@suigenerisjen Quick translation of today's @Expressen #Almedalen article: Carl Bildt's message to Julian Assange in Visby

VISBY. This is where Julian Assange's lawyer [correction: Robinson is a legal advisor to WikiLeaks and Assange] meets Carl Bildt at Almedalen. The Foreign Minister firmly struck down the question about whether the government would give assurances that Assange would not be extradited to the United States from Sweden.
"No one is above the law in Sweden", said Carl Bildt.
Carl Bildt criticised in turn WikiLeaks, which he says is spreading wrong information.

WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristin[n] Hrafnsson and Julian Assange's lawyer [ see above correction] are in Visby to talk about what the organisation is doing now. They will participate in a seminar, invited by the network Future Perfect.
"We are very concerned about the threat that Julian Assange faces if he is extradited to the United States and put to trial there. We know that he has been designated a terrorist by leading politicians and state representatives, and we all know what that means" said Kristin[n] Hrafnsson at a press confrerence on Thursday afternoon.

Documents from Syria
An hour after the Visby press conference, WikiLeaks released documents sent from the Syrian government.
"We hope to get a better insight into what is happening in Syria by letting our media partners from around the world go through the material and write newspieces" said Kristin[n] Hrafnsson.
But the WikiLeaks spokespersons are in Almedalen to speak directly to Swedish politicians.
"We would very much like to speak to as many Swedish politicians as we can while we are here, but we don't have any meetings plans at this point" said Jennifer Robinson.

Conversation with Bildt
About an hour later, WikiLeaks spokespersons stumbled across Carl Bildt at Donners placein Visby.
"I went up to him and introduced myself, ad we talked for about ten minutes. It was a very friendly conversation" said Jennifer Robinson.
Expressen: What did you talk about?
JR: I asked him to make assurances that Julian Assange will not be extradited to the United States if he goes to Sweden, and Carl Bildt said that he will not give us such assurances, and he said it is up to the legal process. I replied that it is ultimately a political decision and it is the government that decides, she says.
Julian Assange's lawyer says that she also asked Carl Bildt why the prosecutor has not travelled to London from Sweden to question Assange there, or via telephone.
JR: He said that it was not permitted, but I replied that Swedish jurists [corection: prosecutors] recently travelled to Swebia to do just that in a murder investigation, says Jennifer Robinson.

She emphasises that Wikileaks does not have plans to carry out a smear campaign against Sweden.
JR: I said this to Bildt as well. We had a good conversation, and even though he said that in principle, the government cannot give Julian assurances, I think he demonstrated a genuine interest in the conversation, she says.

Critical of falsehoods
The WikiLeaks founder Julian Asange and his lawyers have on several occasions criticised the Swedish legal system and claimed that he would not get a fair trial.
Carl Bildt was in Paris in a meeting about Syria and could not be reached for comment, but according to the press secretary [Anna Charlotta Johansson] he was critical in his conversation with the lawyer:
"In the conversation, Carl Bildt reacted against the false information that Wikileaks representatives are spreading on Twitter, for example" said that press secretary Anna Charlotta Johansson.

By Annie Reuterskiöld (annie.reuterskjold@expressen.se) @Expressen's daily #Almedalen special publication (pdf: http://extra.expressen.se/pdf/Almedalen120706.pdf)

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