. By the end of today, I expect most Ameircan news sources will have also picked up the story.
Angella Johnson of the Daily Mail in the UK reports on the contents of the partially redacted police reports. The complaints by the two women — both of which seem to involve failure to engage in safe sex and refusal to subsequently take a test for STDs — would probably not rise to a criminal complaint here. Perhaps Swedish women are more inclined to file criminal complaints for unsafe sex than American women are, or perhaps they did so because Assange is in the public eye, but in any event, the complaints suggest that there was no political dirty tricks afoot here and that those who jumped to pointing a finger at the Pentagon probably erred. Other than possibly embarrassing him as an inconsiderate sexual partner, there’s really not much there. Move along.
Photo Credit: Esther Dyson, Flickr, used under Creative Commons License.
Update: Well, it seems that the Swedish prosecutor is still viewing the matter as possible rape and has re-opened the investigation. The BBC also covers the development:
Public Prosecutions Director Marianne Ny said there was “reason to believe a crime has been committed” and that the crime was classified as rape.