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Legal myths about the Assange extradition

newstatesman.com

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Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#41

Post by wes-exp »

podperson wrote: post #19

I'm assuming the article is accurate, in which case there's pretty much no reason for Assange not to go to Sweden and clear all this up, unless of course he's guilty. Certainly as things stand he gives a lot of people -- myself included -- the impression that he's guilty, and if the only reason he has for not wanting to face the music in Sweden is that he's afraid of extradition to the US then, assuming the article i…

I'm not saying he is innocent, but if he is, he has every reason to believe this is a politically-motivated frame-up. So, if he is innocent, why go to Sweden? Probably, even as an innocent person, the frame-up would succeed.

As such, his unwillingness to go hardly says anything about his guilt or non-guilt.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#42

Post by nollidge »

marvin wrote: post #16

I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts. But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would l…

What if he really did commit rape, and Sweden really does just want to arrest him for that, and has no plans to extradite him? How would this situation look different to you?

> The Swedish government could guarantee that Assange wouldn't be extradited, but it would make them look bad in the eyes of the US and others.

And here's where you reveal that you did not read the article.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#43

Post by tptacek »

danso wrote: post #38
icebraining wrote: post #10

“By giving Assange asylum, Ecuador is protecting freedom of the press” This is perhaps the strangest proposition. / Ecuador has a woeful record on freedom of the press. The proposition doesn't actually say that protecting the freedom of the press is their motivation . Good things can arise from bad motives.

I guess I hadn't wondered about this yet...why IS Ecuador granting him asylum? Is there any quid pro quo?

The Correa government in Ecuador is part of an informal political bloc with Raul Castro's Cuban administration and Hugo Chavez' Venezuelan administration. That bloc is not particularly friendly towards the US.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#44

Post by izx »

danso wrote: post #38
icebraining wrote: post #10

“By giving Assange asylum, Ecuador is protecting freedom of the press” This is perhaps the strangest proposition. / Ecuador has a woeful record on freedom of the press. The proposition doesn't actually say that protecting the freedom of the press is their motivation . Good things can arise from bad motives.

I guess I hadn't wondered about this yet...why IS Ecuador granting him asylum? Is there any quid pro quo?

The backdrop to the Assange case has been the upcoming presidential election in Ecuador, slated to be held just six months from now in February 2013. President Correa, who was first elected in 2007, will be seeking a second term under Ecuador's 2008 constitution.

Opinion polls published in the Ecuadorian media in 2012 have shown Correa with a commanding lead over his prospective opponents, largely because there is no consensus challenger. Polling from CMS in March showed Correa with just under 49% of the vote, more than 40 points ahead of the five included challengers, who polled between 1% and 9% each. Thiry percent of voters, however, said that they had not chosen a candidate to support. More recent polling has shown the emergence of Guillermo Lasso as the closest prospective candidate with 17% of the vote, while undecided voters fell to 17%. Correa held fast with 50% of the vote.

With a split field, Correa is practically guaranteed a win. Ecuadorian electoral law does not require the winning candidate to garner a majority of the popular vote; if a candidate receives at least 40% of the vote and is at least 10 points ahead of the next finisher, he or she wins in the first round.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/17/rafael-c...

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#45

Post by tptacek »

hnolable wrote: post #40
tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swedish government cannot guarantee Assange won't be extradited; it falls on the Swedish judicial system to do that. Your comment again puts forward the idea that the political forces aligned against Assange are so great that no amount of critical thinking, due process, or countervailing concern for the rights of victims can apply: it is, to use your word, "obvious" that the case isn't about "rape", but about an…

> No court in Europe seems to view the situation that way. So why does Ecuador see it that way? Are they stupid or easily fooled? Do they want to start political controversy? Some other conspiracy?

This is a little like asking why Burma wasn't consulted in the extradition. The simple answer is: Ecuador simply isn't a party to this controversy, and so the way they see things isn't material.

Yes, I think the issue here is that Ecuador wants to start a political controversy. There is prima facie evidence, compelling and voluminous, that the principals Ecuador is "standing up for" in granting asylum are very much at odds with the principals Ecuador is itself governed by. Occam's Razor more or less demands that we look for motives other than press freedom principals.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#46

Post by gregsq »

tptacek wrote: post #6
jeltz wrote: post #4

"Also Sweden (like the United Kingdom) is bound by EU and ECHR law not to extradite in circumstances where there is any risk of the death penalty or torture. There would be no extradition in the United States in such circumstances." Except that law has been violated before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Agiza_and_Muhammad_al-Ze... Edit: In my opinion this article seems to clear up some myths spread by the Assan…

The article does not make the point that, having been delivered to Sweden, Assange would be protected by an impregnable shield against extradition to the US. Rather, the article simply points out that the protections Assange has against extradition in Sweden are comparable to the ones he has in the UK --- perhaps better, in fact, given the ease with which the US has extradited people from the UK. More importantly, si…

I don't think there's much that Assange can do to guarantee that he won't be extradited to the US. Firstly, the claim that needing both the UK and Sweden to agree extradition is largely irrelevant. Even Assange's native government, Australia, has already stated that it has no objection to extradition, and the UK has previously agreed on extradition for its own citizens, as stated. In all likelihood, this would be a formality, the foreign office acting by proxy. So 1&x = x.

The necessary preconditions for extradition are that both torture and the death penalty are precluded. The latter is easily satisfied, and is often given to states that forbid extradition where the death penalty may be applied. [1]

Locking someone up for a long time is not torture, so these apparent defences are essentially weak and I would say immaterial, even if Assange has every interest in exaggerating them.

The US is not in a competition over access to Assange. It certainly wouldn't be sensible to request extradition before the outcome of the Swedish process becomes clear. The purported fact that an extradition request has not been made seems to me immaterial to either current or future intentions or discovery.

His native government won't protect him, the UK government in all likelihood won't, so it's down to Sweden. Whether he's convicted of any crime or not there, a properly formed extradition request that passes muster will be the US's to singularly decide I'd say.

As far as I can tell, Assange sees himself and Bradley Manning in a cell for a very long time. And most everyone will forget about them eventually.

[ 1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17037068 ]

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#47

Post by Tycho »

It's touching that the author of this article thinks the only relevant points are the legal small print of the UK and Sweden. But if you think about it some more, you might realise that Assange chose the UK as his destination because he felt the public and the press would exert enough pressure on the government to shield him from any political manoeuvrings.

I propose a new metric for situations like this. Rate the likelihood that the suspect would commit this act (quite low in this case as it would be incredibly stupid given his circumstances and also not something he has a history of); the convenience the situation represents to his enemies (very high in this case, as it buys the US time to prepare their extradition case, or execute whatever agreement they have already with the Swedish government); and the ease with which his enemies could indeed set him up (easy in this case - word of two women and one co-operative prosecutor, no evidence required and no risk of alibi or counter-evidence). Now multiply these factors together and you have the Conspiracy Index of the situation.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#48

Post by tptacek »

doe88 wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does not make the point that, having been delivered to Sweden, Assange would be protected by an impregnable shield against extradition to the US. Rather, the article simply points out that the protections Assange has against extradition in Sweden are comparable to the ones he has in the UK --- perhaps better, in fact, given the ease with which the US has extradited people from the UK. More importantly, si…

I have not seen Assange asking any promise to Swede. Ecuador did, Assange I don't think so. I think you nailed it though on what kind of guarantee he could hope for. I think he knows very well that's impossible to juridically formulate the kind of protection it would want to have. Therefore yersterday he didn't even formulate such request he took a higher stance (and even more improbable to succeed) by asking the US…

The article not only contradicts what you just said (about Assange making demands), but links to other articles considering exactly those demands in detail. You're incorrect: Assange himself asserted that one (of presumably many) condition of his acceding to extradition is an undertaking that he not be extradited from Sweden to the US.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#49

Post by tomjakubowski »

thom wrote: post #26
marvin wrote: post #16

I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts. But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would l…

As a general gauge, I think a lot of people are hugely offended by the idea that some forms of non-consensual sex aren't rape.

Under what insane set of morals or laws is having sex with an unconscious person not considered rape?

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#50

Post by tptacek »

Tycho wrote: post #47

It's touching that the author of this article thinks the only relevant points are the legal small print of the UK and Sweden. But if you think about it some more, you might realise that Assange chose the UK as his destination because he felt the public and the press would exert enough pressure on the government to shield him from any political manoeuvrings. I propose a new metric for situations like this. Rate the li…

We could invent a "new metric for situations like this" involving estimates of the "likelihood" that suspects would "commit the act" and estimates of "the convenience of the situation to the enemies of those suspects" and the "ease with which the suspect's enemies could set them up".

Or we could just have the rule of law.

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