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Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

bbc.com

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Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#41

Post by agd »

cmdkeen wrote: post #32
tomelders wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the Swedish investigators could have come to London and questioned him. It's conspicuous that they didn't.

And they did when the time bar was about to approach. At that point Ecuador conveniently starts causing problems, quite why the Swedes would lie about Ecuador's demands when they could have just waited for the time bar to expire doesn't get explained. Prior to that they were dealing with an obstructive, bail jumping individual thumbing their nose at the legal systems of two countries (the UK and Sweden). Assange appe…

It is fairly clear that there is an ongoing US investigation into Wikileaks and Assange.

Whilst this is ongoing, there would be risk of US extradition requests were he to leave the embassy (to Sweden or elsewhere). His best strategy is therefore to stay in the embassy for now.

Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#42

Post by pionar »

spiralpolitik wrote: post #34
rmc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ecuador was requiring that Sweden agree to something that they legally cannot agree to. Update : > “As a condition to let Assange be heard they [Ecuador] have demanded a special agreement in which Sweden recognizes asylum status for Assange. But the government cannot make such a commitment because it is the Migration Board which decides whether or not a person has the right to asylum.” From: http://jackofkent.com/201…

Not quite. Ecuador made the offer to Sweden to interview Assange in the embassy as early as 2012. The Swedish prosecutor did nothing until March this year when she was prompted to do something by higher ups due to the statute of limitations. Sweden then made the formal request in June which led to what you describe. If Sweden was serious about getting this sorted out then they could have done so years ago. Instead th…

Or, one could argue that Ecuador changed the deal when Sweden finally took them up on the offer.

(I don't have a dog in this fight, I just find the whole situation interesting.)

Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#43

Post by trevelyan »

quonn wrote: post #27
youngtaff wrote: post #12

Oh such crocodile tears… He could have avoided disappointment by allowing the Swedish authorities to question him! All that time he was stuck in a Norfolk mansion he could have travelled to Sweden been questioned and if he was innocent as he claims be free to travel the world again.

The fact is that he was questioned before, stayed in the country and left after they allowed him to leave. Later Sweden decided to change it's mind and requested an extradition - just for questioning him, which they could easily have done locally (and, by the way, other countries do this) - which is, perhaps, not very common. And _coincidently_ this happened while Wikileaks was all over the media and the US was infur…

Worth remembering also that the reason Sweden wanted to extradite for questioning is that if they charged him first they would have been required to actually make the evidence public and Assange could then have defeated the extradition request by showing his behavior was not a crime under British law.

Apologists for Sweden never seem to have read the UK high court judgment or seem familiar with the actual legal reasoning behind the extradition request. To secure extradition, the Swedish prosecutor needed to insist that Assange was only wanted for questioning (else they should charge) but since questioning alone is not a sufficient basis for extradition requests they also needed to state it was extremely likely Assange would be arrested once questioned.

It is of course nonsensical for the Swedes to refuse to question Assange in London if speaking to him were at all material to the case. As such, their refusal to do so speaks plainly to the obviously political nature of the persecution.

Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#44

Post by agd »

rmc wrote: post #21
BasDirks wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wasn't he afraid of extradition?

I never understood that. People claim "Sweden has links to NATO". Well the UK co-founded NATO and has a "special relationship" with the USA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship ). Why go the UK if you're worried about extradition to the USA?

He wasn't leaving Sweden to avoid US extradition at that point. If I recall correctly, Wikileaks was particularly busy at that time working with the Guardian on several large stories. Hence, Assange would want to be in London for that reason.

Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#47

Post by belorn »

rmc wrote: post #6

The Ecudardian embassy/Assange demanded from the Swedes that they agree to something that they legally cannot agree to before interviewing him. It's not really fair to blame the Swedish authorities for that.

If Ecuador had just opened the doors imminently when the Swedish prosecution changed their mind, Ecuador role in this would had been mostly ignored by media. They would be like invisible administrators just doing what others tell them to do.

Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#48

Post by hahainternet »

Sone7 wrote: post #9
brodo wrote: post #2

> He still faces the more serious accusation of rape. This should have been in the headline.

The two women say they were not raped, and were railroaded by Swedish police. So why exactly should that have been the headline?

[citation-needed]

Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#49

Post by andyjohnson0 »

cmdkeen wrote: post #23
wereHamster wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that they agree to something that they legally cannot agree I'm curious what that was.

That Sweden recognise his asylum claim in Ecuador as valid, which the Swedish prosecutor does not have the legal authority to do. There is a good writeup from a British legal blogger at http://jackofkent.com/2015/08/assange-the-law-of-limitation-... It's worth picking out as well that Assange faces British legal issues from breaching his bail conditions. The bail set during his very lengthy legal process which valida…

The extradition hearing took three days, which is hardly a "very lengthy process". And it didn't validate the Swedish judicial process because that isn't its function. An EAW extradition hearing in the UK is merely to establish that an extraditable offence is alleged, that the party requesting the extradition has standing, and that there are no Human Rights Act issues [1]. Persons facing extradition on an EAW don't get to argue about the merits of the allegations they're facing: that happens when they arrive in the extraditing country.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/extradition-processes-and-review

Re: Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped

#50

Post by hahainternet »

agd wrote: post #41
cmdkeen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they did when the time bar was about to approach. At that point Ecuador conveniently starts causing problems, quite why the Swedes would lie about Ecuador's demands when they could have just waited for the time bar to expire doesn't get explained. Prior to that they were dealing with an obstructive, bail jumping individual thumbing their nose at the legal systems of two countries (the UK and Sweden). Assange appe…

It is fairly clear that there is an ongoing US investigation into Wikileaks and Assange. Whilst this is ongoing, there would be risk of US extradition requests were he to leave the embassy (to Sweden or elsewhere). His best strategy is therefore to stay in the embassy for now.

> His best strategy is therefore to stay in the embassy for now.

Of course his best strategy is to avoid prosecution. That should mean we condemn him as a hypocrite, instead he has actual supporters blaming the victims!

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