Swedish human rights activist Anna Ardin is glad Julian Assange is free.
But the claims she has made about him suggest she would have every reason not to wish him well.
Ardin is fiercely proud of Assange’s work for WikiLeaks, and insists that it should never have landed him behind bars.
“We have the right to know about the wars that are fought in our name,” she says.
Speaking to Ardin over Zoom in Stockholm, it quickly becomes clear that she has no problem keeping what she sees as the two Assanges apart in her head - the visionary activist and the man who she says does not treat women well.
She is at pains to describe him neither as a hero nor a monster, but a complicated man.
She just seems to believe in due process and fairness. Obviously, what happened to Assange so far hasn’t been either.
I mean her case was investigated and he was freed to leave the country afterward. It didn’t come back with a vengeance until it could be used as a means to put him where the US could get at him.