Assange Loses Latest Round In Extradition Fight 296
Richard_at_work writes "After losing his appeal to the UK Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago, Assange's lawyer was given leave to seek a reopening of the case on particular grounds — the UK Supreme Court has now rejected those grounds and upheld its earlier ruling that Assange should be extradited, which could happen in the next few days."
Buggars! (Score:5, Insightful)
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He is being extradited to Sweden, not the US, for alleged sex crimes (not wearing a condom during intercourse), well sort of alleged. He hasn't actually been charged with anything in Sweden.
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So does the UK...
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But he didn't commit any crimes in the UK, so there's no grounds for extradition. The U.S. has to get him into Sweden first before they can try to get ahold of him. (Or so the story goes.)
BTW it's ridiculous to claim "rape" just because a guy didn't wear a condom. The two ladies *consented* to have bare sex... nobody forced them to.
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Uhm, what? He doesnt need to have committed any crimes in the UK to be extradited - the country requesting extradition just needs a valid warrant.
Otherwise you could commit a crime in one country and flee to any other country in the world - and it quite obviously doesnt work like that...
Also, check out the complaints made against him, its more complex than you (and incidentally most people against hte extradition in these stories comments) seem to believe it is - they didnt consent to have bare sex, thats
Re:Buggars! (Score:5, Informative)
So does the UK...
Not like Sweden. Sweden has an arrangement with the USA which allows them to temporarily transfer somebody in their custody to the USA for questioning on charges not related to crimes committed in Sweden. This "temporary surrender" bypasses the normal legal processes needed for extradition.
Cites: http://justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html [justice4assange.com]
Bottom line: The easiest way for the USA needs to get their hands on him is to get him into Sweden. After that he can vanish. And it's all perfectly legal.
Re:Buggars! (Score:4, Insightful)
My best guess is that they feel they will have an easier time getting Sweeden to extradite him on hazier charges (since the DoJ has yet to find anything to actually charge him with) and the UK is a bit more obsessed with proper use of law (a rather old and neurotic British trait).
Re:Buggars! (Score:4, Insightful)
Impossible, sweden cannot extradite him without UK consent. (illegal to extradite after you been extradited from different country in european law)
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Impossible, sweden cannot extradite him without UK consent. (illegal to extradite after you been extradited from different country in european law)
Nope. Sweden has a special treaty with the USA which allows them to hand him over with almost no legal process: http://justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html [justice4assange.com]
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To give them time to break Bradley Manning. To either cast Assange as the bad guy outright, or to get Manning to cop a plea in return for a reduced sentence - in return for throwing Assange under the bus.
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In the UK you can fight extradition on the grounds that your human rights will be violated if you are sent to the US. Assange claims he would be treated as a terrorist and probably thrown in Guantanamo, so at the very least it would be a very long and protracted legal battle.
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The death penalty is a non-issue. The US prosecution simply has to promise they won't seek the death penalty.
Is indefinite detention without being accused of a crime really any better? </rhetorical question>.
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Indefinite detention is a death sentence, it only takes way longer.
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A surprising number of US laws are extra-territorial, especially things like murder, rape, terrorism, piracy (as in maritime hooligans rather than music down-loaders) and oh yes just about anything in the espionage category. What is surprising to me is how little interest the USG is showing in this matter, but that may change if Bradley Manning is convicted. I wouldn't be surprised if during the Manning trial, that Assange was subpoenaed and deposed in that matter.
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They only send in the Seals and missiles if you're in the Middle East and not particularly well-known. For everyone else, they forgo the explosive charges for rape charges.
Re:Buggars! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the charges are completely fabricated by someone, anyone (CIA the women in question etc.) it's absurd to think that the UK would refuse extradition to Sweden for something like this.
Would the alleged crime be illegal in the UK? Yes.
Does the UK have an extradition arrangement with Sweden (in this case as part of the EU I would figure)? Yes.
Would the Swedish legal system treat him appropriately from the UK perspective if convicted of this particular crime, and will he get appropriate process? Yes, but that's why they have an extradition agreement at all.
At that point he's just delaying the inevitable. If not, then you'd have to kick one or both of Sweden and the UK out of the EU for not upholding the same basic sets of rights and rules. The question of whether or not the US is fabricating the whole thing can be addressed fairly in sweden (at least the UK would consider it fair).
Re:Buggars! (Score:4, Insightful)
This.
The guy let his own ego lead him into a situation that enabled him to get caught in a honey trap. He got a little bit of PR out of it, but he and his organization would have been much better off had he realized how susceptible he was to manipulation.
Ironic, given that he worked at Seatec Astronomy :)
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Please cite the law in question and show how it applies to Assange's specific behavior of not wearing a condom after promising he would.
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According to Wikipedia:
There are four charges: that on 14 August 2010 he committed "unlawful coercion" when he held complainant 1 down with his body weight in a sexual manner; that he "sexually molested" complainant 1 when he had condom-less sex with her after she insisted that he use one; that he had condom-less sex with complainant 2 on the morning of 17 August while she was asleep; and that he "deliberately molested" complainant 1 on 18 August 2010 by pressing his erect penis against her body.
The law in England on consent obtained by deception is complex and unwieldy. I am not an expert, but I don't think lying about whether you are wearing a condom would be sufficient to vitiate consent. Even if that particular charge would not be a crime in England and Wales, however, if the allegations are true he would still potentially be guilty of rape and sexual assault.
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I think you might be becoming overly focussed on one detail. As I said above, even ignoring completely the no-condom allegation there is plenty with which to charge him, in Sweden or in England. The question of whether deceiving someone about whether you will use a condom should be a crime, or whether he in fact deceived her here, is an irrelevant sideshow.
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This is pretty weak sauce all around. Should it also be a crime for a guy to say he will marry you to get in your pants and then doesn't? Or can we just chalk a few of these things up to experience and move on?
~S
Re:Buggars! (Score:5, Informative)
The judges themselves said they were unlawful under UK law:
Rejecting the Assange legal team’s attempt to portray his alleged actions as “disrespectful” or “disturbing” but not criminal, the judges declared (PDF) that the behavior described in each of the charges was criminal under the laws of England and Wales:
The first complaint described a situation in which Assange held down the arms of the woman known as AA, preventing her from reaching a condom as he attempted to pry her legs open with his own legs in order to penetrate her vaginally. AA’s subsequent consent to intercourse after he had agreed to put on a condom, they found, did not render Assange’s alleged initial use of force against her lawful.
With regard to the second complaint, Assange’s lawyers contended that it is not illegal under English law to penetrate a partner without a condom in circumstances in which she has only consented to sex if a condom is used. The court ruled that such deception would be a criminal act in England, given that AA’s complaint alleged that Assange intentionally sabotaged the condom he was using while they were having intercourse.
In the third complaint, AA alleged that Assange rubbed his erect naked penis against her body while they were sharing a bed under non-sexual circumstances. The judges ruled that AA’s consent to sleep in the same bed as Assange “was not a consent to him removing his clothes from the lower part of his body and deliberately pressing that part and his erect penis against her.”
Finally, in the case of the fourth complaint, the judges rejected the Assange lawyers’ contention that the behavior described would not constitute rape under English law. Under that law, they found, the behavior alleged constituted rape in two separate ways: First, that Assange is said to have penetrated SW without a condom when she had only consented to intercourse if a condom was present, and second that he penetrated her while she slept. “It is difficult to see,” they said, “how a person could reasonably have believed in consent if the complainant alleges a state of sleep or half sleep,” and “there is nothing in the statement from which it could be inferred that he reasonably expected that she would have consented to sex without a condom.”
From http://studentactivism.net/2011/11/02/british-judges-reject-assanges-rape-defense/ [studentactivism.net]
Judgement mentioned in the article, direct from the UK Judiciary website - http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/assange-judgment.pdf [judiciary.gov.uk]
Re:Buggars! (Score:4, Interesting)
The fundamental issue is that these are different interpretations of the law than those reached in hundreds of other past similar cases, including some far more aggressive than this.
I feel sorry for those girls who have been told by the courts they weren't raped in far less pleasant ordeals than this, yet this, a much more borderline case, is affirmed as rape.
It's frankly disgusting.
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I'm away from the desktop right now so I cant post citations, but I can think of several cases where removal of or tampering with a condom without consent for that particular action has been successfully prosecuted as rape in the UK, so no there isn't a fundamental issue of differing interpretations here at all.
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How many women have been charged with rape for tampering with a condom because they want to get pregnant? I'd be curious to see how evenly this law is applied.
~S
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Even worse. When I was a teenager one of my friends had one of his grandmothers hat pins. He liked to go into the 'preppy' bars and punch it through the whole stack of rubbers in the machine in the bathroom. Most weekends he would hit all the machines.
I bet he didn't even know he was a serial rapist.
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Well I'm sure if you go down to your local rape crisis centre and say that you'll find no women who disagree, nope, none at all. Anyone who has been involved with rape victims, either because they themselves were raped and went to the crisis centre and met other victims, or simply because they like to help them out will be able to point you to many cases, perhaps even their own.
Seriously, if you hate Assange, that's fine. But don't talk bullshit and trivialise the issue with it simply because you want to tr
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Even after the fact? Please cite the law.
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It is Swedish law. Not American not british but Swedish law.
Besides the CIA. Is just as clueless as you are regarding Swedish law.
He got lucky with two different women. The problem becomes Swedish law is very much in the womens favor. And that bit him on the ass when those women found out
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I was responding to the claim that the alleged crime would be illegal under UK law.
Evidently not as clueless as you are concerning the context of this discussion.
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and will he get appropriate process?
Yeah, Sweden's going to give him due process. They're duly going to process him on a plane to the U.S., where he'll be thrown in prison forever.
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They could do that. But then so could the UK.
From the perspective of the UK they trust the Swedish legal process (which includes the European court of human rights). If the Swedes decide to turn around and send him to guantanamo bay (specifically) the UK and the EU would lose faith in the swedish legal system and there would have to be consequences to treaties and EU membership etc.
Sending him to the US is another matter. Because again, the UK and Sweden can both extradite to the US and the same basic qu
Re:Buggars! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually this is quite incorrect. The UK has quite strict rule regarding extradition, generally they will only extradite someone if the alleged crime is a crime in both the UK and the requester country. This was the initial argument brought to the extradition hearings and why the UK decided to hear it all out first. On the other hand, Sweden and the US have some very loose and flimsy extradition agreements. You can be extradited from Sweden to the US for virtually anything. The US and the UK have extradition agreements but they are far more rigid and complex. The US would have had very little luck getting him out of the UK.
The real problem here is that once you read all of the available information and do maybe 5 minutes worth of research, you start to draw a picture that this really is a fabrication. Whether they have done it for attention or whether they do it for a government, doesn't really matter. But they do not decide to seek police assistance until AFTER they have texted each other, after Ardin throws a party FOR Assange, after she tweets bragging about the party, her guests and Assange.
Now, do I believe that the behavior would be abhorrent if true? Yes, most certainly. Do I draw a personal conclusion about the events that took place, the two women and Assange? No, I wasn't there, I do not know the truth of the matter and I will not mentally convict of raping a woman when I have absolutely no clue as to whether or not he really did it.
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Assange has yet to be accused for a crime, the police wants to hold interrogations with Assange to help determine wheth
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Re:Buggars! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the charges are completely fabricated by someone, anyone (CIA the women in question etc.) it's absurd to think that the UK would refuse extradition to Sweden for something like this.
Oh, it's not extradition for the alleged crimes that has people worried. It's the fact that he was already detained for investigation for a month in Sweden until the case was closed and he was permitted to leave the country. Now they want him back. Are they going to repeat the same process with different prosecutor's until the outcome changes? That's suspicious to the point of being terrifying.
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If the Swedish legal system allows it then... so what?
The Swedish legal system isn't a variant on the common law system of the US/UK/Canada etc. Nor is it obliged to be. If the UK has decided their process is fair enough to allow extradition treaties then that's pretty much the end of the discussion.
There's nothing particularly suspicious to the point of being terrifying. If their system allows that, and you think it's terrifying don't ever travel to sweden. For all it matters their system could be the
A thousand thanks, Barefoot Monkey (Score:2)
Of course, since the court ruled on a point never covered during the trial, it made a colossal fabrication and fiction of the entire proceedings --- nothing pertaining to legal process whatsoever.
To those stooges, or even worse, unthinking idiots, who keep claiming Assange and Wikileaks is some kind of intel agency ploy, those of us who have been monitoring this have never witnessed such a gargantuan amount of resour
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>>>Would the alleged crime be illegal in the UK? Yes.
No. Sex without a condom is Not illegal in the UK. You need to restart your logic chain.
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Richard_At_Work posted above the legal ruling in the UK that covered that it would. (it's buried within a reply to the thread but it's there).
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Even if the charges are completely fabricated by someone, anyone (CIA the women in question etc.) it's absurd to think that the UK would refuse extradition to Sweden for something like this.
Would the alleged crime be illegal in the UK? Yes.
Does the UK have an extradition arrangement with Sweden (in this case as part of the EU I would figure)? Yes.
Would the Swedish legal system treat him appropriately from the UK perspective if convicted of this particular crime, and will he get appropriate process? Yes, but that's why they have an extradition agreement at all.
At that point he's just delaying the inevitable. If not, then you'd have to kick one or both of Sweden and the UK out of the EU for not upholding the same basic sets of rights and rules. The question of whether or not the US is fabricating the whole thing can be addressed fairly in sweden (at least the UK would consider it fair).
Additionally, why do we care? Is it just because this egomaniac founded/was part of Wikileaks and this is Slashdot so therefore we care about anything connected to Wikileaks?
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Would the alleged crime be illegal in the UK? Yes.
Right, but for extradition normally you have to be charged with a crime first. They have not charged him, they just want to question him which he offered to do either online or in person in the UK. Surely it would have been cheaper to just fly some Swedish police over to the UK than go through all this. In fact UK police go to other countries to investigate and question suspects all the time.
Would the Swedish legal system treat him appropriately from the UK perspective if convicted of this particular crime, and will he get appropriate process? Yes, but that's why they have an extradition agreement at all.
The worry is that the US will apply for extradition from Sweden. They might not get it from the UK because he would be treated as a terrorist and have his human rights violated. Alternatively they might just render him illegally of course.
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Would the alleged crime be illegal in the UK? Yes.
Is he charged with a crime?
I was under the impression that he's only wanted for questioning.
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Correct. But that doesn't matter. They can still issue a warrant to question him. Their legal system, and it's up to the UK if what they want to agree to extradite for it. Since that's in the treaties they have there's not a lot of room for manouvre here.
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Yes. And?
From the perspective of extradition it doesn't matter. Would the questioning involve torture? No. Could he be charged with a crime that the UK recognizes? Yes. Is the punishment for said crime something the UK allows (i.e. no death penalty)? That's pretty much it.
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Richard At work posted a nice summary above. He's wanted for questioning in alleged criminal activity. Whether I used precisely legally correct language or not I'm not sure, least of all as it applies to a legal system that isn't my own.
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Richard_at_Work in replies above laid it out. The UK judges agree it would be a crime in the UK on all four accusations.
Also, they only really need a valid warrant, he doesn't have to be charged yet. Depends on exactly the agreement and sweden have though.
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Within the EU? Probably not. Even if it is... so what? Sweden and the UK have treaties, if this falls within the realm of the treaties it's up to the swedes if it's worth pursuing.
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I think that's pretty much a non point though. He's within the EU, the UK and Sweden are both EU members and have extradition arrangements. It's up to Sweden how much effort it wants to put into any individual case, but as long as it meets their agreed upon thresholds there's no reason he can't be the person extradited that meets the bare minimum requirements to do so.
Re:Buggars! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are allegations.
Mostly withdrawn.
There is no indictment.
Required for extradition.
You presume guilt.
In the absence of evidence or formal charges in court.
It looks like Jack Lint is warming up his instruments, in Information Retrieval.
I'm glad that you endorse and encourage this sort of thing. Let's get Tuttle, next.
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Setting aside his innocence or guilt, US allies often go along with unofficial requests from the US to deal with people unless there is a domestic reason not to (such as countries that do not allow the death penalty making a ruckus about extradition, or Polanski's popularity).
In this case Assange is pretty hated by both governments and corporations around the world, so other governments are not exactly interested in fighting US pressure on the issue.
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Shagging women? Most men: guilty.
Wanna bet? $100, and we decide the winner with a /. poll...
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Didn't one of the women later withdraw those allegations and run off to Israel somewhere to hide?
Re:Sorry? WHAT sexual deviancy? (Score:4, Funny)
[citation needed]
(or vagina)
Re:Sorry? WHAT sexual deviancy? (Score:5, Informative)
Here you go [huffingtonpost.com]
Re:Sorry? WHAT sexual deviancy? (Score:5, Interesting)
I should also point out that if you google her name, there are allegations of some serious ties to the CIA via her odd history of involvement with anti-Castro groups in Cuba. Can't imagine why a CIA operative would be in the West Bank with an innocent Christian group trying to get close to Palestinian leaders, though.
Bingo (Score:4, Interesting)
But to believe this has *nothing* to do with US hegemony is truly ignorant - especially in light of Hillary Clinton just happening to 'drop by' Sweden this week. I wouldn't be surprised if Assange touches down at Gitmo instead.
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The whole idea of him being set up is silly.
Is it as silly as the idea that INTERPOL would get involved with his extradition when he has not been charged with a crime? I mean, not charges that haven't been dropped...
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OK. You're up to 2 points on your posting license now. Best be careful.
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A citation is also the fancy term for a traffic ticket [wikipedia.org]. See also the point system [wikipedia.org] for that part.
Nope, but sexi without a condom (Score:2, Interesting)
And, no, she wasn't asleep. Or were you there observing?
Look, we know that he pulled the kecks of the USA government down and showed everyone the skidmarks. But putting a vendetta on a bloke for pointing out your failures as a country is even worse behaviour than the despicable acts JA told everyone about.
Re:Nope, but sexi without a condom (Score:4, Interesting)
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Assange Kardashian? (Score:2)
This all reminds me of a reality show now.
Re:Assange Kardashian? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, he'll probably wisely choose the death penalty anyway...
It's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone ever talk about Wikileaks any more? (Score:2)
You know, the actual content that it leaks? Nope? Rather chat about a juicy sex story instead, with all our oh-so-clever little bon mots?
I think this is essentially Mission Accomplished for the TLAs regardless of the outcome of any eventual trial.
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Things slowed down quite a bit after they have lost all their funding.
Why do people defend this person? (Score:2)
If he committed a crime against some women he deserves whatever he gets and he needs to stop trying to hide because it makes him out to be a coward unwilling to face the consequences of his actions. No doubt his involvement with wikileaks is fanning the flames here but lets not forget that according to ex-staffers [wired.com] he's tried to change that organization into a dictatorship of sorts and attacked those who questioned his decision or motives. These are signs of desperation and paranoia. Wikileaks will surviv
Why don't you look at what's actually going on? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Assanage hasn't even been charged with a crime
2. Which wouldn't be rape, but "sex by surprise" if he were charged
3. He got permission to leave the country and it was granted
4. He's offered to answer questions remotely - offers that have been rebuffed
So, does this look like a normal prosecution or a witch hunt to you?
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Extraditions for questioning are not unusual, as a quick Google search will quickly determine.
As far as the crime, I take it you are an expert in Swedish law? There are multiple charges in the extradition request.
Re:Why don't you look at what's actually going on? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they are, as a Google search not based on the fallacy of anecdotes will quickly determine. First world nations don't forcibly remove people and place them in another country's custody for shits and giggles.
I take it you're still ignoring the fact that he was questioned and released, and then granted permission to leave the country? And that charges were already dismissed before being brought by another prosecutor? Or that one of the witnesses has possibly recanted and left the country? Wouldn't want inconvenient parts of the storyline to interfere with the witch hunt....
You wanna talk Occam's razor? (Score:2)
He's not even charged with a crime yet in the country he's going to be extradited to. So care to fix the rest of your sentence?
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They want to prosecute him for rape because he allegedly banged a groupie without a condom. Any sane person would avoid prosecution for that, "guilty" or otherwise. No sane person would consider that a criminal act.
Re:Guilty? (Score:4, Informative)
That, of course, is not the actual charge. The actual charge itself being just one of four.
The meme "he's being charged for having sex without a condom" is a deliberate attempt to skew the actual situation. I'm not saying he's guilty of anything serious. I'm not saying he's not. But I'm just pointing out, the *actual* charges are that 1) the woman *only consented* to sex with a condom but he only pretended to use one, violating the terms of her consent; 2) that he started having sex with another woman in her sleep; 3) that he held one woman down in a sexual manner against her consent; and 4) that he rubbed his penis against one girl without her consent.
Again, it's not "stranger in the bushes, knife up to the throat rape" that's being charged, but the charges are not "he had sex without a condom".
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Even if Assange committed the acts he was accused of, those acts are not illegal in any country besides Sweden. That usually means that you don't get extradited. Unless the United States wants you, then you're not safe anywhere.
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British Judges have already said in their ruling that all four complaints would be unlawful under English law.
http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/assange-judgment.pdf [judiciary.gov.uk]
Rejecting the Assange legal team’s attempt to portray his alleged actions as “disrespectful” or “disturbing” but not criminal, the judges declared (PDF) that the behavior described in each of the charges was criminal under the laws of England and Wales:
The first complaint described a situation in which Assange held down the arms of the woman known as AA, preventing her from reaching a condom as he attempted to pry her legs open with his own legs in order to penetrate her vaginally. AA’s subsequent consent to intercourse after he had agreed to put on a condom, they found, did not render Assange’s alleged initial use of force against her lawful.
With regard to the second complaint, Assange’s lawyers contended that it is not illegal under English law to penetrate a partner without a condom in circumstances in which she has only consented to sex if a condom is used. The court ruled that such deception would be a criminal act in England, given that AA’s complaint alleged that Assange intentionally sabotaged the condom he was using while they were having intercourse.
In the third complaint, AA alleged that Assange rubbed his erect naked penis against her body while they were sharing a bed under non-sexual circumstances. The judges ruled that AA’s consent to sleep in the same bed as Assange “was not a consent to him removing his clothes from the lower part of his body and deliberately pressing that part and his erect penis against her.”
Finally, in the case of the fourth complaint, the judges rejected the Assange lawyers’ contention that the behavior described would not constitute rape under English law. Under that law, they found, the behavior alleged constituted rape in two separate ways: First, that Assange is said to have penetrated SW without a condom when she had only consented to intercourse if a condom was present, and second that he penetrated her while she slept. “It is difficult to see,” they said, “how a person could reasonably have believed in consent if the complainant alleges a state of sleep or half sleep,” and “there is nothing in the statement from which it could be inferred that he reasonably expected that she would have consented to sex without a condom.”
One important note as to that last charge. Assange’s attorneys contended that SW’s consent to the continuation of unprotected intercourse after she awoke to find Assange penetrating her rendered the entire encounter consensual. The judges rejected that argument, declaring that “the fact that she allowed it to continue once she was aware of what was happening cannot go to his state of mind or its reasonableness when he initially penetrated her.” It was his alleged initial penetration, they ruled, that constituted rape, and consent to non-consensual intercourse cannot be obtained retroactively.
http://studentactivism.net/2011/11/02/british-judges-reject-assanges-rape-defense/ [studentactivism.net]
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Yeah, I'm not surprised that they're bending over backwards to find a way to rid themselves of Assange. When has any British citizen been convicted of rape under similar circumstances?
âoethe fact that she allowed it to continue once she was aware of what was happening cannot go to his state of mind or its reasonableness when he initially penetrated her.â
I don't even know where to start with this logic. Rape is illegal because of the state of mind of the victim, not the state of mind of the aggre
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Hmm, is that so? [satwcomic.com] ;)
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Sex without a condom isn't rape in most countries including the UK. He is wanted for questioning related to that, but isn't charged with any crime in any country.
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Continuing to have sex with someone after they express their unwillingness, however, can be a crime (and might be classified as "rape"). Why the woman in question chose to protest is irrelevant. He isn't being charged with having sex without a condom: he is being charged with having sex over the protests of his partner.
You can claim she is accusing him not because she feels genuinely violated, but because of political reasons, and you may be right, but what he did could be considered a crime in Sweden and
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It is when the woman involved said that she didn't want to have sex with him *without* a condom.
Re:Hang on. (Score:4, Interesting)
When the woman wanted to have sex with him but only with a condom but didn't care enough to enforce that beyond the honor system. In your mind that constitutes the cruel and vicious physical attack that is rape? I'm sorry but there is no set of circumstances under which the woman wants to be penetrated and it is still rape. There are few where she could find out something later that is a different crime for instance if the man had a life threatening STD but it doesn't magically become rape as well. Actual rape is a vicious crime on par with attempted murder. There are real rape victims out there and this demeans them.
You can't rape by technicality. Rape isn't about a technical contract of consent it's about physically forcing yourself on to an unwilling sex partner. If you knowingly force yourself on an unwilling partner as a condition of doing something for them or not telling their partner about an affair or some other terms THAT is rape.
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To be more specific, it's that the girl insisted he wear one but he didn't. Thereby violating the conditions on which her consent to sex rested. And that's only one of four charges.
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As long as they don't extend this precedent. If they can apply the condition ('Only if you make my toes curl') we're all in deep deep shit.
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You can't be in bed with someone you've had sex with in a non-sexual manner and pressing your penis against someone is not molestation if that person is laying in bed with you and continues doing so. It's an advance, it might be an unwelcome advance but that isn't criminal.
"To be more specific, it's that the girl insisted he wear one but he didn't. Thereby violating the conditions on which her consent to sex rested."
Ludicrous was right. There was no exaggeration there. Sorry that is grounds to consider him
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He's being extradited for questioning, something perfectly routine.
Also the sex without condom is not the only charge:
"The first complaint described a situation in which Assange held down the arms of the woman known as AA, preventing her from reaching a condom as he attempted to pry her legs open with his own legs in order to penetrate her vaginally. AAâ(TM)s subsequent consent to intercourse after he had agreed to put on a condom, they found, did not render Assangeâ(TM)s alleged initial use of fo
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The actual act Assange is accused of would not be considered rape in any other country in the world.
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OP is not a troll. Deal with the content, not the language.
Oh, bullshit, AC. (Score:3, Informative)
Cue the authoritarian douchebags who are hoping that no one will notice that the guy hasn't even been charged yet.
Do you own a mirror?
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Cue the authoritarian douchebags who are hoping that no one will notice that the guy hasn't even been charged yet.
Cue the conspiracy theorists who don't realize you don't have to be. You can be extradited for questioning, you don't often charge somebody before you've questioned them.
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Cue the police state apologist bullshit. How does your authoritarian mind grapple with the dichotomy of:
1) This person may have committed a serious crime so we want him extradited
2) But so unimportant that we haven't bothered to charge him
You must be a fan of the Obama Administration throwing Americans onto assassination lists, because they were horrible people who needed a good killing. But not so horrible that the DOJ bothered to indict
Re:Oh, bullshit, AC. (Score:4, Informative)
You realize they questioned Assange at the time and released him, right? You realize he asked for permission to leave the country and it was granted, right? You realize that it's extremely rare for people to be deported without even being charged, right?
Right?
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