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Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

reuters.com

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Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#331

Post by belorn »

PJDK wrote: post #208
blub wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16000 warrants for people having sex with their sleeping sex partner without a condom? Did those 16000 also enjoy 16 million pounds of police surveillance and an international man hunt? This is great news. If we continue to invest so much effort in solving the slightest hint of sexual inappropriateness we'll completely eliminate sexual crimes. Perhaps even sex itself.

16000 people going through these fairly mundane bit of EU legal procedures. Some of them will have done worse things, but many of them will have done much less worse things (like the aforementioned chicken theft. What international manhunt? Man runs into embassy escaping bail - police wait outside. What other outcome could there have been?

> but many of them will have done much less worse things (like the aforementioned chicken theft.

Please point to an actually case where Sweden has issued an European arrest warrant for a lesser crime. I have looked and could not find a single one.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#332

Post by Tycho »

DanBC wrote: post #50
Tycho wrote: post #41

This is just to save face and make it look like the whole thing wasn't driven by US pressure from the outset. There's no chance he will end up standing trial in Sweden, unlikely they could even bring such a flimsy case to court, and unlikely that the UK would prioritize Sweden's request over the US. I doubt they'll even get round to making a formal extradition request. This is an empty gesture.

You call it a flmisy case but Assange has tried to resist extradition from the UK to Sweden and he failed in court. It's useful to read this court document which sets out some of his claims, and why they fail: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html

Are you being deliberately obtuse? This document evaluates whether the extradition request is legitimate: do the allegations amount to crimes, are they faithful characterisations of the accusations, does the request come from the proper authority, was the correct procedure followed, etc. It does not evaluate the strength of the case or any of the supporting evidence. Eg.:

Nor do the inconsistencies in her account and text messages relied upon by Mr Assange assist. In one sent by her she described herself as "half asleep" and she accepted in a further interview that she was not fast asleep. These are matters of evidence which would be highly relevant at trial. But it is not for this court to asses whether the allegations may fail.

So, after all this, the case could still fall apart under the slightest scrutiny and be abandoned by the prosecution or dismissed by the judge.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#333

Post by tptacek »

pvg wrote: post #321
tarcyanm wrote: post #154

Assange himself and the rape charges have been politicized to such an extent that I find it essentially meaningless to pontificate about what may or may not have happened in Sweden. His character has been debated endlessly, but when one thinks of what WikiLeaks has actually revealed, I find it totally likely that a systematic effort was made to curtail him: https://twitter.com/SomersetBean/status/1116916146458877952/…

They're striking graphics but that is an Assange advocacy account. A bunch of these things weren't 'revealed' by Wikileaks, the most famous one being the incident at the heart of their 'Collateral Murder' video.

Indeed, worth remembering that (Reuters, I think?) published a scene-by-scene account of the tape in "Collateral Murder" before Wikileaks ever did.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#334

Post by zepto »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #295
zepto wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the two are equivalent somehow?

It's a metaphor. In this case, for prior consent given in the most explicit terms possible to bound the discussion.

Sure - but in the case of sex, the equivalent is a written agreement to have sex while asleep at at a specified time and place with a specified person.

Your cab fare metaphor is a very misleading illustration of this.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#335

Post by sjwright »

ascorbic wrote: post #319
sjwright wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Swedish law used the word arson to describe the situation, would you accept that term and call Assange an arsonist? As a commentator, I am not beholden to novel terminology used elsewhere, let alone in a country that doesn’t even use English as their primary national language.

The UK Supreme Court ruled that the accusations would be classified as rape under English law too. That was ones of the ground that he used to challenge the original warrant.

I don’t care what the UK says any more than I do Sweden. I don’t live in either country. I will use terms that I consider more descriptive than rape.

What’s wrong with sexual misconduct, for example? I realise it doesn’t have the emotional charge of “rape”, but isn’t that a good thing? We shouldn’t choose words based on our opinions.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#336

Post by dang »

thatoneuser wrote: post #156
duchenne wrote: post #26

Assange is accused of unlawful coercion and "lesser-degree rape" (mindre grov våldtäkt). In the first case, the complainant willingly had an intercourse with him. But after sex, she realized that the condom had a hole. She claims that he made it. In the second case, the complainant also willingly had an intercourse with Assange, they slept naked together. The next day in the morning, he penetrated her without a condo…

Why isn't it rape/sexual batter for a woman to have sex without bc then? Or at least to have sex without bc if she made the guy think she had it? How did men's reproductive rights get passed over while women's are comprehensive?

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar or introduce generic flamewar tangents. The odds that anyone has anything new or interesting to say about this are very low, and the odds of people bashing each other very high. That makes it off topic here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#337

Post by JamesBarney »

saalweachter wrote: post #312
JamesBarney wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the longest most explicit story on the incident I could find. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange... It definitely paints a picture of him being a dirtbag but I don't know if this would even be illegal in the U.S. or what people would conventionally describe as rape.

If only there were some system of international law by which a country could decide if they found the other country's laws to be compatible with their own, both in the definition of crimes and their punishments, and could then decide whether they wanted to comply with an individual extradition request on a case by case basis. It's such a shame that any country in the world can issue an extradition request to any othe…

He should definitely be extradited, but they described it as sex with a sleeping person not non-consensual condom removal. Both are awful and he should face penalties for his actions but the victims claimed he committed one form of sexual assault and not the other.

Also I don't think non-consensual condom removal is illegal in the U.S. though it definitely should be.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#338

Post by kermitismyhero »

dang wrote: post #311
kermitismyhero wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>WikiLeak's big coup was cablegate Don't gaslight. Wikileaks' big coup was Collateral Murder, which showed to the entire world how US soldiers enjoy committing war crimes at the behest of senior US military leadership whenever they think they can get away with it.

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. Escalatory snark and jabs like "Don't gaslight" don't belong here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Forgive me for getting angry at the wilful ignorance of so many useful idiots. I'm just kinda done with being "nice". Over a decade of vetted, verifiable leaks exposing the unbridled evil of the US military-industrial complex, and most Americans are just as lazy and stupid and cowed as ever. Wikileaks releases video of American helicopter pilots laughing while they gun down journalists, and Americans shrug.

So let me get banned for speaking my piece in a disrespectful manner. I welcome it. Frankly, if I could find a "delete my account" button, I'd hit it in a heartbeat. Sheep, the whole goddamn lot of you.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#339

Post by trevelyan »

trevelyan wrote: post #324
tdcbfdct3 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's politicized the rape charges other than Assange himself continuously calling them a government conspiracy against him? The Swedish government doesn't discuss them (which is what's allowed Assange's version of events to get so popular). The US hasn't mentioned it. The UK gave him a fair trial based on them.

The UK trial was not on the rape charges (there was no permitted discussion of the evidence or total lack of it). The ruling was over whether the UK was bound to extradite given the Swedish government's refusal to interview Assange in England or indict him in Sweden. The tortured legal conclusion was basically that the UK couldn't definitively conclude the Swedes were acting in bad faith, and they couldn't be entirel…

Thanks for the downvote whoever it was. History is not going to be kind to those unaware of basic facts however, in this case the fact that the Assange case was re-opened in 2010 on the basis of fabricated evidence:

https://www.smh.com.au/world/no-assange-dna-on-torn-condom--...

https://www.rt.com/news/assange-condom-no-dna-277/

Assume that people can get their hands on the UK high court ruling. It takes only a bit of reading to confirm the complete accuracy of the statements above.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#340

Post by thatoneuser »

dang wrote: post #336
thatoneuser wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't it rape/sexual batter for a woman to have sex without bc then? Or at least to have sex without bc if she made the guy think she had it? How did men's reproductive rights get passed over while women's are comprehensive?

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar or introduce generic flamewar tangents. The odds that anyone has anything new or interesting to say about this are very low, and the odds of people bashing each other very high. That makes it off topic here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is something I truly believe is draconic. Men have virtually zero reproductive rights. If the conversation comes to it, I will bring it up. If you dislike it you are free to choose another platform.

It's not a tangent it's a direct corollary.

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