Whether Assange committed a sexual crime or not, it is incontrovertible that accusing him of one was the most effective and least risky way to discrete him. It wouldn't even have required any lying accuser either; manipulating a pissed off lover into reframing their relationship with him as less consensual than it was at the time would be a rather simple exercise for a spymaster.
Read it for yourself: https://www.ericschwartzman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/c...
No threats, coercion, or violence need to be involved. You must have explicit consent for every sexual encounter. Not just intercourse.
So, if you do something sexual but you failed to get her to sign a contract. She later reports the sexual encounter as not having the signed contract. You are a rapist going to prison.
I'm not sure I follow this. It seems like there were two complaints, one of them was clearly a complaint of rape (I'm not saying a rape definitively occurred, but the accusation was intentionally breaking a condom and not using protection against the wishes of a partner is considered rape in Sweden) and one was a potential claim of rape (it is unclear in the other complaint if the preference for protection was a retroactive regret or something established before sex). Anything that transpired after that, no matter how shady, is irrelevant to the initial allegations. There were obviously people who wanted to use those allegations to achieve some political end. However that doesn't invalidate the accusations which deserve to be evaluated on their own merits.
Suspiciously timed in terms of raising and dropping, let alone the actual detail of the accusations (not apparently made in those terms by the alleged victims) which trivialise the awful trauma of actual rape.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-j...
Investigation was dropped because he hid in a cupboard for seven years.
The UK urged Swedish prosecutors not to question Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy,[1] though Swedish prosecutors eventually did so. When Swedish prosecutors wanted to drop the investigation, British officials urged them to continue it:[2]
> Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!
But immediately after the US began extradition hearings against Assange in London, and there was a debate over whether to give the Swedish or American request priority, Sweden dropped the case.
Just to top it off, Swedish prosecutors altered witness testimony[3] and UK prosecutors deleted emails relating to the case.[1]
The investigation was dropped because it had already served its purpose.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/10/uk-prosecutors...
2. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/11/sweden-tried-t...
3. https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...
It's extraordinary the power of even absurd allegations as those to ruin a man's life.