It may mean that the prosecutor let the police tell her what the law was,
It doesn't normally work that way. Certainly not with high-profile cases like this.
But I don't see how the remaining allegations, which are the potentially significant thing going forward, are affected in any particular way at all by the overboard rape charge story.
The credibility of the allegations is affected in that they represent a political compromise between what the police wanted and what the prosecutor was prepared to give them. Which means that there is a non-negligible probability that they are still exaggerated.
It's a pattern we've seen before in Scandinavia: Pretty much every time the police pick up some lefties or more or less random brown people, they go straight to the press and present their catch with great fanfare. After a few hours, it is quietly announced that the prosecutor told them to let most of the suspects go because they had no good reason to detain them in the first place. As they move up through the tiers of the judicial system (higher courts are generally more independent of the police and political pressure than lower courts) it becomes increasingly clear that the case is garbage.
What we've seen so far is consistent with this picture, although of course we've hardly seen enough to start extrapolating yet.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
By the way, it's not confirmed, but most news sources indicate that at least one and maybe both of the women are widely known individuals, not Mata Haris, who have worked for several years or more in Sweden at sort of leftist/alternative jobs, or for those sorts of organizations. fairleft
Was he detained/charged at all?
As for 'widely known sort of leftists' - sources?
Interestingly:
CORRECT: Swedish Prosecutor To Look Into Assange Case This Week - WSJ.com
Under Swedish law, molestation is defined broadly and can refer to anything from groping someone to inappropriate, non-sexual behavior, for example, disrupting public order.
As I understand it Swedish law has an extremely broad definition of rape which includes almost any non-consensual or inappropriate activity. So if the rape case has been dropped, I'd suggest that makes a conviction for molestation somewhat unlikely.
In this case the press found out about the warrant immediately but Assange didn't - which certainly seems bizarre to me.
