Swedish woman who accused Julian Assange of sexual assault says she has 'forgiven him' and is 'HAPPY' he has been freed - as she reveals harassment from his supporters made her flee her homeland
- Anna Ardin previously claimed the WikiLeaks founder tricked her into having sex without a condom in 2010 while staying at her flat in Sweden
A Swedish woman who accused Julian Assange of sexual assault has said she has forgiven him, and is happy that he has been released from prison.
Anna Ardin previously claimed the WikiLeaks founder tricked her into having sex without a condom in 2010 while staying at her flat in Sweden.
She and another woman both accused Assange of having unwanted unprotected sex with them. This prompted his followers to start harassing her, she says.
The online vitriol was so bad, she fled her home country and moved to Spain.
Despite her ordeal, she has today spoken out to say she is 'sincerely happy' that he has been released from London's Belmarsh prison and allowed to return to his native country of Australia, where he arrived on Wednesday.
Mr Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge on Tuesday after the US dropped 17 other espionage charges against him, before arriving in Australia.
What's more, today, the decision to approve Julian Assange's extradition to the United States has formally been quashed at Britain's High Court following his return.
Anna Ardin previously claimed the WikiLeaks founder tricked her into having sex without a condom in 2010 while staying at her flat in Sweden
'I'm sincerely happy for him that he is not in this high security prison,' Ms Ardin said in an interview with The Australian, published today.
'He never should have been in the beginning. The good things that he did was exposing war crimes, the Chelsea Manning leaks and exposing the misuse of power and the abuse of human rights.
'People committing war crimes should be punished, not the ones exposing them.'
But while Ms Ardin says she is happy Assange has been allowed to return home, she said it was 'sad' that we would never be put on trial over the alleged assault, which she detailed publicly in her 2021 book 'In the Shadow of Assange: My Testimony'.
Mr Assange has denied the accusations.
According to Ms Ardin, who was originally named as 'Miss A', she and Assange planned to work together to promote his Wikileaks work in 2010.
He was to stay in her spare room, and he was given a spare key. However, when she returned home, she found him holding up one of her bras, and he told her that he had been looking through her underwear drawer, she claims.
She then says the pair ended up having 'uncomfortable' sex, and that Assange deliberately ripped a condom.
Ms Ardin says the Wikileaks founder began to spin a narrative about what had happened from the first hours she confronted him about their encounter.
She also discovered that a second woman had alleged Assange had had unwanted unprotected sex with her. In the case of the second woman, she alleges she woke up to find Assange inside her.
Together, they asked Assange to take an HIV test to reassure them about their health: a test on a man comes back immediately, while for women it takes three months, and they wanted a quick answer.
But, Ms Ardin claims, Assange refused to take the test, saying: 'I am a white Australian, Australian men don't have HIV' and telling them he was too busy.
Ardin, who was previously referred to as Miss A, said Julian Assange tricked her into having sex without a condom in 2010 while staying at her flat in Sweden. Pictured: Assange at Ardin's flat in 2010, purportedly taken on the night of the alleged assault
Assange gives a thumbs-up after arriving at Canberra Airport in Canberra on June 26, 2024
The two women resorted to going to the police in an attempt to force him to take the test, but found themselves under attack - firstly by Assange, and then his followers.
The Wikileaks founder denied the accusations and told the media he did not know the women, or what their accusation was about.
Ms Ardin says this was a 'complete lie,' telling The Australian that they had spoken to him hours before he made the public comments at the time.
'He chose to say that it was a smear campaign and that they had been warned about dirty tricks and something about the Pentagon,' she said. 'And he knew the Pentagon was not involved, but he still said that. He tried to avoid the responsibility.'
According to Ms Ardin, Assange's team accused her of being a liar, a CIA spy and a honey trap for the Americans. They also speculated that Jews were behind the police report, that it was a feminist mob job, and a wider conspiracy theory, she says.
These claims and other malicious rumours were spread about Ms Ardin online, she says, and a bounty was even put on her head by one person.
This, she says, was 'much worse' than the initial alleged sexual abuse.
She says she was never a CIA spy or anything else she was accused of being. Meanwhile, six different courts - three in Sweden and three in Briton, believed there was enough evidence for the investigation into Assange to continue.
'People take for granted that he is innocent,' she told The Australian publication.
'That creates a need for a scapegoat or to vilify me. That's a very common thing in (alleged) sexual abuse cases, that kind of turnaround – the perspective that the woman reporting a sex crime is seen as a traitor, or as an abuser of the man.'
The harassment was so bad, Ms Ardin says, that she had to flee to Spain.
In the meantime, Assange hunkered down in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years to avoid an arrest warrant issue by Swedish authorities to question him over the allegations made by the two women.
Assange (pictured 2017) has denied all allegations of sexual assault. In 2012, he hid in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over the investigation
Assange is seen talking to his wife Stella over the phone on June 26
Assange (centre) steps onto Australian soil as he arrives at Canberra Airport on 26 June 2024
She was surprised, she said, that Assange chose to hide in the embassy in the UK, given that he was concerned about extradition to the US after he was accused of receiving and publishing war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view and warned of a chilling effect on journalists.
Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
Assange has been celebrated by supporters as a transparency crusader but lambasted by national security hawks who insist that his conduct put lives at risk and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.
'Sweden doesn't have an extradition agreement with the US that the UK has. So as far as I can understand it, he would have been safer in Sweden,' Ms Ardin said.
If found guilty of the sexual assault in Sweden, Ms Ardin told The Australian that she believes he would have spent less time in prison than he spent in the embassy.
Despite the lack of an extradition agreement between the two countries, Assange believed he would immediately be extradited from Sweden to the US.
The statute of limitations for Ms Ardin's complaint ran out after five years, and expired after 10 years for the second complaint, meaning that the claims against Assange will never be tested in court.
'It's sad. I mean, he won't be convicted, but he will also never be freed,' she told the publication. 'It's a frozen issue, and the whole thing has only been debated in the media. It's been more of a people's tribunal … and that tribunal hasn't been fair, it has not looked at all the evidence, all the evidence hasn't even been out in the media.'
Asked whether she would like an apology from the Wikileaks founder, she said it would be 'nice', but added that Assange has made it quite clear that he sees it as I have done something to him by not being quiet about it, and that he doesn't have any obligations. That is what he has shown so far.
'So I don't have any expectations. And I wouldn't demand that he apologise because I've forgiven him a long time ago already.'
Assange waves after arriving at Canberra Airport in Canberra on June 26, 2024
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange kisses his wife Stella Assange as he arrives in Canberra, Australia, June 26, 2024.
Stella Assange, wife of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaks on the finalisation of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's plea deal at Parliament House in Canberra, June 27
Ms Ardin's interview was published as the decision to approve Julian Assange's extradition to the United States was formally quashed at the High Court in Briton.
In an order on Friday, judges said that then-Home Secretary Priti Patel's decision to order Mr Assange's extradition to the US in June 2022 had been overturned.
It comes after Assange flew into Australia on Wednesday, following his release from a London prison and an appearance before a judge in the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The 52-year-old had been due to bring a challenge at the High Court in London in early July over his extradition.
However, in Friday's order from Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson, the judges said the legal proceedings had been formally discontinued.
As the news broke this that Assange would be free to return to Australia, women's rights advocates said they regretted he was not questioned over the rape and other sex crime allegations in Sweden.
Swedish prosecutors in 2019 dropped their remaining probe, into rape, saying the plaintiff's account of events was credible but the many years passed had weakened evidence.
'It's a betrayal against the women who reported him and who have not been given a chance for legal redress,' said Clara Berglund, head of the Swedish Women's Lobby, an umbrella organisation for women's rights groups.
While Ms Ardin says she is happy Assange has been allowed to return home, she said it was 'sad' that we would never be put on trial over the alleged assault, which she detailed publicly in her 2021 book 'In the Shadow of Assange: My Testimony'
'It's a chapter of shame and betrayal that ends with his release,' she said. 'This is about a case that takes place on the major political stages, and men's violence against women is given incredibly little weight.'
A spokesperson for Assange was not immediately available for comment.
Elisabeth Massi Fritz, the rape case plaintiff's lawyer, said it is bad that Assange could not be tried in Sweden. 'There was evidence and it would have been of great importance to have the evidence tested in a Swedish court.
'For a plaintiff, it is extremely important,' she said.
