attorney for Assange, in an interview with the BBC. “Their request is to interview Julian Assange. He’s not been charged with anything. We are in the process of making arrangements to meet with the police by consent in order to facilitate the taking of that question and answer that is needed.”

On Thursday the Swedish Supreme Court upheld a detention order against Assange in an ongoing investigation into his conduct during a visit to that country last August. Prosecutors are trying to determine whether to charge Assange with sex crimes over separate encounters he had with two women there. Both encounters, according to local reports, began as consensual, but one woman told police that Assange refused to stop after the condom broke.

An Interpol “red notice” was issued for Assange on November 30. But the underlying Swedish probe has been marred by missteps, including an initial arrest warrant that was withdrawn hours after it leaked to the press, and technical deficiencies in a new warrant that was sent to British police last month, which have since been resolved.

Last week, lawyers for Assange shot back at prosecutors and the alleged victims in the case.  Australian attorney Jason Catlin, who has represented Assange, called out the alleged victims by name in an editorial at Crikey.com. “Both women,” he claimed, “boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.” (Claes Borgstrom, an attorney representing the women, did not respond to an e-mail inquiry from Threat Level.)

And in London, Stephens told AOL News on Thursday that the offense under investigation isn’t rape at all, but rather something called “sex by surprise”, which he described as a minor — and uniquely Swedish — offense that carries a 5,000 kroner fine — about $715. .

“Whatever ’sex by surprise’ is, it’s only a offense in Sweden — not in the U.K. or the U.S. or even Ibiza,” Stephens said. “I feel as if I’m in a surreal Swedish movie being threatened by bizarre trolls.”

In an e-mail to Threat Level, Stephens said he got the “sex by surprise” language from his Swedish co-counsel, who told him that an appeals court had changed the “rape” language in the detention order to the lesser offense. He said that the defense team has been trying without success to get the details. “My Swedish co-counsel has had to make a formal request for the information,” Stephens wrote in an e-mail. “The prosecutor has ignored that request.”

The “sex by surprise” claim appears to be wrong. There is no such offense in  Swedish law. The international arrest warrant is in an investigation into three separate offenses: rape, sexual coercion and sexual molestation, according to the Swedish public prosecutor’s office, which provides specific citations from the Swedish penal code on its website.

The official English translation of the penal code (.pdf) describes rape in substantially the same terms as in the U.S. The crime carries a minimum two year sentence, and a maximum of four or ten, depending on the seriousness.  Sexual coercion is the lesser crime of coercing someone into sex without the use or threat of violence, and carries a maximum two year term.

The crime of “molestation” comes closest to what Stephens described.  It can apply if a person “manifestly behaves indecently by word or deed … in a way that flagrantly violates a sense of propriety.” It carries a fine, or up to two years in prison.

Stephens points out that Assange left Sweden with the permission of the government. He says his client has repeatedly offered to cooperate with investigators, including answering questions remotely from Britain.

The Swiss bank PostFinance on Monday announced that it had closed the account Assange was using as his defense fund. “The Australian citizen provided false information regarding his place of residence during the account opening process,” the bank said in a statement. “Assange entered Geneva as his domicile. Upon inspection, this information was found to be incorrect. Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance.”

<em>With additional reporting from Kerstin Sjoden.</em>

Photo: Julian Assange, via Interpol.

Authors: Kevin Poulsen

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