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Julian Assange arrested in London

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#291

Post by dagw »

sasasassy wrote: post #192
mcv wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I remember. A disgrace on several levels. I really wish a European country would have had the spine to give Snowden asylum. Not the same issue as Assange of course, unless, as Assange claims, this too is the long arm of the US secretly trying to get whistleblowers extradited. I'm not sure that's the case here, though; I think the Swedish rape allegations have merit, and unlike Snowden, I don't think Assange has…

The Swedish rape allegations were an obvious sham and have already been dropped years ago. Usually when this happens the case is just dropped, yet the UK really pressed in arresting Assange for "failing to appear in court", which is most countries is a minor thing (the accused is not punished for lying in court or missing court dates). I think it's obvious that any excuse will do for extraditing him to the US, to mak…

have already been dropped years ago

They dropped the investigation and the arrest warrant, not the charges. The investigation can still be reopened and he can still be questioned and charged if he returns to Sweden before the statutes of limitations run out.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#292

Post by NotPaidToPost »

matt4077 wrote: post #277
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger guns always win. They can talk about the UN and international law all they want but in the end people notice the gun on your belt, not the paper on the table. It's been that way since the dawn of times. They can do that to Bolivia but just try to force Air Force One to land...

US and UK military power has always dwarfed Ecuador's. For seven years, Assange was protected by nothing but paper, so it does seem to have some heft. I guess Assange obnoxiousness is more powerful than a US carrier group. The former finally got it done when the latter couldn't.

The UK wasn't going to launch an assault on a foreign embassy in the middle of London, was it? Power is not the same as recklessness.

Now, a covert operation in a third country when there are no cameras around, on the other hands...

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#293

Post by fenomas »

For anyone interested in understanding Assange, check out this excellent article by Andrew O'Hagan from a few years ago:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting

O'Hagan was hired to ghost-write Assange's autobiography and wound up spending some months in his inner circle, and his account is very detailed and balanced.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#294

Post by dao- »

dijit wrote: post #224
daw___ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Julian say in the video?

"UK has no sovereignty!" "UK must resist" "Resist this attempt by the Trump administration" and something else when he's in the van which I can't make out with people talking over it.

> "Resist this attempt by the Trump administration"

Funny. Trump has said he loves WikiLeaks, and likely has no interest in Assange getting extradited to the US.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#295

Post by dagw »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #238
sasasassy wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swedish rape allegations were an obvious sham and have already been dropped years ago. Usually when this happens the case is just dropped, yet the UK really pressed in arresting Assange for "failing to appear in court", which is most countries is a minor thing (the accused is not punished for lying in court or missing court dates). I think it's obvious that any excuse will do for extraditing him to the US, to mak…

Weren’t the rape allegations dropped because the statute of limitations finally expired? Sorry if I didn’t use the right terminology.

The statute of limitations has run out on some of the minor charges, but not the more serious one. While Sweden has closed the case and dropped the international arrest warrant, if he returns to Sweden before August 2020 he can still be questioned and charged on the remaining allegation.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#296

Post by nagVenkat »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #284
nagVenkat wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a sealed indictment against him in EDVA which was accidentally released. He has been most certainly accused of breaking United States laws. Edit: To indict someone, the government has to show the grand jury that there is sufficient evidence. It is very easy to indict someone (hence the phrase “A ham sandwich can be indicted by the grand jury”) but one has to acknowledge the fact that the federal government h…

I'm not an expert, is this (93%) by conviction or plea deal? One would assume he doesn't plea guilty.

I just went thought the DOJ website. It included both trial and plea deals. So maybe not that impressive.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#297

Post by Kiro »

fxbl0i wrote: post #57
tramtrist wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also feel the same way. He may have committed some heinous crimes outside of the actual hacking/leaking but to say we all didn't benefit from what we learned regarding how our government spies on us would just be flat out wrong..

What crimes did he commit? Honest question. I heard that someone accused him of being a rapist but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. What else is there?

It was dropped due to technicalities.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#298

Post by fsloth »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #149
fsloth wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free press does not mean it's free from any agenda. Rather, it means that anyone with an agenda has the freedom to express their point of view. The main idea that the only agenda accepted publicly are not those presented by the government, hence making the intellectual atmosphere a bit more robust and less sterile. The point why "western press is better than russias" is not about truth but rather inviting an atmosphe…

> but rather inviting an atmosphere where many voices can be heard. yes? please do tell that to those sitting in US secret prisons around the world. Or those that have been released innocent from gitmo after many years into banana republics like Kazakhstan without apology and are there under constant surveillance. of course the US isn't a dictatorship provided that your views are in-line with their propaganda. Assang…

The discussion was not about benevolence, or honesty, but of free press. The existence of free press does not eliminate pathological government behaviour, but it offers a channel for them to be aired to the public.

You make it sound like you would like the world to fall into a black and white good guys/bad guys hollywood formula.

"US isn't a dictatorship provided that your views are in-line with their propaganda."

Dictatorships imprison and torture their own citizens to maintain internal status quo - US does this to other nationalities in projects mostly dealing with foreign policy and defence.

I'm not defending US behavior, but I think you would be hard pressed to find a global political power whose officers had maintained a squeaky clean humanitarian behavior towards their claimed "enemies of the state".

Only small countries play by the rules. Large countries make the rules, lie, and maybe apologize later.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#299

Post by tareqak »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #91

It will be interesting to see if the US tries to extradite him. It's actually not 100% clear that he's broken any US laws in any ways that they aren't also routinely broken by newspapers. There's a few avenues: 1) Publishing classified information. Easy to show that he did this but a very difficult path to go down when American newspapers do this all the time. 2) Conspiracy to commit espionage. Probably the most like…

2) is interesting because going down this path would involve investigating the motivation behind WikiLeaks communicating with the GRU and what WikiLeaks intended to do with the information they obtained once they did so (just a one-shot dump of everything versus strategically-times leaks). The timing of Assange’s arrest occurring a few weeks after the conclusion of the Mueller investigation seems opportune albeit coincidental. A more sinister and cynical interpretation of this timing would be an attempt to wrap up any perceived loose ends.

Edited a few times after proofreading.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#300

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

DavidVoid wrote: post #117
fxbl0i wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What crimes did he commit? Honest question. I heard that someone accused him of being a rapist but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. What else is there?

What you've heard is false. The investigation was dropped simply because there was no way to proceed with the investigation with him still hiding away in the embassy. The investigation will be reopened if he returns to Sweden before August 2020 when the statute of limitations expires for the minor rape allegation. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39973864

Since I was not very familiar with the Swedish case, I checked Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Swedish_sexual_...

It seems that the allegations were dropped after initial questioning and he was told he was free to go, then a special prosecutor reopened the case and asked to question Assange, who by then was out of the country.

The statute of limitations for most of the allegations seems to have expired primarily because of the indecisiveness or otherwise mishandling of the case by the special prosecutor who reopened it in the first place, who maintained she couldn't interview Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy- which seems to have been incorrect.

From the wikipedia article:

In 2010, the prosecutor said Swedish law prevented her from questioning anyone by video link or in the London embassy. In March 2015, after public criticism from other Swedish law practitioners, she changed her mind and agreed to interrogate Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with interviews finally beginning on 14 November 2016.[167] These interviews involved police, Swedish prosecutors and Ecuadorian officials and were eventually published online.[168] By this time, the statute of limitations had expired on all three of the less serious allegations.

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