Anna Ardin Has Left Sweden and May Not Co-operate With Prosecution

In an article in Crikey an Australian email daily Guy Rundle writes that Anna Ardin who is one of the two complainants against Assange has left Sweden. She may have ceased co-operation with the Swedish prosecution service and her own lawyer according to sources in Sweden. Of course the sources are not identified so the degree of credibility involved in this report still needs to be determined. Pending further verification these are just rumors.

Perhaps the move is not surprising. In spite of Ardin being a feminist not all feminists are sympathetic to her case especially given the details as they have been described so far.
Naomi Klein, Naomi WolfNaomi Wolf, and the European group Women Against Rape have all questioned the nature of the case and the actual purpose of the prosecution.Ardin is now in the West Bank as part of a Christian outreach group which is attempting to reconcile Palestinians and Israelis. Good luck! Imagine a Christian group trying to reconcile Israelis and Palestinians. She is in a small town that apparently is often besieged by Jewish settlers. The paper Crikey tried to connect to her by phone, fax, email and twitter but was unsuccessful.

Ardin's latest twitter feed reads: "CIA agent, rabid feminist / Muslim lover, a Christian fundamentalist, frigid & fatally in love with a man, can you be all that at the same time ..." At least she still seems to retain a sense of humor! An earlier tweet seemed to imply that she still supported Wikileaks after financial institutions withdrew services. She said:"Mastercard, Visa and Paypal - hit it, now!"*

It was a source from Ardin's old university of Uppsala who reported rumours that she had stopped co-operating with the prosecution service several weeks ago, and that this was part of the reason for the long delay in proceeding with charges - and what still appears to be an absence of charges. However obviously the international warrant was issued to question Assange on potential charges.

There have been reports showing she worked for anti-Castro feminist groups in Cuba and other aspects of her work that have led some to think she is a CIA agent. She is associated with Christian brotherhood faction of the Social Democratic party. She is associated with all sorts of causes from Latin America to animal liberation. Ardin seems to be a nomad wandering from one cause to another. Perhaps she does not care about the funding of a group just being on the ground and working with them. Who knows?

Naomi Klein's tweet ties what Ardin is doing with feminists support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. She tweets:"R-pe is being used in the #Assange prosecution in the same way that women's freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up! #wikilieaks"In The Huffington Post, Naomi Wolf posted a hilarious article asking Interpol to apprehend every date she's had who turned out to be a narcissistic jerk. There seems to be a split among feminists. Feminists such as Klein are attuned to the connections between state funded feminist groups and U.S imperial aims. On the other hand Ardin is either deliberately co-opted or what seems more likely is that she just does not care.

The lawyer for the two women defended the case against them. He also said that he was in daily contact with the women--even though Crikey can't reach Ardin.

The Guardian (UK) provides an opinion on the case for extradition from Raj Joshi an export on extradition:"On what we know so far, it is going to be very difficult to extradite. The judge has to be satisfied that the conduct equals an extraditable offence and that there are no legal bars to extradition."Assange's team will argue, how can the conduct equal an extraditable offence if the [Swedish] prosecutor doesn't think there is enough evidence to charge, and still has not charged."

If Joshi is correct the game plan may to be to hold Assange long enough in the UK to prepare charges and documents for his extradition to the U.S. But then we should know after the 14 the of December when Assange will appear in court again what the next steps will be. Assange's lawyer has been denied access to Assange until Monday just one day before the next hearing. This gives him very little time to prepare his case. No doubt this was intended.



Source :
http://www.allvoices.com