Julian Assange - WikiLeaks (35 page)

He had arrived in Stockholm three days earlier on Wednesday, August 11, 2010. While Julian was in Sweden, he stayed with the political secretary of the
Broderskap
, Anna Ardin. He had never met this young thirty-one-year-old woman: until then they had only had phone and e-mail contact. Anna suggested he stay at her place as she'd be out of town until the day of the conference.

Since Sweden represented an interesting territory for Julian and WikiLeaks, Julian had to benefit from his visit in order to figure out how to implement his organization. Sweden has many laws that protect the media, although Iceland was the first basis of the organization and still boasts one of WikiLeaks' management companies,
Sunshine Press
.

The day after his arrival on Thursday, August 12, 2010, Julian had dinner with committed militants in favor of open governance, as well as with an American journalist who wanted to discuss his upcoming book on the Bush clan. They both ended up at the Beirut Café. The journalist in question was American Dexter Filkins of
The New York Times.
(He joined
The New Yorker
in December 2010.) He's also the author of
The Forever War
, which relates his experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anna, the lovely blonde, was supposed to come back on Saturday, August 14, 2010, but came back a day earlier. Julian
was at her place when she arrived. They talked, got acquainted and decided that they could get along.

The young woman's blog profile read: “Political scientist, communicator, entrepreneur and freelance writer with specific knowledge in faith & politics, gender issues, feminism and Latin America.” She got her major from the Department of Government at Uppsala University in Sweden where she did her thesis on the Cuban Government.

That night they had dinner in a restaurant close to her place. Anna told
The Guardian
how the rest of the evening went once they got back to her apartment:

“When they sat and drank tea, Assange began caressing her leg before breaking her necklace and ripping off her clothes. She tried to put some clothes back on again because things were going too fast and it felt uncomfortable, Assange immediately took her clothes off again. She actually didn't want to go any further but it was too late to say ‘stop' to Assange when she'd gone along with it this far, so she let Assange fully undress her
.”

Then she realized that Julian wanted to sleep with her without using protection. She tried several times to reach for a condom, but he stopped her by holding her arms and grabbing her legs. He finally let her go and agreed to use a condom, but Anna didn't feel safe. While they had sex, the condom tore and Julian ejaculated without pulling out. Anna was angry with him for not having stopped at that point.

The next day at LO-borgen, Julian was the main speaker of the
War and the Role of the Media
seminar. After a brief introduction
from Peter Weiderud, President of the
Broderskap
, the founder of WikiLeaks walked over to the lectern.

The president said, “The floor is yours.”

Julian settled in, adjusted the microphone and joked, “The floor is mine, but what about the screen?”

A young woman in the first row looked at him very attentively. She was fascinated and couldn't stop staring at the Number One of WikiLeaks. She was wearing a fuchsia cashmere sweater that couldn't go unnoticed. She seemed tall and sleek, her long, light brown hair was in a ponytail held by a turquoise elastic and she wore black glasses. Sofia Wilén was twenty-seven. She observed and listened, as did the rest of the room.

Everyone was taken by Julian's words. The president was sitting in front of a big screen, facing the audience, with a console separating the two men. Anna Ardin was on the left, with her laptop in front of her. Julian was behind the lectern to the right of Weiderud, and addressed the audience from the side. Wilén repeatedly shot pictures of Julian with her camera during the entire conference, which lasted an hour and a half.

A few weeks prior to the conference, Sofia Wilén discovered Julian on television in a report concerning WikiLeaks. She was fascinated by the man right off and was intrigued by his organization. She had told her friends she thought he was “interesting, brave and admirable.” From that day on, she continued to follow his career very closely and become a fervent admirer of WikiLeaks.

One night she searched on Google and found out he was supposed to go to Stockholm. Without delay Sofia told the
Broderskap,
which was organizing the conference, that she wanted to participate in the event, but unfortunately for her, she never got a reply. Later, she found the announcement about
the seminar and decided to take a day off that Saturday to go to Stockholm to hear Julian speak.

“I was there on time and was able to meet Assange. He came to me and asked if I could help him find a cable for his laptop.”

The young woman immediately jumped into a taxi and ran to buy a cable. She came back just in time for the conference.

Julian spoke for an hour and a half, his audience was captivated and focused. He spoke calmly, while projecting data onto the big screen. There were a few technical glitches, but he laughed them off. Anna, who had spent the previous night with him, was there to help him like an improvised press agent for the cause.

The conference ended around 2 p.m. with a Q&A session and the president thanked the audience as well as Julian for the successful seminar. The meeting finished on a humorous note when Peter Weiderud asked his guest: “Will you come back to Sweden soon?” Julian said how much he liked Sweden, but smiling that “Sweden is very nice in the summer, but in the winter, it's a whole different story.”

Everyone laughed and applauded warmly. A few journalists were there to interview Julian. The crowd dispersed, but a young woman stayed behind. “She was bit strange, wanting to get Julian's attention. Nobody really knew who she was,” one of the participants said afterward. “When everyone was gone, she was still there.”

Julian, a couple of friends, and a few Christian Democrats went to have lunch at Bistro Bohème on Drottninggatan Street, and Sofia was there as well. During lunch, Julian sat close to her. He put his arm around her shoulder and asked her if she could buy him a charger for his computer. Sofia was flattered
and by then it was obvious that Julian was coming on to her. The attraction was indeed mutual.

They left the bistro together and went to see the movie
Deep Sea
at the Cosmonova, a 3D movie theater in Stockholm. They sat in the back row of the movie theater and made out during the film. They even held hands. Julian thought she was very attractive. He kissed her and groped her under her clothes.

In the mean time, Anna had finished organizing the
kräftskiva
(‘crayfish party') in Julian's honor, a traditional Swedish party usually held in August, which is all about eating crayfish and drinking.

When they left the movie theater, Sofia and Julian took the subway again up to Zinkensdamm station. From there, Julian left the young woman and took a taxi to get to the
kräftskiva
organized by Anna. Before he took off, Sofia asked, “Will we see each other again?” To which Julian answered, “Of course.”

Sofia went home by train to Enköping, a small town of thirty-eight thousand inhabitants in Uppsala county, located eighty thousand kilometers North West of Stockholm. It took her an hour to get home. Once at her apartment, Sofia received a text message from Julian. She called him; he was still at the party. They talked for a long while and sent each other text messages throughout the entire evening.

On Sunday, August 15, 2010 Sofia talked to her colleagues about the fabulous time she had had with “the most popular journalist in the world.” According to them, the ball was now in her court as to whether she would see him again or not. She tried to call him, but didn't get an answer; his phone was turned off. That day
he didn't answer any calls because he was with Rick Falkvinge and Anna Troberg of the Pirate Party for a photo shoot organized through their connection and in support of WikiLeaks.

The young woman tried contacting Julian again on Monday, August 16. He answered her call. He had a meeting the same evening, but he agreed to meet up with her at 8:30 p.m. She jumped at the opportunity and traipsed downtown Stockholm waiting around for him. Around 9 p.m., he hadn't called her back, so she decided to call him. Julian was on Hornsgatan Street, where his meeting had just ended. He asked her to meet him there and Sofia came running.

The couple finally met up and headed for Old Town. They sat down on a park bench in Munkbron Square. They had a nice long conversation then took the train back to Sofia's place in Enköping. She bought two train tickets for one hundred and seven
kronor
(about seventeen dollars), as he didn't have any money on him and didn't want to use his credit card for fear of it being traced. Julian spent most of the train trip focused on his laptop and ignoring Sofia.

At the apartment, Julian and Sofia climbed into bed together. They started having sex, but Julian didn't want to use a condom. Sofia pulled back because she didn't want to have unprotected sex. Julian lost interest in her and fell asleep. Later on, they woke up during the night and had sex, as Julian reluctantly accepted to wear a condom.

In the morning, she went out to buy breakfast then went back to bed and fell asleep next to Julian. She woke up with him trying to have sex with her and asked him to put on a condom, which he refused. She quipped that he'd better not have AIDS. He reassured her that he obviously did not. She was annoyed with again having to ask him to wear a condom, because she had spent the whole
night asking him to do so. Sofia had never had unprotected sex before and so, was understandably very upset with Julian.

When they got out of bed she offered him a bowl of cereal and some fruit juice. They made jokes that she could be pregnant. Sofia didn't like the stress of the situation and made a few sarcastic remarks in a positive way to cut the tension.

On Sofia's bicycle, they went back to the train station. Julian had to get back to Stockholm to meet with Agneta Lindblom Hulthén, President of the Swedish Union of Journalists. Julian pushed back his meeting with her at 4 p.m. Sofia dropped him off at the station and bought him another train ticket. He was still broke. He promised to call her again.

On Wednesday, August 18 2010, the mood darkened. Sofia contacted Anna to tell her that she had had unprotected sex with Julian and was very angry that he didn't use a condom. She was afraid of having been infected with an STD or potentially contracting AIDS or being pregnant. Anna then told her that she'd also had sex with Julian the night before his conference at LO-borgen and that Julian had sexually assaulted her.

The same day Anna told Julian that he was no longer welcome at her place, but he refused to leave. After calling Sofia, Anna called a close collaborator of WikiLeaks in Sweden to tell him that she wanted Julian out of her place. She pointed out that Julian refused to leave and had even been sleeping in her bed even though they were not sleeping together. It was true, Julian kept staying at her place, but he spent most of his nights in front of the computer. The friend called to ask Julian why he wouldn't leave. The man was surprised that Anna was asking him to leave. However, Anna said that Julian had sexually harassed her. That
same night he had walked toward her naked from the waist down and started rubbing up against her.

The very next day and the day after, the momentum of the events picked up. The two women sent each other text messages and decided to meet to compare notes. As for Julian, he was still staying in Anna's apartment, refusing to leave.

Anna asked the collaborator to convince Julian to take an STD test to reassure Sofia. Julian refused. Anna then threatened him by saying that Sofia would go to the police. He refused to comply with the blackmail.

On Friday, August 20, 2010, it had been a week since the founder of WikiLeaks was sleeping at Anna's place, except for the night he spent in Enköping with Sofia. Julian finally left. He claimed that Anna had in fact never asked him to leave before that day.

The two women met that afternoon at 2 p.m. They went to a police station in the center of Stockholm to ask for advice. They wanted to know whether they could force Julian to take an STD test. Six days had gone by since Julian spoke at the conference held in LO-borgen.

“I immediately believed her account because I had an experience similar to hers.”

The nights Julian Assange spent in Sweden ended up having some serious repercussions. When Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén showed up at the Klara police station in downtown Stockholm on Friday, August 20 2010, they basically turned Julian's life upside down.

How did Sofia find Anna in the first place? And why did she contact her? The two women claim they met on Facebook. However, they both attended the same seminar at LO-borgen, the one where Anna played the role of improvised press agent after having spent the night with the founder of WikiLeaks and where Sofia did everything she could to attract the same man's attention.

That afternoon the two women met and compared stories. They arrived together at the police station at 2 p.m. Their first intention was to ask for some advice. Anna accompanied Sofia for moral support and helped her with her statement.

They talked to a female police officer. Sofia's statement read as follows:

“I was raped in my home on the morning of Tuesday, August 17, 2010 by a man who had sex with me against my will.”

She wanted to know if it were possible to force Julian to take an STD test. Anna, who had only gone along for moral support, said that she had sex with the same man, and that in her case the man in question had torn the condom on purpose.

Anna didn't realize that the police officer wanted her to report her case whether she wanted to or not. She had good reason to believe that Anna had been raped. The officer listened to them separately and submitted a report of rape. The officer concluded that both women were victims: Sofia had been raped and Anna had been sexually assaulted. Their stories confirmed that in Sofia's case Julian refused to wear a condom and in Anna's case he sabotaged the condom.