Time Runs Out On Sweden's Sexual Assault Charges Against Julian Assange 226
As the Guardian and many other sources report, the clock has run out on the three 2010 charges of sexual assault on which Swedish authorities had hoped try Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been waiting out those charges since 2012 in London, inside the Ecuadorian embassy, claiming that he feared extradition to the U.S. in connection to this Wikileaks work if he were first extradicted to Sweden. He was recently rebuffed after suggesting that he'd be interested in living in France as a political refugee. The linked Guardian story notes that the expiry of the Swedish prosecutors' time doesn't mean that Assange is no longer under scrutiny, as does CNN.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL (Score:2)
IANAL - especailly not a Swedish one, but can't they get a conviction in absentia, assuming they have enough evidence? Not that I'm rooting for that, but I guess it sounds to me like they really don't have much on the guy.
Re:IANAL (Score:5, Informative)
He was never formally accused, only wanted for questioning. And when it turned out that they could only question him, and not take custody of him they lost interest...
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He was never formally accused, only wanted for questioning. And when it turned out that they could only question him, and not take custody of him they lost interest...
That seems to me like the most damning evidence of all that this was a setup. If this were really about the crime, then they would have taken the chance to question him.
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Here's an overview of Swedish criminal procedure [samtycke.nu]. He can't be charged until he's been questioned. Unlike the US where anything you say can and will be used to hurt you and never help you, Swedish investigators can listen to the accused and then decide whether or not his story holds up, or can be requested by the accused to investigate something else that might help them. However, once the questioning happens, the indictment would come soon after (there'd be nothing stopping it assuming they wanted to indict
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You'll find that people are a lot more willing to spend obscene amounts of cash to grab someone if that someone is publicly making them look bad.
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But keep in mind, after talking with the police while he was still in Sweden, they told him he was free to leave, so he did.
Others report that questioning someone outside of the country is not at all without precedent.
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They told him they couldn't force him to stay. There's a difference between "dude, you're cool" and "well, I can't FORCE you to stay..."
And as for questioning outside the country, it depends on whether you're talking about questioning someone who is "häktad" (a suspect they intend to arrest) and...questioning. Which is done to everyone involved in the case. The victim, the suspect, witnesses. Yes, I'd question the victim out the country. I'd question a witness of which I had no suspicion outside the co
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From the article:
Ny has objected that interrogating Assange abroad would be complicated and largely pointless because – should sufficient grounds emerge – he would still have to travel to Sweden for trial. However, she is obliged to drop the case against him unless she believes there are reasonable grounds for suspicion of his guilt.
And
Further pressure on the prosecutor came in November when the appeal court, while rejecting Assange’s arguments, nonetheless directed sharp criticism at Ny for failing in her obligation to move the case forward.
So, that's why. They have to do something, even if that something means charging him, then failing to be able to bring him in to stand trial before the "right to a speedy trial" limitation runs out.
It's hard to draw a parallel between the U.S. and Swedish legal systems. We (I'm American) have a purely adversarial system. Which I rather prefer, because I do not trust "impartial" government officials to find "truth." I had enough of that with the Star Chamber. But the Swedes have a system
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In which case Sweden would have applied for extradition, Assange would have objected on the grounds that what he did wasn't a comparable crime in the UK, and the UK would have refused the request.
Instead, the UK courts ruled that, if Assange did what he is alleged to have done, it would be rape under UK law.
On questions of UK law, I'll take the UK courts as an authority before I'll listen to you.
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It stems from this right in section 5:
However, when a person is suspected on reasonable ground to have committed a crime, he or she will have the right to access information on the preliminary investigation and to state the investigative measures that the defence considers appropriate.
By the time you are actually "charged" in Sweden it's pretty much a done deal that you're being tried. This is different than the US, where you get charged early in the process, then further investigation happens, then maybe the charges get dropped.
He's officially a suspect. But before a suspect can be charged, they have the right to examine the procedure that made them a suspect and will make them charged before the charging actually happens. In Sweden, Assange's offic
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You don't know Swedish law or procedures. From what I've read, he can't be charged without being questioned first. I'm not sure why the Swedish prosecutors acted as they did, but I do know something. I know that Swedish law is considerably different from US or UK law, and I know that I don't know Swedish legal procedures.
Re: IANAL (Score:2)
Most places? The UK doesn't for these type of crimes: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi... [bbc.com]
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So this isn't about a statute of limitations. It's about something more like the U.S. 6th Ammendment which, basically, bans open ended investigations and other Kafkaesque stuff. Within a reasonable timeframe law enforcement has to bring formal charges to a court of law, specifying exactly what the person is accused of, the court decides and that's the end of it.
What do you think a statute of limitations is?
Sweden didn't want witnesses (Score:5, Insightful)
The curious thing is the sticking point. Equador wanted one of their diplomats to be present at the interview, Sweden refused that condition...
You can see Marianne Ny, just didn't want to interview him in London in the Embassy. She only started the process in June because the court pressed her to act. It didn't matter what the issue was, she was never going to act in good faith.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/13/julian-assange-wikileaks-swedish-prosecutors-london-interview
"“My view has always been that to perform an interview with him at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would lower the quality of the interview, and that he would need to be present in Sweden in any case should there be a trial in the future. This assessment remains unchanged,” Ny said in a statement."
See, interview in London..... bad.... interview in Sweden..... good. The GPS location totally changes the questions and answers....
JTRIG (Score:3, Informative)
Now is a good time to remember that since Assange was accused, we had Snowden release a bunch of documents, including one on JTRIG, GCHQs attack dog for perverting the course of justice in the name of national security:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
"the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) "...
"...JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable."
"..they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy)..."
It's okay, they're still looking into rape charges (Score:5, Interesting)
An additional alleged incident of sexual molestation will be "time barred" - that is, time will have run out to question Mr Assange - on 18 August.
The Swedish statement also said an allegation of rape was due to expire on 17 August 2020, but that investigation would continue.
So those lucky Ecuadorian diplomats might have the pleasure of his company for another five years.
Stasi = CIA = KGB = Mossad = NSA = MI6 (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a time when you could take pride in your country, and think that "your" intelligence agencies were working for freedom.
That time is long past. Long, long past. Intelligence agencies are, simply, the enemies of decent people everywhere. Those who expose them do humanity a service, and those who join them are traitors to any concept of freedom.
Which has nothing to do (Score:2)
With whether or not Assange is a dirtbag rapist.
Re:Stasi = CIA = KGB = Mossad = NSA = MI6 (Score:5, Insightful)
I would suspect that's largely due to globalization and the Internet making dissemination of information that much more public and difficult to control rather than any righteousness on the part of any intelligence agency. It's not that the spies of today are less ethical, it's that they can't lie so convincingly anymore.
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If there ever was such a time, it was because "you" would be ignorant of what was going on.
Unanswered question (Score:3)
Since when, and in what two-bit penny ante legal system, does a statute of limitation come into effect while the subject is a FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE?
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Since when, and in what two-bit penny ante legal system, does a statute of limitation come into effect while the subject is a FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE?
I don't think it's actually all that unusual. The real problem is that if this crime is worth chasing Assange around from country to country, shouldn't the statute of limitations be a little longer?
The US, among other places (Score:3)
A statute of limitations is there so you don't spend more of your life in hiding and being paranoid than you would have spent in jail.
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That's a pretty bad example since there is no statute of limitations on murder.
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Pretty much any, if you run from any sufficiently serious legal proceeding. In this case, Sweden presented a proper extradition request, and Assange was legally required to allow himself to be turned over. He fled instead, and became a fugitive.
Crowdsourced prison (Score:3)
The US's real desire (Score:3)
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What would he be guilty of under US law? Publishing secrets isn't illegal; that would be a violation of the First Amendment. Leaking secrets is highly illegal, which is why Manning was convicted. The only charge I could think of would be if there was evidence that he was actively cooperating with Manning in the actual leak.
This is not Snowden's situation. Snowden's role was basically the same as Manning's. The US is not after the journalists that published what Snowden gave them.
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The US would argue that Assange encouraged Manning to leak. If that fails they would argue that he did something else, maybe spitting on the sidewalk, to quote Al Capone. Does not matter, under US law he can be sent to jail for a very long time for very minor offenses.
Re: Yawn... (Score:2, Insightful)
The unique problem here is there exists a power that wants to bring him down.
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The problem here is that lots of people are paranoid about the US government, which has not given any indication of wanting to do anything to him (other than some grandstanding politicians). Really, if Assange was worried about being shipped to the US, why go to the UK? They have a history of rolling over for US extradition requests.
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which has not given any indication of wanting to do anything to him other than some grandstanding politicians
"Grandstanding politicians" are a pretty strong indication he would be the star of his own show trial.
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Sweden can not be trusted, and sadly the law just doesn't come into it:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/... [hrw.org]
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Funny)
It reminds me of how some people refused to believe Hans Reiser might've indeed been guilty of killing his wife, apparently just because he gave us ReiserFS.
Except that the ReiserFS doesn't piss off the government of the country you've been brainwashed in and its corporate masters, you mentally diseased idiot. Now get back working like a donkey and tonight don't forget to watch the katrashians with some beer and junk food at arm's length, so you won't have to think, ever.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no. I mean, I don't really know much one way or the other. However, legal troubles aside, the level of effort involved in his case, and many of the facts about how its been conducted DO make it look quite politically motivated; which, regardless of his innocence or guilt, is reason to look at the entire affair with a pretty jaundiced eye.
He may well be guilty, but, I honestly don't think that is the real reason for the prosecution, people more guilty of worst crimes get far less scrutiny. I honestly wouldn't even be shocked to find out the women involved worked for intelligence services to begin with and the entire deal was a setup, its not like they don't have a name for using pretty young women as agents.
And thats the problem, his big major enemies have no credibility at all and nothing can be put past them, because of long standing patterns of decietful behavior of which, this would all be pretty minor examples.
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I think you're confused.
People who are on our side, whatever side that may be, never rape. If they're charged with rapes, it's due to lying sluts making fake charges due to political motives.
People who are against us however are never faced with false rape accusations. They're rapists, plain and simple. Even if they haven't been charged with rape.
Please keep these matters straight.
Also: It's easy to forget, but remember: rapists look like creepy guys who would jump out of the bushes with a knife. They never
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, if you're going to read any links, check out the last one [lrb.co.uk] - "Ghosting" by Andrew O’Hagan. He was Assange's ghostwriter for his book and spent months living with him, interviewing him and recording every conversation. It's a... very revealing read, to put it mildly.
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That's a hell of a read. Thanks for the link.
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It's a... very revealing read, to put it mildly.
For an equally revealing read, after you've read the above on Assange (and I'll throw in Suelette Dreyfus' excellent "Underground", which talks about his early years), read Robert Hare's "Without Conscience" and see how much of Assange you can find in the book.
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would also point out, that the fear of extradition to the US is a little baseless, he hasn't actually broken any US laws. If the US wanted to extradite him anyways, why work through Sweden which isn't a strong ally instead of the UK which is a Five Eyes partner and nearly the US's closest ally.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
More to the point,
1) Someone surrendered under an EAW, in order to be extradited to a third state, requires the consent of both states taking part in the EAW request, rather than just one. Being extradited under an EAW only further complicates any attempts at third party extradition.
2) Sweden is one of the few countries whose extradition treaty with the US flatly bans extradition for military or intelligence crimes, and has a consequence long been a place to where defectors and spies flee (the most famous being Edward Lee Howard [nytimes.com], the greatest CIA defector during the Cold War period)
3) Sweden was so mad at the US extradition program ignoring their ban on use of their airspace for extradition flights that they caused a diplomatic rift with the US in 2006 by disguising their special forces soldiers as airport workers to sneak aboard a suspected extradition plane. And how do we know about this event? Why, Wikileaks of course [sverigesradio.se]!
4) Sweden has the world's strongest whistleblower protections, so the point where it's not even legal to look for the source of a leak [adelaide.edu.au], let alone prosecute them for it.
5) While no country's judicial system is completely devoid of controversial cases (Sweden included), as a whole Sweden has one of the world's highest rankings on judicial fairness according to the peer-reviewed World Justice Project [worldjusticeproject.org]. They actually use it as an example [worldjusticeproject.org] of fairness when discussing how other countries can improve.
6) Assange himself thought so much of Sweden that he was applying for a residence permit there [ndtv.com] and repeatedly called Sweden his "shield". Funny how Sweden instantly became evil US lackeys the instant he was investigated for rape, isn't it?
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden as impartial now as it was during WW2 when it did business with Nazis and took stolen gold as payment and prevented others from getting help against Russia. Don't trust sweden.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Interesting)
3) Sweden was so mad at the US extradition program ignoring their ban on use of their airspace for extradition flights that they caused a diplomatic rift with the US in 2006 by disguising their special forces soldiers as airport workers to sneak aboard a suspected extradition plane. And how do we know about this event? Why, Wikileaks of course [sverigesradio.se]!
On one hand they are mad, on the other hand it continues to happen [falkvinge.net]. It is very unlikely that it happens without high level consent from the swedes. This being a major problem.
Also both the women are now uncooperative, one of them has even fled to Australia.
I am not supporter of Assange, and consider him a megalomaniac, but his concerns are quite valid.
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I wish you blind assange supporters would at least stick to the truth. But of course this has never been about the truth.
http://www.theguardian.com/med... [theguardian.com]
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Claes Borgström, a Stockholm lawyer who represents one of the women whose allegations against Assange will now never be tested in court, said the woman was ambivalent about the situation. “On the one hand, she wanted Assange to face trial and answer for what he has done. On the other, she wants to put this behind her.”
http://www.theguardian.com/med... [theguardian.com]
Bolded for attention. I wish both, you sweden apologist and the assange supporters would stick to the truth.
5 years is more than he would get in Swedish jail (Score:2)
He obviously believes that the risk of extradition out of Sweden is real, because there is no way he could be sentenced to more than 5 years for these minor offenses. The case against him is weak, which is why he was allowed to leave Sweden in the first place. They are obviously politically motivated, hence the refusal to question him in the UK. (Once the question him the have to charge him with something very specific, which would be embarrassing as there is nothing to charge him with.)
It is most unlike
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I would also point out, that the fear of extradition to the US is a little baseless, he hasn't actually broken any US laws".
I do hope that was meant as a joke. Surely there isn't anyone left who believes the US government gives a flying fuck about laws? The salient fact is that they hate Assange because he disobliged them and annoyed them. They certainly could create a new law specifically to make him illegal, or retroactively reinterpret some old laws to do the same... but history shows that they mostly just kidnap, torture and kill whomever they want, without any concern for laws.
In case you doubt any of that, ask yourself what laws the people in Guantanamo Bay broke. And then ask yourself, if they did break any American laws, why they weren't brought to trial in a US court of law. You might then graduate to asking yourself what US laws were broken by the thousands or millions of dead civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen... etc., etc. to merit the summary capital punishment that was visited on them.
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"I would also point out, that the fear of extradition to the US is a little baseless, he hasn't actually broken any US laws".
I do hope that was meant as a joke. Surely there isn't anyone left who believes the US government gives a flying fuck about laws? The salient fact is that they hate Assange because he disobliged them and annoyed them. They certainly could create a new law specifically to make him illegal, or retroactively reinterpret some old laws to do the same...
Then why didn't they grab him during the 18 months he was in the UK arguing his appeals before he went into hiding in the embassy? Hell, if the US really is all "fark you, laws," why haven't we sent a SEAL team to invade the embassy? I don't think we're terribly concerned about Ecuador's military might.
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So anyone the government says deserves to be jailed deserves to be jailed and anyone who disagrees is either a traitor or talking out of his ass.
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I am pointing out that as these people are enemy combatants, and not criminals, asking what laws they broke is disingenuous, and trying to claim to KNOW that these people have done nothing wrong when most of the information is classified says either AC is lying, or he is breaking federal law.
If you want to fix it, protest it and elect leaders that vow to correct it. Oh wait, wasn't that one of Obama's promises? I think he said he would close Guantanamo Bay, but yet it is still open 6 years later. Intere
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Oh please? You're claiming that he's lying?
Guantanamo Bay is a fucking gulag by any other name.
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Multiple aspects of the argument "It would be easier from the UK" are discussed here: https://justice4assange.com/ex... [justice4assange.com] (Disclaimer: Not exactly an unbiased source)
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http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
According to Rei (who seems to have pretty valid points), in order to extradite from Sweden, UKs approval would be needed anyways, so it doesn't help anything to send him to Sweden first.
It seems that the argument from that site amounts to that he is safer in the Ecuadorian embassy, but this totally misses the point that that isn't what is being argued, and what is being argued is that it would be easier to extradite from the UK compared to extraditing him to Sweden, then fr
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Because a conviction for violating some US secrecy law would make him a martyr. A conviction for rape is much better for destroying his legacy.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
Multiple government officials here... including at least one who is currently running for president and another who was previously a vice-presidential nominee... have publicly called for Assange to be kidnapped and/or murdered. We have a recent history of "extraordinary rendition": ie. kidnapping people we don't like and sending them off to third-world crapholes to be tortured and murdered by the CIA so it doesn't technically happen on our own soil. And we operate our own modern gulag in Cuba, also so that technically holding people indefinitely with no trial or other due process isn't happening on our own soil.
I agree that he *shouldn't* have to be worried about being extradited to the US. But there are more shenanigans available than extradition.
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Or just detained... indefinitely (or until they develop a nasty case of death, from natural causes of course).
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Interesting articles, and thanks for posting them, but I wonder about this from the OP article: “From the beginning I offered simple solutions,” Assange said. “Come to the embassy to take my statement or promise not to send me to the United States. This Swedish official refused both. She even refused a written statement This is beyond incompetence.”
If this is true, you do have to wonder. If Sweden is notorious for not extraditing on espionage, how hard would it be to give written
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I tell my girls to scream. I tell them that I will come in the room and blow the rapist's brains out if they scream.
erm. Make sure you understand _why_ she's screaming. Just that.. some girls are.. noisy.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone actually care about this guy's legal troubles?
I've never understood why people simply assume there can't possibly be any basis in this story, just because he gave us Wikileaks. It reminds me of how some people refused to believe Hans Reiser might've indeed been guilty of killing his wife, apparently just because he gave us ReiserFS.
I think there were four important things to know:
1) There were real women who made real complaints, though they weren't particularly heinous and they dropped them fairly quickly.
2) The prosecutor decided to go ahead anyway, which is unusual, though potentially justifiable if the women dropped the complaints because they felt threatened or intimidated by Assange's reputation (ie, they didn't want to be the people who put an international hero behind bars).
3) The US really wanted Assange, it's quite plausible they Swedish authorities simply wanted to get Assange into the country to extradite him to the US.
4) Sweden went to very usual lengths to get Assange for a case of this stature, which might be evidence of an ulterior motive, or a proper reaction by the Swedish authorities to someone who was publicly flouting their legal system in a very public manner.
Personally I don't think the basic facts are in huge debate and I suspect Assange deserves some real (though mild) punishment, however I don't know if that's what he'll get in Sweden or if he'd eventually end up in a US prison cell.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
A couple minor issues.
1) Waiting for a girl to fall asleep so that you can F* her in a way that she repeatedly stopped you from doing and told you not to do while she was awake (charge #4 on the EAW, the one that's still open) falls under my standard of "heinous", but to each their own.
I'm not sure what you mean by "they dropped". Eva Finne (who ironically Assange fans used to rail against but now apparently love) only closed part of the investigation (never the whole thing), and this in response to the bac
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Hey, here's an idea! Instead of addressing a couple of minor issues,lets address a real one! Why don't you admit that you, like everyone else on the planet, has no idea what - if anything - happened? If the "prosecutors" had integrity, then that is what they would have admitted. The fact that they are pursuing this case is, therefore, Prima Facie evidence that this is not about what may or may not have happened in bed, but is rather about how Snowden exposed what a bunch of crimina
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You can bet any rapist who sought refuge in a foreign embassy to escape prosecution would result in prosecutors going through unusual lengths, if not for any other reason than that they don't want this sort of thing to become commonplace.
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Useful clue:
If the USA wanted Assange, it would have been easier to get him extradited from the UK than from Sweden.
Personally, I think he hid in the embassy because of a much greater threat than extradition to Sweden or extradition to the USA - he was afraid he was rapidly becoming ignorable. And he desperately wants to feel important....
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He hasn't been in the UK since this whole thing blew up. He's been in Peru.
Sure, he's been in a building in the middle of England, but diplomatic conventions are that an accredited embassy is legally speaking the native soil of the country being represented and will remain so until the embassy either voluntarily relinquishes it or the host nation ceases to recognize it as such. To send in US or UK police or military officials to drag him out would be no more acceptable than if they'd sent an unauthorized sq
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This is not exactly correct. The embassy is the sovereign territory of the country in which it is physically located (British Embassy in Peru is not British soil)...however the Vienna Convention states that the local government foreswears the right to enter an embassy, and provides diplomatic immunity for the diplomats inside.
If I live in Peru and I break into the British Embassy and commit a crime, I will be punished in Peru by the Peruvian police and law. It is not up to the brits to come and get me, an
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it is political: British and Swedish police and prosecutors feel like they are being made fools of very publicly. That has nothing to do with why Assange is famous per se. He could have been an actor or sports star too. But once there was a lot of press coverage and he tried to get away b
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You make a very good point.
Assange is the perfect person out of whom to make an example. He is a sleazy idiot who thinks he is above the law and has a general asshole attitude.
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Yes, I can see what you mean. Look to the nice people! Mother Theresa and Ghandi would be the first to say that all things government are "NICE" and any time you do anything to go against the government, you are not nice!
If exposing government corruption is sleazy then your statement make
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It was the timing. Right after the wikileaks, then the charges come up.
Governments use dirty tricks like this all the time. Obama wants to get hold of him, so they get Sweden to arrest him, then extradite him.
He was only wanted for questioning, yet for some reason England surrounded a embassy, and put 24/7 guards on it. When have they ever put so many resources into anybody else, simply because they wanted to question them?
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Informative)
No, the Swedish investigation (first became public Aug. 20) came before the "Cablegate" releases (Nov. 28), not after. Assange controlled the timing of the Cablegate releases, it was his choice to have the come immediately after the Swedish issue came up (even while Wikileaks volunteers were expressing concerns about the rushed release - which ultimately led to a mass exodus of volunteers from Wikileaks). And after Cablegate blew up big, when being shown all of the headlines, he smiled big (on camera) and said "I'm untouchable now in this country."
As for everything else, see here [slashdot.org].
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Informative)
You're trying to mislead slashdot readers, and, given your comments under this article, it isn't because you don't know what went on, but purposefully. Most likely you're, like cold fjord, a sad fuck whose job is to feed us propaganda about the case. Who's paying you, the US or Sweden?
The facts are as follows:
1. Wikileaks released a video from a US helicopter murdering unarmed Iraqi journalists in April 2010, which made a huge news splash.
2. Then in July 2010, they released the Afghan War Diary and announced the imminent release of the Iraqi War logs. This made an even hugher news splash.
3. The US immediately began an investigation and a smear campaign against Assange. It had nothing to do with Cablegate.
There were, for example, allegations that the Afghan War diaries contain names of people who will 'face danger' for co-operating with the US. Of course, as of today there is no information of anyone hurt because of that release. There were also calls for him to be assassinated by US senate members and so on.
4. Alongside with the investigation under the very modern US Espionage Act of 1917 , and together with the smear campaign, the US began to pressure various governments to help US apprehend Assange.
This is the prequel to the Sweden's investigation.
5. The complaints by the two women in Sweden were made in the end of August, months after the US effort to discredit and arrest Assange began in earnest.
Now, why are you lying when all this can easily be checked and confirmed?
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Holy fuck! He is one amazing Motherfucker! I also heard he controls the timing of the Earth revolving around the Sun. This guy is dangerous, can't anyone see that? We need to star fabricating evidence immediately !
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Collateral murder was released on April 5th, 4 1/2 months earlier. And was one in a line of releases. Among others, in February Wikileaks had leaked the Reykjavík 13 cable, the first of the leaks sourced from Manning, which caused a big uproar in the states dealing with the Icesave scandal. In November of the previous year it inserted itself into the Climategate scandal. In September they leaked documents from Icelandic banks showing a huge amount of illegal activity leading up to the financial crash.
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I've never understood why people simply assume there can't possibly be any basis in this story.
Many people do not assume that, they have tentatively concluded it after studying the case, the publicly available evidence and Swedish law. Unless your only source of information is Fox News, it's not rocket science.
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Does anyone actually care about this guy's legal troubles?"
Yes, like Socrates and Jesus Christ he got into trouble with the authorities for telling the truth in public and upsetting people. (Please don't twist that into any implication that Assange is as good a person generally as Socrates or Jesus Christ). And he is currently getting the same treatment. Certainly, he hasn't yet been crucified or made to drink poison. (Indeed, if he were ever to find his way to the good ol' USA I'm willing to bet he would soon be begging for some hemlock). Nor has he been sodomized with a bayonet like Colonel Qadafi, or hanged like Saddam Hussein. But that's not for want of trying.
What continues to amaze me is how eager many ordinary people are to see all those things done to someone whose main crime has been revealing the filthy tricks of their government, in the vain hope that this might help to moderate that government's appalling conduct. I suppose there will always be a lot of human beings who simply want to be led by someone who seems authoritative, which saves them the trouble and pain of thinking or standing up for themselves.
(Jesus got into trouble for consorting with publicans and sinners - more or less equivalent to government officials and prostitutes. Luckily for him he never consorted with Swedish women).
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Socrates was an ass. He was outrageously provocative, and when he managed to anger people enough to be put on trial he made a mockery of the legal process and deliberately forced a conviction and death sentence. He even turned down an offer of escape - his followers bribed prison guards to get him out, and he refused to follow. He got himself killed to prove a point.
The only accounts of the life of Jesus are the unreliable sources of the gospels, but they make it clear why Jesus got in legal trouble. Nothin
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On the other hand I can't believe some people actually think the US government wouldn't stoop to the level of getting someone who had a contact in the CIA to set up one of the greatest thorns in their side with a character-ruining false accusation. The US government would never do something like that!
Assange may have done what he is accused of AND the CIA may have been involved in engaging in character assasination to dicredit a particularly effective critic.
Any rational-minded observer can discount neither
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone actually care about this guy's legal troubles?
Probably the woman that was raped...
You mean the one who said publicly that she wasn't? Or the other who more or less said the same?
When asked about this the prosecution said "Ah, but they're not lawyers".
I don't doubt this guy's a creep. I also don't doubt that there is more to this case than the alleged sexual offenses.
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Funny)
'When asked about this the prosecution said "Ah, but they're not lawyers"'.
You mean there are people so degenerate they'd rape a LAWYER???
Ewwww.
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Ya puts the roofie in da drink and da roofity-doofity dippitiy doopity!
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By "remember", apparently you mean "display gross ignorance of even the most basic facts of the case".
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One of the ironies is that the guy who's sheltering him calls his opponents rapists [panampost.com] and is big on secret surveillance [sci-tech-today.com].
Re:What a scumbag (Score:5, Interesting)
Swedish prosecutors have interviewed 44 suspects in the UK since 2010, while for five years declining Julian Assange’s offer to be interviewed at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
Meanwhile the UK already spent ~12M pound [govwaste.co.uk] to make sure he doesn't leave the embassy. If these rape allegations where the only reason for this theatre then the British police would have told the Swedish prosecutor that they will make sure Assange stays put for two or three month in the Embassy to give them the opportunity to interview him, and then they would have stopped this wast of public money.
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And how many people did they interview in a foreign embassy in London?
Don't pretend they can just show up and ask questions.
Re:What a scumbag (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't pretend they can just show up and ask questions.
Obviously not, but firstly, Assange was in the UK since August 2010 when the case was already open, and he only entered the Ecuadorian embassy in June 2012. That makes nearly two years to question him in London without the complications to ask Ecuador for permission, and then they had three years to ask Ecuador for permission and only did so this year in June when the time for three of the allegations started to run out.
Re:What a scumbag (Score:5, Insightful)
do you know the story?
He is in charged of rape, because he didn't use a condom on a occasional sex. That is a crime in Sweden and is equivalent to rape. The girl don't even want any charge against him, but it is a public crime, so her opinion doesn't matter.
So this happen to thousand of people in Sweden and no charged are made... but he got charged and lot of work was put in to bring him to "justice"... why is he so special? Oh, right, he published things that powerful governments didn't like.
Ok, lets assume this is a valid charge... why do Swedish prosecutor don't agree to question him on another country or via the internet? Why they pressure so much for him to go to Sweden to be questioned. Assange didn't refuse to be questioned, he just want to do it out ot Sweden because he don't trust their motives. It is also known that the USA did pressure the Swedish government to arrest Assange... and a few months later, this charges show up.
So, he for sure is not perfect and for sure did much things that aren't right nor his ideas about women are all right... but this case is too uncommon and weird to blindly trust Swedish justice.
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I skimmed this overview of Swedish criminal procedure [samtycke.nu] and their reasoning with regards to custody appears valid. Indictments come late Swedish criminal procedure. As part of the preliminary investigation, they have to question the suspect, who can speak in his defense. It's not like in the US where "anything you say can and will be used against you" and never to help you. In Sweden the investigator can actually listen to your explanations and you can request they investigate some other thing which may exone
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Um, sex with a person who can't consent is normally considered rape, and the woman did want Assange charged. She may just want to forget about it now, but that's not really important. Interpol considered it a rape charge, and the UK court system agreed all the way to the top that the charges qualified as rape. It's not just Swedish law. It looks like the UK was interested in protecting him.
Which thousand women in Sweden were raped while asleep with no charges filed? Even if you had evidence, it woul
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do you know the story?
He is in charged of rape, because he didn't use a condom on a occasional sex. That is a crime in Sweden and is equivalent to rape.
Actually, it's that the girl told him "no", then went to sleep, and then, knowing that he didn't have consent, he had sex with her while she was asleep. As Assange's own lawyer, Ben Emmerson, told the UK's High Court: [bethgranter.com]
Emmerson went on to provide accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today’s hearing — the validity of Assange’s accusers’ central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
That's also a crime under UK law [jackofkent.com] as well as US law.
The girl don't even want any charge against him, but it is a public crime, so her opinion doesn't matter.
I have a question for you... Do you believe that, if a guy and girl have consensual sex, and a few days later, the girl has regrets, that travels back in time and it becomes rape? Or would you agree that the crime either occurs or doesn't occu
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The Swedish police were apparently not interested in interviewing him when offered
They applied to do so, but have yet to receive a response from Ecuador.
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They did try - naively assuming that Ecuador wouldn't interpret "a couple months advance notice" as "Meh, we can wait that out".
Beyond that, it's a really subpar situation, not only because of the various limitations that interviewing someone remotely puts on the interrogation process, but because the goal is to indictment him. They already have a court finding of probable cause in Sweden on all four (now one) counts - a court hearing initiated by Assange and involving a review of all evidence and defense f
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This makes it sound like Sweden is highly restricted [officer.com] in what it can consider to be an obstruction of justice.
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How on Earth was this ever voted +2 Insightful?
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the truth hurts; there are entire muslim countries with the situation so described. there is also Saudi Arabia where the Saudi royals get a blanket pass to rape, murder, molest, etc.
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Nobody here is denying that the law in some Muslim countries is bad, and that it really doesn't protect women, but that doesn't say anything about Muslim immigrants. Before believing that, I'd like to know what country the OP was referring to, and some verifiable examples of what he or she says.
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Strawman.
Nobody mentioned muslim countries (many of which are indeed despicable places - as are other countries).
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