London: The charges against beleaguered WikiLeaks founder Julian are the subject of intense media speculation. Assange is currently out on bail and living in a Georgian mansion in Norfolk that belongs to a friend and supporter.
Assange has denies the Swedish allegations of rape and has not formally been charged with any offence.
According to Britain's The Guardian newspaper, which reportedly has access to the full details of the allegations of rape and sexual assault that have led to extradition hearings against Assange, the case is laid out in police material held in Stockholm.
Assange's lawyer in Britain, Mark Stephens, has termed the charges an attempt to malign Assange with the help of Swedish "honeytraps" as part of a "greater plan."
Stephens has said that Assange has not been allowed to see the full allegations against him. It is understood his Swedish defence team have copies of all the documents seen by the Guardian. However Assange's legal team says potentially damaging evidence has not been made available to his team and may not have been seen by the Guardian.
What are the accusations against Assange?
According to The Guardian, the allegations centre on a 10-day period after Assange flew into Stockholm on August 11. One of the women, named in court as Miss A, told police that she had arranged Assange's trip to Sweden, and let him stay in her flat because she was due to be away. She returned early, on August 13, after which the pair went for a meal and then returned to her flat.
Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.
According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.
When he was later interviewed by police in Stockholm, Assange agreed that he had had sex with Miss A but said he did not tear the condom, and that he was not aware that it had been torn. He told police that he had continued to sleep in Miss A's bed for the following week and she had never mentioned a torn condom.
On the following morning, August 14, Assange spoke at a seminar organised by Miss A. A second woman, Miss W, had contacted Miss A to ask if she could attend. Both women joined Assange, the co-ordinator of the Swedish WikiLeaks group, and a few others for lunch.
Assange left the lunch with Miss W. She told the police she and Assange had visited the place where she worked and had then gone to a cinema where they had moved to the back row. He had kissed her and put his hands inside her clothing, she said.
That evening, Miss A held a party at her flat. One of her friends, "Monica", later told police that during the party Miss A had told her about the ripped condom and unprotected sex. Another friend told police that during the evening Miss A told her she had had "the worst sex ever" with Assange: "Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent."
Assange's supporters point out that, despite her complaints against him, Miss A held a party for him on that evening and continued to allow him to stay in her flat.
On August 15, Monica told police, Miss A told her that she thought Assange had torn the condom on purpose. According to Monica, Miss A said Assange was still staying in her flat but they were not having sex because he had "exceeded the limits of what she felt she could accept" and she did not feel safe.
The following day, Miss W phoned Assange and arranged to meet him late in the evening, according to her statement. The pair went back to her flat in Enkoping, near Stockholm. Miss W told police that though they started to have sex, Assange had not wanted to wear a condom, and she had moved away because she had not wanted unprotected sex. Assange had then lost interest, she said, and fallen asleep. However, during the night, they had both woken up and had sex at least once when "he agreed unwillingly to use a condom".
Early the next morning, Miss W told police, she had gone to buy breakfast before getting back into bed and falling asleep beside Assange. She had awoken to find him having sex with her, she said, but when she asked whether he was wearing a condom he said no. "According to her statement, she said: 'You better not have HIV' and he answered: 'Of course not,' " but "she couldn't be bothered to tell him one more time because she had been going on about the condom all night. She had never had unprotected sex before."
The police record of the interview with Assange in Stockhom deals only with the complaint made by Miss A. However, Assange and his lawyers have repeatedly stressed that he denies any kind of wrongdoing in relation to Miss W.
In submissions to the Swedish courts, they have argued that Miss W took the initiative in contacting Assange, that on her own account she willingly engaged in sexual activity in a cinema and voluntarily took him to her flat where, she agrees, they had consensual sex. They say that she never indicated to Assange that she did not want to have sex with him. They also say that in a text message to a friend, she never suggested she had been raped and claimed only to have been "half asleep".
Police spoke to Miss W's ex-boyfriend, who told them that in two and a half years they had never had sex without a condom because it was "unthinkable" for her. Miss W told police she went to a chemist to buy a morning-after pill and also went to hospital to be tested for STDs. Police statements record her contacting Assange to ask him to get a test and his refusing on the grounds that he did not have the time.
On August 18, according to police records, Miss A told the coordinator and a friend that Assange would not leave her flat and was sleeping in her bed, although she was not having sex with him and he spent most of the night sitting with his computer. Harold told police he had asked Assange why he was refusing to leave the flat and that Assange had said he was very surprised, because Miss A had not asked him to leave. Miss A says she spent Wednesday night on a mattress and then moved to a friend's flat so she did not have to be near him.
She told police that Assange had continued to make sexual advances to her every day after they slept together and on August 18 had approached her, naked from the waist down, and rubbed himself against her.
The following day, Miss A called him and for the first time gave him a full account of her complaints about Assange. The coordinator told police he regarded her as "very, very credible" and he confronted Assange, who said he was completely shocked by the claims and denied all of them. By August 20, Miss W had texted Miss A looking for help in finding Assange. The two women met and compared stories.
Harold has independently told the Guardian Miss A made a series of calls to him asking him to persuade Assange to take an STD test to reassure Miss W, and that Assange refused. Miss A then warned if Assange did not take a test, Miss W would go to the police. Assange had rejected this as blackmail, the coordinator told police.
Assange told police that Miss A spoke to him directly and complained to him that he had torn their condom, something that he regarded as false.
Late that afternoon, Assange agreed to take a test, but the clinics had closed for the weekend.
Miss A phoned Harold to say that she and Miss W had been to the police, who had told them that they couldn't simply tell Assange to take a test, that their statements must be passed to the prosecutor. That night, the story leaked to the Swedish newspaper Expressen.
By August 21, journalists were asking Assange for a reaction. At 9.15am, he tweeted: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one." The following day, he tweeted: "Reminder: US intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks as far back as 2008."
The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet asked if he had had sex with his two accusers. He said: "Their identities have been made anonymous so even I have no idea who they are. We have been warned that the Pentagon, for example, is thinking of deploying dirty tricks to ruin us."
Assange's Swedish lawyers have since suggested that Miss W's text messages – which the Guardian has not seen – show that she was thinking of contacting Expressen and that one of her friends told her she should get money for her story. However, police statements by the friend offer a more innocent explanation: they say these text messages were exchanged several days after the women had made their complaint. They followed an inquiry from a foreign newspaper and were meant jokingly, the friend stated to police.
The coordinator of the WikiLeaks group in Stockholm, who is a close colleague of Assange and who also knows both women, told the Guardian: "This is a normal police investigation. Let the police find out what actually happened. Of course, the enemies of WikiLeaks may try to use this, but it begins with the two women and Julian. It is not the CIA sending a woman in a short skirt."
Assange's lawyers were asked to respond on his behalf to the allegations in the documents seen by the Guardian. Tonight they said they were still unable obtain a response from Assange.
Has Assange been charged with an offence?
According to The Guardian, Assange has not formally been charged with any crime. His lawyers insist the warrant against him is merely for questioning on the accusations made by the two women, Miss A and Miss W.
But Gemma Lindfield, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said in court that the European Arrest Warrant "quite clearly states (Assange) is wanted for prosecution".
Justice Ouseley, the head of the administrative court who rejected the appeal against Assange's bail, acknowledged the dispute in his judgment: "There is a debate, which may yet be had elsewhere, over whether the warrant is a warrant for questioning or a warrant for trial." He was proceeding, he said, on the basis that it was an extradition warrant for trial. A charge by the requesting country is a prerequisite for a valid EAW.
Four charges outlined at the Assange's hearings
That he "unlawfully coerced" Miss A by using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.
That he "sexually molested" Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her "express wish" one should be used.
That he "deliberately molested" Miss A "in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity".
That he had sex with a second woman, Miss W, without a condom while she was asleep.
Why is Assange being described as an alleged rapist?
The accusation in the fourth point, involving Miss W, falls into the category of rape under Swedish law.
According to The Guardian, an arrest warrant, issued on 20 August, was withdrawn the following day, when one of Sweden's chief prosecutors, Eva Finné, said she did not think there was "reason to suspect that he has committed rape". On 1 September, Marianne Ny, the Swedish director of prosecutions, overturned Finné's judgment.
"Considering information available at present, my judgment is that the classification of the crime is rape," said Ny.
What is the Swedish law on rape?
Three categories of rape are defined, with different sentencing guidelines. These were described in court by Assange's barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC, as "severe rape", "normal rape" and "minor rape". While the first carries a maximum 10-year sentence, he said, the last has no minimum sentence. The accusation relating to Assange and Miss W is held to fall into the third category.
Does this mean it would not be a crime under British law?
The charge that he had sex with Miss W while she was asleep would be a clear allegation of rape in Britain. Legal experts consider that the third charge would directly correlate to an accusation of indecent assault in Britain.
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