Supreme Court Rules Julian Assange May Be Extradited

sirlark writes with an update on the protracted legal proceedings regarding Julian Assange's extradition to Sweden: "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has lost his Supreme Court fight against extradition to Sweden to face accusations of sex offenses. The judgement was reached by a majority of five to two, the court's president, Lord Phillips, told the hearing. Mr Assange's legal team was given 14 days to consider the ruling before a final decision is made, leaving the possibility the case could be reheard." This may, however, not be the end. From the article: "Lord Phillips said five of the justices agreed the warrant had been lawful because the Swedish prosecutor behind the warrant could be considered a proper 'judicial authority' even it they were not specifically mentioned in legislation or international agreements. This point of law had not been simple to resolve, said Lord Phillips, and two of the justices, Lady Hale and Lord Mance, had disagreed with the decision. But Ms Rose immediately indicated she could challenge the judgement saying that it relied on a 1969 convention relating to how treaties should be implemented. She said this convention had not been raised during the hearing. " This led to the court staying the order until June 13th to give Assange's lawyers time to argue this avenue.

Re:Gee there's a surprise

[niftydude]

It really has gotten to the point of rather silly. He's going to have to go and face the charges in Sweden.

It's sillier than you think: as yet there are still no charges he has to face in Sweden. My understanding is that he is wanted for questioning only. The first prosecutor in Sweden tossed the case because there was no evidence. Somehow, a second prosecutor has gotten involved, and has put in this unprecedented request for extradition for "questioning" while there still have been no civil or criminal charges laid against him by the Swedish police.

And let's also not forget that while Assange was in Sweden, he tried to comply with police requests as much as possible, to the point of saying to the Swedish police, "OK, I'm leaving the country now, is there anything else I have to do to help sort this out?" He left Sweden thinking that this was all over and done with.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

He is accused of Rape. He has not been charged, but the Swedish authorities want him to be questioned in Sweden. For reasons he has never fully explained, he refuses to go to Sweden to be questioned.

Personally, given that he is accused of rape in another EU country, he should bloody well go there and answer some questions. Arguing that the UK has no right to extradite him to Sweden to answer questions (in one of the most liberal and developed countries around) seems incredible.

Dave.

Re:I'm confused

[Joce640k]

No he has not been charged with a crime yet, he is however a suspect fro 2 counts of rape

Um, no he isn't. Only the tabloid press has used the word "rape" (probably as part of a government organized campaign to ruin his credibility).

Rape victims rarely tweet about their experience and organize a party for their friends to meet the rapist so a charge of "rape" seems unlikely (although you never know...it wouldn't be any more absurd than the rest of this case).

The story so far

[betterunixthanunix]

1. A cryptoanarchist creates an organization whose purpose is to help whistleblowers release information.
2. A soldier from the United States uses his access to military computers to leak documents and videos related to the US war effort in the middle, through the above whistleblower organization. This same soldier also leaks US diplomatic cables. This soldier is later betrayed by a hacker and is arrested.
3. The cryptoanarchist goes to Sweden; while in Sweden, he has sex with women who have connections to the CIA.
4. The CIA-connected women claim that the cryptoanarchist raped them, under Sweden's broad definition of rape.
5. The cryptoanarchist is placed under house arrest in England, while the British courts decide whether or not he can be extradited to Sweden. That matter has now been settled; he will be extradited.
6. The soldier who leaked the documents, videos, and cables remains in solitary confinement in the United States, and must be given antidepressants as a result of the psychological stress of having no human contact for most of his days.
7. This whistleblower organization remains active, but has been shaken to its core. Its leadership is in shambles, its reputation has been smeared by the mainstream media, banks have refused to process payments made to that organization, and people who need to blow the whistle on corrupt organizations are left in the same situation they were in before: relying on the technically illiterate journalists that work at traditional media outlets.

Does that help clarify things?

Re:I'm confused

[Dr. Evil]

It's on the Internet:

"1) Julian Assange has not been charged with any offense. 2) Sweden has a bilateral agreement with the United States which would allow it to surrender Julian Assange without going through the traditional tests and standards of regular, lengthy ’extradition’ procedures."

http://justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html [justice4assange.com]

Re:Keeps reminding me of Al Capone

[Serpents]

A Soviet prosecutor, Andrey Vyshinsky [wikipedia.org] once said "Give me a man and I'll find an article." I think this is a clear example of this principle being used against a political enemy. It was a standard practice of totalitarian regime to charge someone with some relatively minor crime [wikipedia.org] and then sentence them to death or life in prison. In this case Assange could just be sent to Guantanamo and "await further decision" till hell freezes over.

Re:Gee there's a surprise

[a90Tj2P7]

There are no charges. He's only wanted for questioning.

Which is pretty much irrelevant, to both the GP's post and the court's decision. You don't have to be charged with a crime to be extradited, normally being wanted for questioning as a suspect is good enough. It's all up to their extradition treaty with Sweden. The GP's point was that the court's responsibility was to make sure the request complied with their extradition treaty, and that's it. Whether or not the accusations are sound, whether or not charges are filed, whether or not he's guilty - that's all between Assange and the Swedes.

Re:I'm confused

[MrHanky]

No, he wasn't, and hiding one's action doesn't make a consensual sexual act into rape in Sweden. There's rape, våldtäkt, and there's 'sexuellt tvång', which is still more serious than what Assange has been accused of, but not rape.

Re:I'm confused

[Joce640k]

Why don't you save us all some effort and supply a simple citation?

Oh, wait, you can't. I'm guessing that's why you post A/C.

Me? I'll provide all the cites you want.

What they're trying to charge him with is sex by surprise [aolnews.com]. Nobody's quite sure what that is but we know the maximum penalty for it is a $715 fine.

This fine is why the whole Interpol warrant and extradition is a farce - it simply doesn't happen for a crime as minor as that (in fact it's against Interpol's charter to get involved with this - the crime is too minor and it only happened in a single country).

Re:I'm confused

[maroberts]

Actually, those caveats do apply. Assange will be transferred under a European Arrest Warrant, and under the terms of the Warrant he cannot be transferred to another country without the permission of the country from which he is originally extradited (the UK in this case). Given the degree of opprobrium such a move would bring the UK Government, given that extraditions to the US are already a sensitive subject, then this would be extremely unlikely to happen.

Re:I'm confused

[Vanderhoth]

So you're saying that the US cleverly arranged for radical Swedish feminists to pass bad rape laws, caused numerous cases to be prosecuted under those ridiculous laws

You've gone back much further than what my statement was about. I'm saying someone is possibly taking advantage of existing laws to do something under handed. I like your hat, but it seems to be made of wax paper instead of tinfoil.

All I can say is based on the material I've read, here on slashdot, various blogs and news sites, it seems the woman (singular) accusing Assange of rape willingly slept with him at the time of the allegations, but later brought charges against him. You can see the timeline article on the BBC here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11949341). I'm of the opinion that rape is when you use violence or drugs to force someone to have sex with you. That doesn't seem to be the case here. One of the women slept with Assange willingly, but later accused him of rape because he didn't use a condom.

Also of note, only one women accused him of rape. The other brought molestation charges against him. Both women knew each other and only after discussing their sexual encounters with Assange decided to bring charges against him. It's entirely possible that nether one alone had the courage to accuse Assange of anything, but after they talked about it they were able to draw on strength in numbers, which would be commendable, but I feel it's equally likely they're being paid off, or are conspiring to "scam" Assange as he is the head of a major organization, a poor one as I understand it, but still a major one.

Brilliant analysis!

Thanks!!

Re:I'm confused

[Joce640k]

Yeah, because the US couldn't just ask the UK to extradite him. Makes perfect sense.

Oh, they asked ... but given the amount of publicity surrounding the case the UK couldn't just hand him over - it would be illegal.

OTOH, Sweden can hand him over. Read the section titled "Temporary surrender - under the US-Sweden Extradition Treaty" on this page. It might be much easier to transfer him from Sweden.

"...in the case of a person who is being prosecuted or is serving a sentence in the territory of the requested State for a different offense, the requested State may:

b) temporarily surrender the person sought to the requesting State for the purpose of prosecution. "

i.e. Get him into Sweden for one offense, "temporarily"* transfer him to the USA for a different offense.

[*] I'm guessing it won't be very temporary - they've got people in Guantanamo just for wearing the wrong sort of watch [wikipedia.org].