2013-11-29 Assange Statement on Anakata Extradition

Statement by WikiLeaks Publisher Julian Assange concerning Sweden's extradition of WikiLeaks consultant Gottfrid "Anakata" Svartholm Warg:

"It is time someone says it like it is: Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is a political prisoner and Sweden has fallen off the map of decent nations in its treatment of him. Gottfrid has always been ideologically driven to inform the world; he worked tirelessly to help WikiLeaks expose the slaughter of civilians in Iraq by a US helicopter gunship and was responsible for an important part of our infrastructure."

"There are thousands of alleged cyber criminals, but instead of dealing with these cases, we see vast resources diverted yet again by the Swedish state into smashing Gottfrid. These attempts include the first trial of Gottfrid after US pressure (extensively documented in US embassy cables here released by WikiLeaks), his subsequent rendering from Cambodia by the Swedish intelligence service SAPO, his months of incommunicado detention in Sweden, and now his irregular extradition to Denmark - for a charge he was just acquitted of."

"Stop Playing the Swede"

"What is going on is obvious to anyone who cares to look; Gottfrid is being treated differently from everyone else because the Swedish state perceives him to have mocked its security complex and the United States. But within the insular, conformist world of Stockholm what has happened to Gottfrid is so demeaning to Swedish prestige, that like Sweden's CIA rendition program, it is literally unspeakable. This Swedish social and political phenomenon has been so bad, for so long, that even the Spanish have a popular saying: 'Stop playing the Swede' - stop pretending that you don't know what is going on. Instead of detailing the breakdown of the rule of law in Gottfrid's case, Sweden's national broadcaster takes pleasure in fantasies of Gottfrid's future suffering: joking at length on air about the years of prison rape Gottfrid might have ahead of him."

Links:

For more information see Anakata's mother's twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/KSvartholm

Letter by Anakata's mother, Kristina Svartholm, to Fair Trials International (August 2013):
http://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/KSvartholm_to_FTI.pdf

Background on the Danish extradition:
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founders-imminent-extradition-raises-...

Swedish prosecution documents against Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, released May 2013: http://wikileaks.org/gottfrid-docs/