Here's a bit more.

«“Sometimes we lawyers joke that soon you have to have a written permission before you can have sex,” said Bengt Hesselberg, a defense lawyer with extensive experience in sexual cases. If Sweden’s current criminal code is not much stricter on sexual offenses than those of other European countries, the Swedish laws may be more nuanced, by differentiating among three categories of rape and, unusually, invoking the concept of “unlawful coercion.”

There is a category identified as “severe rape,” which involves a high degree of violence and which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for the perpetrator; another known as “regular rape,” which may involve some violence and calls for a maximum sentence of six years; and a third called “less severe rape,” which may not involve violence but still includes the imposition of sexual intercourse on a person against her will.

The prosecutors seeking Mr. Assange’s extradition suspect that he may have engaged in this last category, which is punishable by as much as four years in prison.»

www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/world/europe/...

His lawyer has an insight.

«Mr Hurtig said in an exclusive interview from his Stockholm office: ‘From what I have read, it is clear that the women are lying and that they had an agenda when they went to the police, which had nothing to do with a crime having taken place.

‘It was, I believe, more about jealousy and disappointment on their part. I can prove that at least one of them had very big expectations for something to happen with Julian.’»

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337862...

This article suggests that the claims are weak and sloppily recorded!

«Conduct of the investigation has been criticised by Mr Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens.

Speaking of the incomplete interview of the complainants, he said that ''this is just one example of how irregular this process is''.»

www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/assang...