The End Of Secrecy_ The Rise And Fall Of WikiLeaks Part 6

This picture that emerged of US diplomatic dealings with Libya was thus richly textured and fascinating. It showed a superpower at work: cajoling, fixing, eavesdropping, manoeuvring and sometimes bullying. It also showed the dismayingly crazed att.i.tudes of a foreign ruler possessing both nuclear ambitions and a lucrative reservoir of the world's oil a truth which his own subjects would rarely be allowed to see. And, from the point of view of a domestic British reporter, it showed how limited the options open to the UK seemed to be despite its pretensions to punch above its weight in the world.

These doc.u.ments had to be treated carefully, Leigh realised. Some of the informants who described Gaddafi's idiosyncrasies would clearly have to have their ident.i.ties protected. Although the cables themselves were obviously genuine, it did not mean that the a.n.a.lysis and gossip reported therein were also always correct. And one had to bear in mind that the authors of these dispatches to Washington also had their own agendas. They wanted to impress. They wanted to promote their own views. Sometimes they simply wanted to demonstrate that they knew what was going on: diplomats, like journalists, were all too capable of turning a shallow lunch with a "contact" into a hot story, for career-enhancing reasons.

Nevertheless, with all these caveats, it was clear that America's secret diplomatic dealings over Libya were immensely revelatory. They were not only newsworthy, but also important. This was a picture of the world seen through a much less scrambled prism than usual. And there were more than another 100 countries to go! Leigh was plunging once more into the database bran-tub when his landline suddenly rang, breaking into the silence of the surrounding Highland hills. It was his London colleague Nick Davies, with a bewildering message. It was one that threatened to derail the entire WikiLeaks enterprise. "Julian's about to be arrested in Sweden!" he said "He's being accused of rape."

CHAPTER 12.

The world's most famous man

Sonja Braun's flat, Stockholm Friday 13 August 2010

"Sonja tried a number of times to reach for a condom, but a.s.sange stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs"

BRAUN TESTIMONY, SWEDISH POLICE DOSSIER.

The revelation that Julian a.s.sange had been accused of rape came as a bombsh.e.l.l. In a series of frantic overseas phone calls, Leigh and Davies attempted to piece together a history of the disastrous s.e.xual collisions that occurred in that Nordic high summer, which would eventually lead to Swedish prosecutors pursuing extradition of a.s.sange from Britain to face questioning over allegations of s.e.xual misconduct. No one had antic.i.p.ated this.

One thing is clear: on present evidence Julian a.s.sange is absolutely not a rapist as the term is understood by many that is, he does not practise, nor is he accused of, the premeditated and brutal s.e.xual violence that the word "rapist" evokes in tabloid headlines.

But during his time in London, a.s.sange did often seem to have a restlessly predatory att.i.tude towards women. It contrasted with his otherwise cool demeanour. a.s.sange's behaviour once even caused his own blonde lawyer, Jennifer Robinson from the firm of Finers Stephens Innocent, to blush brick-red. Gathered at the head of the stairs inside the Guardian Guardian building, a group of hungry reporters, with a.s.sange and a number of his legal team, were debating plans to go out and eat. "Shall we take the lawyers with us?" a journalist asked. a.s.sange leered at Robinson and said, "Let's just take the pretty one." building, a group of hungry reporters, with a.s.sange and a number of his legal team, were debating plans to go out and eat. "Shall we take the lawyers with us?" a journalist asked. a.s.sange leered at Robinson and said, "Let's just take the pretty one."

A WikiLeaks staffer confided later: "We've simply had to tell Julian he must stop making s.e.xually inappropriate remarks." Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, one of several exasperated women, said, charitably, that it was important to bear in mind the culture a.s.sange came from. She told the online Daily Beast Daily Beast: "Julian is brilliant in many ways, but he doesn't have very good social skills ... and he's a cla.s.sic Aussie in the sense that he's a bit of a male chauvinist."

Men like a.s.sange, who refer to women as "hotties", hail from the land of coa.r.s.e jokes about the one-eyed trouser snake a considerable contrast to sober Swedes, who are well-advanced in their understanding of women's s.e.xual rights.

The stage was thus set in Sweden for an ambiguous and, as it proved, highly controversial encounter.

On Wednesday 11 August a.s.sange flew in from London. That evening he dined out at the Beirut Cafe, a Lebanese restaurant in north Stockholm, one of a party of five. Present were 56-year-old Donald Bostrom, the Swedish journalist who was WikiLeaks' local connection, and his wife. The other pair round the table were Russ Baker, a US reporter with cropped grey hair who last year published a controversial book about the Bush family, and a woman friend with whom Baker was travelling. a.s.sange made such a brazen, though unsuccessful, play for this latter woman, according to those present, that a row broke out. "a.s.sange and Baker actually ended up squaring up to each other outside the restaurant," says one of those closely involved.

Bostrom says he felt uneasy for his celebrity friend. He warned a.s.sange that his behaviour was a security risk, for "he would not be the first great man to be brought down by a woman in a short skirt". Bostrom says that he could see that a.s.sange's notoriety and evident courage were proving remarkably attractive to women: "There's a bit of the rock star phenomenon about it. The world's most famous man, in some people's eyes. Really intelligent and that's attractive and he takes on the Pentagon. That's impressive to many. I could say the majority of women who come in contact with him fall completely. They become bewitched."

Friday the 13th lived up to its reputation, at least as far as a.s.sange was concerned. When his trip began, the celebrity leaker was staying in the suburb of Sodermalm, in an unoccupied Stockholm flat belonging to Sonja Braun (not her real name), a politically active 31-year-old official of the Brotherhood movement, a Christian group affiliated to the large Social Democrat party. Braun is a slim, dark-haired feminist who speaks English and was previously an equality officer at a top Swedish university. It was Braun who invited a.s.sange to come to Sweden and give a seminar, and indeed she seems to have specifically arranged that a.s.sange should sleep at her flat. Significantly, that flat has only one room and only one bed, say a.s.sange's lawyers.

Before a.s.sange's arrival, Braun called Bostrom, the journalist recalls. "We had never met before, and she says: 'h.e.l.lo, my name is Sonja Braun and I'm planning this seminar and I'll be away on a business trip and my flat will be empty and Julian could stay there. Would you suggest it?' It would be cheaper for the Brotherhood movement, who wouldn't need to pay hotel bills, and Julian would rather live in a flat than in a hotel, so I suggest it and he jumps at it. So I put the two of them together. I'm the middleman, so to speak. The idea was that Julian would live there up to the Friday, I think. The seminar was on Sat.u.r.day. Sonja was supposed to return on the Sat.u.r.day."

Braun decided to come back a day early, however. At this point, accounts begin to diverge. a.s.sange's lawyers supplied a brisk chronology to a later London court hearing, saying: "Braun arrives without explanation, takes him to dinner and invites him to bed. She supplies a condom and they have intercourse several times." The lawyers add tartly: "Early morning: Braun takes photograph of Julian asleep in her bed (unauthorised), later posted on the internet."

A rather different version was later given to police by Braun herself. According to her, it was a tale of a night of bad s.e.x, with one peculiar twist. The police doc.u.ment recorded: "As they sat drinking tea, a.s.sange stroked Sonja's leg. Sonja has stated that at no point earlier in the evening had a.s.sange attempted to press any physical attentions on her, which Sonja initially welcomed. Then, according to Sonja it all went very quickly. a.s.sange was heavy-handed and impatient. He pulled off her clothes and at the same time snapped her necklace. Sonja tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but a.s.sange ripped them off again. Sonja says that she didn't want to go any further but that it was too late to stop a.s.sange as she had gone along with it so far. She says that she felt she only had herself to blame, and so she allowed a.s.sange to take off her clothes."

This vigorous wooing does not sound out of character. Another woman in London who got involved with a.s.sange around the same time told the authors: "I kissed him. Then he started trying to rip my dress off. That was his approach."

Braun's complaints went further, however. According to the statement, she realised he was trying to have unprotected s.e.x with her. "She tried to wriggle her hips and cross her legs to stop penetration. Braun tried a number of times to reach for a condom but a.s.sange stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs and continued to try and enter her without a condom. Braun says that she was on the verge of tears and couldn't get hold of a condom and thought, 'This is going to end badly.'

"After a while, a.s.sange asked Sonja what it was she was reaching out for and why she was crossing her legs and she said she wanted him to put a condom on ... a.s.sange had by now released her arms and put on a condom that Sonja gave him. Sonja says she felt there was an unspoken resistance from a.s.sange which gave her the idea that he didn't like being told to do things."

Braun told the police that at some stage a.s.sange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed without withdrawing.

When he was later interviewed by police in Stockholm, a.s.sange agreed that he had had s.e.x with Braun but said he did not tear the condom. He told police that he had continued to sleep in her bed for the following week and she had never mentioned a torn condom.

At 9.30 the following morning, according to the a.s.sange camp, a journalist called to collect a.s.sange for the lecture. "He is amazed to find Braun there." She herself seemed embarra.s.sed, and actually denied having had s.e.x with him. Bostrom told police: "When someone asked, she joked that Julian was living in her flat and was sleeping in her bed, but that they hadn't had s.e.x. She said that he tried, but she refused." Much later, according to Bostrom, she sheepishly confessed that she did in fact have s.e.x with a.s.sange. Her explanation: "I was really proud of having the world's most famous man in my bed, and living in my flat."

At a.s.sange's 11am seminar, on the WikiLeaks theme that "Truth is the first casualty of war", Sonja Braun can be seen onstage in video footage. She appeared businesslike, if somewhat subdued.

Bostrom himself was beginning to wonder. At lunch after the seminar, he noted that Braun and a.s.sange were chatting in intimate tones: "She told me, laughing, that he was a strange guy who got up in the middle of the night to work on his laptop, and she's quite jokey about this. But then at the party she's sitting next to Julian and takes it up again ... 'Were you awake last night?' she says. And she says, 'I woke up and you had got out of bed, and I felt abandoned.' And it was just that word that caught my attention. Why did she feel abandoned if they weren't ..." His account tails off and changes direction. "Peter Weiderud [a Brotherhood official] says it's crayfish time in Sweden and Julian is here from abroad, so he should try Swedish crayfish." Braun then dutifully tweeted, at 2pm, "Julian wants to go to a crayfish party. Anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow?" The party was eventually arranged at her own flat at 7pm.

But a.s.sange had, it seems, found other fish to fry. Promising to show up later for the crayfish party, he left the lunch not with Braun but with another admirer in a bright pink sweater. With long blonde hair halfway down her back, 25-year-old Katrin Weiss (not her real name) is a worker at a local museum, or "some random woman" as Braun is later alleged to have described her.

In Weiss's witness statement, she explained that some weeks earlier she had seen a.s.sange on television and had followed the WikiLeaks news avidly thereafter. She thought a.s.sange "interesting, brave and admirable", had been Googling his name, and excitedly discovered he was actually coming to speak in Sweden. She was one of the first to sign up for his talk. "Sonja came up to Katrin and asked if she could help out by getting hold of a cable for Julian's computer. She then went and bought two cables just to make sure she had the right one. When she returned, he didn't even thank her."

However, Katrin did manage to parlay this into a chance to get closer to her hero. "She ... overheard that they were all going out to eat and asked if she could come too because she had been helping out. She then went with Sonja, Julian and some others to a restaurant." According to the statement, she sent excited texts to two friends from the restaurant to say she was with the Australian. "He looked at me!" she wrote in one. She took the opportunity to speak to him. "At one point when he had some cheese on a piece of flatbread, she asked if it was nice, and he reached over and fed it to her. Later he mentioned that he needed a charger for his laptop and she offered to help, as she had fixed him up with a cable earlier on. He took her round the waist and said, 'Yes, you got me a cable.' Katrin thought this was flattering and felt that he was now flirting with her."

a.s.sange's lawyers argue, however, that it was Katrin who "flirted with Julian". Bostrom says: "After all the journalists have disappeared we're left with this woman who I've never seen before. I get the impression that this is one of those, you know, groupies ... who are attracted by his stardust. I actually don't think she said much apart from when I asked her about how she got into contact with Sonja so I didn't give her much thought other than that she seemed interesting. She and Julian sat across from each other and spoke a bit ... I got the impression of a person who was fascinated by Julian."

After lunch, Weiss offered to hook him up to her own workplace computer. a.s.sange eventually tired of surfing the net and searching for tweets about himself on Katrin's computer at the museum, and they went to the cinema. "On the way, Julian stopped to pat some dogs, which Katrin thought was charming." He held her hand, he kissed her, and fondled her in the darkness of the back row. Before he caught a cab to shoot back to Braun's crayfish party, they exchanged phone numbers. He also hugged her, said he didn't want to leave, and, yes, he did want to see her again.

The crayfish party that night at Braun's flat appears to have had its tricky moments. One woman friend told the police she "asked Sonja whether she had slept with Julian ... Sonja said, 'Yes!' and seemed quite proud of it." Braun then tweeted, apparently enthusiastically, "Sitting outdoors at 2am, hardly freezing, with the world's coolest, smartest people." But meanwhile a.s.sange was discreetly chatting on the phone to Weiss. According to another female friend interviewed by the police, Kajsa, a.s.sange was simultaneously making approaches to her, which Braun did not take particularly well: "[Kajsa] wondered about the strange tension between Sonja and Julian, [who] was flirting with Kajsa and other girls. Kajsa asked Sonja if she was going to sleep with Julian. Sonja said she already had done and it was the worst s.e.x she's ever had. She told Kajsa that she could have him." Braun allegedly added something else: "Julian had held her hands down when they had s.e.x and it had been unpleasant. Not only had it been the world's worst screw it had also been violent." At 3am, according to Kajsa, a.s.sange actually tried to leave the party with her. Kajsa refused, she says.

The a.s.sange camp has a different take. They say Braun was acting "warmly" towards him. She was asked, they say, whether she wanted Julian to move out, but "insists that he stay ... She says: 'No it's not a problem, he is very welcome to stay here.'"

Donald Bostrom was at the do, but is not much help in shedding further light on events. It seems he was preoccupied with crustacea: "During the crayfish party, I mostly just sat and ate. I'm very fond of eating. There was talk about Julian moving and staying with another couple, but the general impression was that Julian would be staying with Sonja."

Braun shared a bed with a.s.sange again that night, but during the course of the weekend she spoke critically of him to another friend, Petra. She told her on the Sunday "they had not had s.e.x any more because Julian had exceeded the limits of what she felt she could accept ... She didn't feel safe ... Julian had been violent and had snapped her necklace. She thought he had torn [the condom] on purpose." Petra added that her friend had volunteered to her a lot of other off-putting information "about Julian not taking showers and not flushing the toilet".

The a.s.sange camp tell it differently. They say Sonja hosted dinner for a.s.sange that Sunday night. She spoke highly of him and again refused offers to house him elsewhere. The following day she phoned Bostrom, they claim, and joked ruefully that a.s.sange has become "their first adopted child" because she has insisted on washing his clothes, makes sure he eats properly and she feels like his stepmother. There has been no more s.e.xual intercourse, despite a.s.sange's efforts to win her round.

Meanwhile, Weiss has been vainly trying to get back in contact with a.s.sange: his mobile is frequently switched off. Among other things, he has been busy looking at how he might acquire Swedish residence and journalistic credentials. It is not until late on Tuesday 17 August that they meet up again. Weiss was later to give to police an account of what turned out to be an unhappy one-night stand.

"She agreed to wait for him, and after she was finished at work, she hung around town a bit. When she hadn't heard from him by nine, she called him and he said there was another meeting he had to go to, and that she should come to him there." When a.s.sange finally emerged, they agree to get the train together to Enkoping, the little town 50 miles away where she lives. He asked that Katrin pay for the tickets; it was too dangerous for him to use his credit card, he said. Weiss told the police that, on the train, he admitted he slept in Braun's bed after the crayfish party but made the unlikely claim that "Sonja only liked girls that she was lesbian".

It was midnight when they at last got home to Weiss's place. "They took off their shoes, but the relationship between them seemed to have cooled off. The pa.s.sion and the excitement had disappeared ... They brushed their teeth together, which seemed everyday and boring." a.s.sange pushed her vigorously on to the bed "to show he was a real man", Weiss told the police, but his heart plainly wasn't in it. a.s.sange suddenly turned over, went to sleep, and started snoring.

Weiss says she felt "rejected and shocked", and stayed awake, miserably texting her friend Maria. Maria recalls being "woken by a lot of texts from Katrin that were not positive. There had been bad s.e.x and Julian had not been nice. She said she would have to get tested because of his lengthy foreplay." Matters improved somewhat in the course of the night. Julian woke up and had successful s.e.x, grumbling about her insistence on a condom. He "muttered that he preferred her, rather than latex". In the early morning, he started ordering her about, demanding she fetch water and orange juice, and then sending her out to buy breakfast. Weiss testified she didn't much like leaving him alone in her flat. She said, "Be good," as she went out, leaving him sprawled emperor-like and naked on the bed, holding one of his mobile phones. He answered: "I'm always bad!"

While Weiss was at the shops purchasing breakfast, she took the opportunity to call her friend Maria. "Katrin said she was d.a.m.ned if she was going to buy all this stuff and just wait on him hand and foot." But she nevertheless went home, she says, cooked him porridge, climbed back into bed, and they had another go, using a condom. "They slept again and she woke with the realisation that he was inside her. She said, "Are you wearing anything?" and he answered, "You." She said, "You better not have HIV," and he answered, "Of course not." She knew it was too late, she said, as he was already inside her so she let him continue. She had never had unprotected s.e.x before. "She said: what if she got pregnant? And he replied that Sweden was a good place to bring up a child. She looked at him, shocked."

According to her testimony he added, flippantly, that they could call the baby "Afghanistan". The police report adds a strange and disturbing remark from Katrin: "He also said he often carried abortion pills but that they were actually sugar pills." Whatever did he mean? a.s.sange often seemed curiously proud of his prowess in paternity: he told friends during this time period that he had recently impregnated a Korean woman he met in Paris, and she was about to give birth.

This single night he spent with Katrin is the basis of a rape charge against a.s.sange. To have s.e.x with a sleeping or unconscious woman is a crime, both in Sweden and in the UK. The subsequent investigation collected testimony from Weiss's former boyfriend that she was particularly anxious to avoid the risks from unprotected s.e.x, and never allowed it. After a.s.sange headed back to Stockholm (she had to pay for his train ticket again), Weiss changed the stained sheets, which she thought were "disgusting", and got a morning-after pill from a chemist. "When she spoke to her friends, she realised that she had been the victim of a crime. She went to Danderyd University Hospital and from there to Sodersjukhuset (Stockholm South General Hospital) where she was tested with a so-called rape kit."

Katrin's friend Hanna, one of those she said she contacted that morning, takes up the story: "She said it had not been good and she had just wanted him to leave ... a.s.sange's personality had changed when he got home to her flat and Katrin regretted letting him stay there ... What bothered her was that a.s.sange had had unprotected s.e.x with her while she was asleep. He had also tried again and again to have unprotected s.e.x with her during the night. Hanna asked why Katrin hadn't pushed him away when she knew he wasn't wearing a condom and Katrin said she was too shocked and paralysed and didn't really know what was happening. Hanna is sure that she didn't just let it happen because he was famous, although it could have been significant that he was older. Hanna said that Katrin wanted a.s.sange to be tested for s.e.xually transmitted diseases."

The a.s.sange camp's account contradicts Weiss's version of events in at least one important respect. She describes buying the breakfast first, before the alleged rape occurred. They stated to the UK court that the breakfast shopping came not before, but "AFTER she claims that he had entered her without a condom". But a.s.sange does not dispute that he had condomless s.e.x while his partner was, as he puts it, "sleepy".

Once back in Stockholm, having stayed out all night, a.s.sange now had to return to the home of Sonja Braun, where he was still staying. According to Braun, to whom it seemed clear that he had spent the night with another woman, his approach to this delicate situation was unusual. "a.s.sange suddenly took all the clothes off the lower part of his body and rubbed Sonja with his erect p.e.n.i.s. Sonja says she thought this was strange and unpleasant behaviour. She no longer wanted a.s.sange to live in her flat, which he ignored."

As a result of this alleged incident, a.s.sange was later accused by the Swedes of "molestation". This would translate into the UK legal canon as "indecent a.s.sault" or, as it is now known, "s.e.xual touching". Braun says she slept on a mattress that night, and the next night stayed with friends.

Her friend Petra adds that on that Wednesday "although Sonja wanted Julian to leave her flat, he wouldn't". Braun did not seem frightened, however: "He wasn't aggressive or dangerous, she just wanted him out." Bostrom, meanwhile, recalls: "On the Wednesday, Sonja says, 'I want him to leave.' 'Well, tell him,' I say, and she says, 'I have done, but he won't.' So I confronted him with it. 'Sonja would like you to move out and says she has asked you.' He's surprised and says she hasn't said a word to him about it. So now it's like stereo one channel says one thing, the other channel says another." a.s.sange's version of events is completely different: "Bostrom remains in contact with Braun, who continues to insist Julian should stay with her, and speaks warmly of him."

Behind all the m.u.f.fled prose of police testimony, some clumsily translated from Swedish, anyone can see how electric the whole situation had become. All that was needed was for someone to bring the ends of the wires into contact. If Braun and Weiss were to get together, they might start to compare notes. Sparks would fly.

Katrin Weiss the very next day sent Sonja Braun a text message. Worried she might have caught a disease, Weiss was anxiously trying to renew contact with a.s.sange. She says she thought Braun might know where to find him. According to Braun's close friend Kajsa, "Sonja realised what had happened, and they met up." According to this witness: "Sonja said the other girl decided to go to the police and report Julian for rape and that Sonja would go along as support."

Braun's other friend, Petra, testified in similar terms. She said Braun rang her "and said she had met the other girl who had told her she had been raped by Julian. They had found many similarities between hers and Sonja's experience, and Julian wanted to have s.e.x with the other girl without a condom. Sonja said she didn't wish to have Julian charged, she just wanted to support the other girl. Petra said that the whole story was becoming more and more confused."

Bostrom was startled also to receive a phone call from Braun: "I can hear from her voice that it's something serious and she says, 'It's not true what I said [before], we did did have s.e.x.' Then she goes on and says that the other woman Katrin had called her and told her that Julian had been there and had s.e.x with her. On both occasions it was voluntary ... Katrin told her that the next morning Julian continued to want to have s.e.x with her without a condom. And she won't, and protests, but Julian continues in spite of her protests. have s.e.x.' Then she goes on and says that the other woman Katrin had called her and told her that Julian had been there and had s.e.x with her. On both occasions it was voluntary ... Katrin told her that the next morning Julian continued to want to have s.e.x with her without a condom. And she won't, and protests, but Julian continues in spite of her protests.

"'OK,' I say, quite dumbfounded at suddenly having this conversation. Sonja goes on: 'And I must tell you that we had s.e.x at an earlier stage at my place and to my surprise during the act, he tears the condom ... He has torn the condom and continues against my wishes."

Bostrom adds: "I believe that Sonja is very, very credible, so I won't discount it without speaking to Julian and confronting him with what this is all about what the h.e.l.l he thinks he's playing at ... They want Julian to take an Aids test otherwise they will report him, as they put it. They don't want to speak to Julian themselves. So she goes off with Katrin and we speak on the phone a few times and text a bit and I call Julian a couple of times."

Bostrom determinedly confronted a.s.sange: "And his reaction is one of shock. He doesn't understand it ... [He says,] 'Katrin didn't object at all,' and they had a 'nice time' ... And I'm really trying to press him here 'Did you take the condom off, did you rip the condom?' He doesn't understand any of it ... So there are two stories and I can't draw any conclusions ... Julian says that he doesn't understand, and that they just had normal s.e.x." Told that Katrin claims to have protested about his lack of a condom, "Julian becomes angry a number of times, saying that they just had normal s.e.x ... 'She did not [protest] ... It's lies, lies, lies!'" a.s.sange later a.s.sures Bostrom that he has talked to Katrin and he thinks this is all an over-reaction. "But I tell Julian that if he takes a test they won't report him and if he doesn't, they will."

It is common ground that a.s.sange at first refused to take an HIV test. Had he agreed, it seems unlikely that the subsequent legal dramas would have unfolded. Katrin's younger brother says a.s.sange had a conversation with his sister about it: "She asked Julian if he would get tested, and he said he didn't have time." Weiss was allegedly told that she would just have to take his word that he had no diseases. a.s.sange's lawyers dispute that. According to them, he said: "I can do a blood test but I don't want to be blackmailed ... I'd prefer to do it out of goodwill."

Bostrom told the Guardian Guardian subsequently: "I was a kind of middleman calling her, calling Julian. It went on for hours." Late on the Friday afternoon, a.s.sange finally agreed to take a test. But it was too late. The clinics had closed for the weekend. Braun phoned Bostrom to say that they have been to the police, who say they cannot simply tell a.s.sange to take a test. The police insist that their statements must be pa.s.sed to the duty prosecutor, and a call was put out for the arrest of an accused foreigner, Julian a.s.sange. subsequently: "I was a kind of middleman calling her, calling Julian. It went on for hours." Late on the Friday afternoon, a.s.sange finally agreed to take a test. But it was too late. The clinics had closed for the weekend. Braun phoned Bostrom to say that they have been to the police, who say they cannot simply tell a.s.sange to take a test. The police insist that their statements must be pa.s.sed to the duty prosecutor, and a call was put out for the arrest of an accused foreigner, Julian a.s.sange.

That night, the story about the allegations made against the man behind WikiLeaks leaked to the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen Expressen. Who leaked it? We don't know. The prosecutor, who later got into trouble for confirming the allegation, says it was put to her by the newspaper, which had apparently been tipped off.

As a result of this hectic Friday, when the following morning dawned, Sat.u.r.day 21 August, allegations that a.s.sange was wanted by police for "rape" had begun to be sprayed all over the world. In the electronic global village, anyone can become famous within 15 minutes. a.s.sange was in an unexpected predicament and his conviction that he had not "raped" anyone is perhaps understandable. But a.s.sange's new status as an international celebrity, as "the world's most famous man", was proving to be a cruelly double-edged sword. Journalists were demanding a reaction.

At 9.15am, he tweeted under the WikiLeaks name: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one." The following morning, he tweeted: "Reminder: US intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks as far back as 2008." In an interview, the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet Aftonbladet asked if he had had s.e.x with his two accusers. He replied: "Their ident.i.ties have been made anonymous so even I have no idea who they are." He added: "We have been warned that the Pentagon, for example, is thinking of deploying dirty tricks to ruin us." Yet a.s.sange must have realised which two women had been threatening to report him to the police. asked if he had had s.e.x with his two accusers. He replied: "Their ident.i.ties have been made anonymous so even I have no idea who they are." He added: "We have been warned that the Pentagon, for example, is thinking of deploying dirty tricks to ruin us." Yet a.s.sange must have realised which two women had been threatening to report him to the police.

This line of attack proved unwise. He must have known his statements were, at best, highly misleading. His conspiracy theory of a Pentagon "honeytrap" gave a hostage to fortune and it also appears to have infuriated the two women. The a.s.sange interview in Aftonbladet Aftonbladet was published on 22 August. When it appeared, Weiss's friend Maria told police, "Katrin was upset by the fuss, and very angry with Julian." Sonja, too, seemed exasperated, telling was published on 22 August. When it appeared, Weiss's friend Maria told police, "Katrin was upset by the fuss, and very angry with Julian." Sonja, too, seemed exasperated, telling Aftonbladet Aftonbladet: "The charges are of course not orchestrated either by the Pentagon or anyone else. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a warped att.i.tude to women, and a problem with taking 'no' for an answer." She added: "He is not violent and I do not feel threatened by him."

It took four months of stonewalling before a.s.sange would accept in public that there was no evidence of a "honeytrap". His lawyer, Mark Stephens, who had been using the phrase, had been misquoted, a.s.sange would finally explain to the BBC's Today Today programme on 21 December, and "that type of cla.s.sic Russian, Moscow thing ... is not probable". While still claiming that "powerful interests" could have pushed along the smears, he did at last concede: "That doesn't mean they got in there at the very beginning and fabricated them." programme on 21 December, and "that type of cla.s.sic Russian, Moscow thing ... is not probable". While still claiming that "powerful interests" could have pushed along the smears, he did at last concede: "That doesn't mean they got in there at the very beginning and fabricated them."

What appeared to be Plan B came next: depict the women's complaints as driven, if not by the CIA, then at least by a fit of man-hating. Once ensconced back in London, a.s.sange spoke dolefully to contacts about the strong approach Swedish officialdom took to s.e.x allegations: "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of fundamentalist feminism," he complained to friends. "One of the women has written many articles on taking revenge against men for infidelity, and is a notorious radical feminist," he told the London Times Times. His lawyers stirred into this conspiracy mix some unsubstantiated hints of financial greed: "Text messages from them ... speak of revenge and of the opportunity to make lots of money."

a.s.sange's money allegations link significantly to the contents of one official witness statement from Weiss's friend Maria, which may offer a more innocent explanation: "She remembered them talking about going to [the rival tabloid] Expressen Expressen, because Julian had spoken to Aftonbladet Aftonbladet himself. But this was just something they said, and had no intention of doing. Maria said Katrin had been contacted by an American newspaper and they had joked that she should get well paid." None of them ever did, apparently, sell their story to anyone. In any case, these conversations came after the women had already been to the police. himself. But this was just something they said, and had no intention of doing. Maria said Katrin had been contacted by an American newspaper and they had joked that she should get well paid." None of them ever did, apparently, sell their story to anyone. In any case, these conversations came after the women had already been to the police.

a.s.sange then shifted to what appeared to be Plan C. This was to characterise the complaining women as feather-brained types who "got into a tizzy" and were "bamboozled": "The suggestion is they went to the police for advice and they did not want to make a complaint. What they say is that they found out they were mutual lovers of mine, and they had unprotected s.e.x, and they got into a tizzy about whether there was a possibility of s.e.xually transmitted diseases, and they went to the police to have a test ... A ridiculous thing to go to the police about," he told Today Today. "One of the witnesses, one of the friends of one of those women, she says that one of the women states that she was bamboozled into this by police and others. These women may be victims in this process."

Swedish prosecutors were later to be criticised for a clumsy, or even sinister, handling of the case. A duty prosecutor ordered an arrest that same Friday night. Over the weekend, senior prosecutor Eva Finne, in Stockholm, withdrew the "rape" accusations involving both women, to be replaced on 24 August with an investigation into a less serious and non-arrestable charge equivalent to "s.e.xual hara.s.sment", confined solely to the case of Sonja Braun. On 30 August, therefore, 10 days after the storm broke, a.s.sange voluntarily turned up for a formal interview with the police, to relive his short and ultimately calamitous spell as Braun's house-guest.

Present were a detective, Mats Gehlin from the Klara police station family violence unit, and a lawyer.

a.s.sange: Between the 13th and 14th August, I, as you put it, deliberately tore a condom during intercourse?Police: How do you react to that?a.s.sange: It's not true.

He agreed that something had been said at the time, the police account notes. "Sonja looked at the sheet and saw that it was wet and said, 'Look at that,' and Julian answered, 'It must be you' ... Julian just thought she was pointing to it as an indication of how loving the s.e.x had been although she spoke as if it came from him ... Then they didn't discuss it any more." He accepted there was no more intercourse all week after that event "but there were other s.e.xual acts".

He told the interrogators that Braun only challenged him at the very end of the week he spent at her flat: "She accused me of various things... many of which were false ... That I took the condom off during s.e.x. It was the first I had heard of it." Her friend Klara (not her real name) had also been in contact and a.s.sange had been arranging to meet her on the following day to discuss what he had heard were "incredible lies" being told about him. He did not consider that Braun was planning to make any formal complaint and was "really surprised" to find she had been to a hospital and there was talk of DNA and the police. "I expected the whole thing to be over until I heard the news from Expressen Expressen."

That might have been the end of the story. But the two aggrieved women appointed a high-profile lawyer on their own behalf, Claes Borgstrom, former Swedish equal opportunities...o...b..dsman and prominent Social Democrat politician. He got both cases reopened, as law allowed, by appealing to a chief prosecutor (overklagare), the s.e.x crimes specialist Marianne Ny. He told a news agency the women didn't even know it was possible to appeal a prosecutor's decision until he so advised them. "I had read the police reports. I had seen my clients and heard their stories," Borgstrom said. "In my opinion, it was rape and attempted rape or s.e.xual molestation." He added: "We have better knowledge than other countries in the field of gender equality ... That also means women don't accept certain things in the same way they do in other countries."

Not surprisingly, a.s.sange was much dismayed. Facing a further interrogation about his unhappy one-night stand with the second woman, Katrin Weiss, he decided to leave town. He told friends he feared being arrested and paraded in front of a media circus. Subsequently, he circulated the idea that the resultant demand for his extradition was the result of covert pressure from the US government, who wanted to get their hands on him for the WikiLeaks exploits. No concrete evidence has yet surfaced to support this theory, although the US has threatened repeatedly that it will seek to bring its own indictment against a.s.sange for information crimes. The claim certainly muddied the WikiLeaks waters, as conspiracy theories began to rage up and down the internet.

That summer, contemplating the imbroglio in Sweden from afar, the Guardian Guardian's reporters in London were also dismayed. Leigh and Davies took a decision that it was nevertheless their duty to ensure the Guardian Guardian was steadfast and indeed first in reporting the facts. What happened in Stockholm may have been complex and equivocal, but some questionable s.e.xual encounters had certainly occurred, and there was no evidence to support the claims of dirty tricks and honeytraps. The journalists were acutely aware that to ignore the fresh controversy that had erupted around their new collaborator could only increase the risk that it might taint the WikiLeaks enterprise as a whole. was steadfast and indeed first in reporting the facts. What happened in Stockholm may have been complex and equivocal, but some questionable s.e.xual encounters had certainly occurred, and there was no evidence to support the claims of dirty tricks and honeytraps. The journalists were acutely aware that to ignore the fresh controversy that had erupted around their new collaborator could only increase the risk that it might taint the WikiLeaks enterprise as a whole.

CHAPTER 13.

Uneasy partners

Editor's office, the Guardian Guardian, Kings Place, London 1 November 2010

"I'm a combative person"

JULIAN A a.s.sANGE, TED CONFERENCE CONFERENCE, OXFORD, 2010.

The three partner papers decided it was time for a meeting with Julian a.s.sange. Everything was threatening to get rather messy. The embattled WikiLeaks founder now wanted the Americans frozen out of the much-delayed deal to publish the diplomatic cables jointly a punishment, so it was said, for a recent profile of him, by the New York Times New York Times veteran London correspondent John F Burns. a.s.sange had intensely disliked it. veteran London correspondent John F Burns. a.s.sange had intensely disliked it.

The British were anxious about the fact that another copy of the cables had apparently fallen into the hands of Heather Brooke, a London-based American journalist and freedom of information activist. And the Germans were worried that things could get acrimonious all round unless the editors held a clear-the-air meeting with what was left of WikiLeaks.

There were at least three loose copies of the cables believed to be circulating now: with Brooke in the UK, Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon papers fame in the US, and Smari McCarthy, an Icelandic former WikiLeaks programmer who had, according to a.s.sange, let a copy pa.s.s to Brooke. David Leigh had signalled to the New York Times New York Times he was willing personally to hand them a copy if a.s.sange would not co-operate. But none of the huge secret cache of state department dispatches had yet actually been a.n.a.lysed and published to the world as originally planned. Would the whole audacious project end in tears? he was willing personally to hand them a copy if a.s.sange would not co-operate. But none of the huge secret cache of state department dispatches had yet actually been a.n.a.lysed and published to the world as originally planned. Would the whole audacious project end in tears?

The conference was arranged for 1 November, at the Guardian Guardian's London offices near King's Cross station, with an initial meeting to go through the material in detail, trying to reach agreement on a possible day-by-day running order. a.s.sange was supposed to join around 6pm but a series of text messages to deputy editor Ian Katz indicated he was running late. Around 7pm, Rusbridger's phone rang. It was Mark Stephens, a British libel lawyer he'd known for years. He said he had something to tell him: could he come straight round? Twenty minutes later Stephens burst through the door of the editor's office, followed by a.s.sange himself, along with his dour Icelandic lieutenant Kristinn Hrafnsson, and a young woman lawyer, later introduced as a junior solicitor in Stephens' office, Jennifer Robinson. It looked, and felt, like an ambush.

a.s.sange had barely sat down before he started angrily denouncing the Guardian Guardian. Did the New York Times New York Times have the cables? How did they have them? Who had given them to them? This was a breach of trust. His voice was raised and angry. Every time Rusbridger tried to respond, he pitched in with another question. When he finally paused for breath Rusbridger pointed out that the have the cables? How did they have them? Who had given them to them? This was a breach of trust. His voice was raised and angry. Every time Rusbridger tried to respond, he pitched in with another question. When he finally paused for breath Rusbridger pointed out that the Spiegel Spiegel people and other people and other Guardian Guardian executives were waiting. Why didn't we tell them to come in to continue the discussion? But a.s.sange's fury returned: this matter had to be settled first. He needed to know the truth about the executives were waiting. Why didn't we tell them to come in to continue the discussion? But a.s.sange's fury returned: this matter had to be settled first. He needed to know the truth about the New York Times New York Times. "We are getting the feeling that a large organisation is trying to find ways to step around a gentlemen's agreement. We're feeling a bit unhappy."

Rusbridger responded that things had changed. WikiLeaks had sprung a leak itself. The cables had fallen into the hands of Heather Brooke. Things would soon move out of our control unless they decided to act more quickly. a.s.sange didn't look well. He was pale and sweating and had a racking cough. Rusbridger stuck to the line that he hadn't given anyone the cables which was perfectly true and eventually persuaded a.s.sange that it was better to deal with the larger group.

David Leigh immediately objected, however, to the presence of Stephens and Robinson. This was an editorial meeting, he protested. If a.s.sange was going to have lawyers there, the Guardian Guardian needed lawyers. Rusbridger went off to try and raise a lawyer. The needed lawyers. Rusbridger went off to try and raise a lawyer. The Guardian Guardian's head of legal was cycling home and could not hear her BlackBerry ringing, so Geraldine Proudler, from the legal firm Olsw.a.n.g, who had fought many battles on behalf of the Guardian Guardian in the past, was interrupted at her gym and jumped in a taxi. in the past, was interrupted at her gym and jumped in a taxi.

The argument for the moment without lawyers began again with the Spiegel Spiegel team of editor-in-chief Georg Mascolo, Holger Stark and Marcel Rosenbach. a.s.sange seemed obsessed with the team of editor-in-chief Georg Mascolo, Holger Stark and Marcel Rosenbach. a.s.sange seemed obsessed with the New York Times New York Times, however, and launched into repeated denunciations of the paper.

"They ran a front-page story the front page! a front-page story which was just a sleazy hit job against me personally, and other parts of the organisation, and based upon falsehoods. It wasn't even an a.s.semblage of genuine criticism, a.s.sembling criticism without any balance. Their aim is to make themselves look impartial. It is not enough to simply be be impartial. It is not enough to simply go: 'That's the story' and put it through they actually have to be actively hostile towards us, and demonstrate that on the front page, lest they be accused of being some kind of sympathiser." impartial. It is not enough to simply go: 'That's the story' and put it through they actually have to be actively hostile towards us, and demonstrate that on the front page, lest they be accused of being some kind of sympathiser."