Sweden isn't in NATO.
General / Off-Topic Julian Assange - unlawfully detained?
- Thread starter beelbeebub
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The British government are just like my dutch government: they love sucking up to big powerful US.
My government even extradites it's own citizens if the US asks for it.
Government's eh? Always guilty until proved innocent.
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When was the last time a government was proved innocent?
Well no one ever really tries as it's much easier to blame the government for any perceived short comings.
Technically he has no charges or case to answer for in the UK. No matter how much the USA shouts and stamps, or talks of 'special relationships', we cannot just arrest him and hand him over to the US. At the same time, we (the UK)are a part of the 'European Arrest Warrant' system. Anyone, wanted, with any country that is a part of that system, is basically handed over, to the country the warrant was issued. However: Sweden and the USA have conspired to create such a warrant; by resurrecting an alleged sexual offence, in Sweden. Therefore, the UK has to comply and arrest him if given the opportunity. As always, the UK has simply ignored, the judgement and authority of the latest ruling and so the game; continues.
As has been stated before; the US want him and will do, whatever it takes to have their pound of flesh. If he was in a 'lesser' country, they would probably do the same as they did with Bin laden; after all, he is a threat to their National security. Apparently.
As has been stated before; the US want him and will do, whatever it takes to have their pound of flesh. If he was in a 'lesser' country, they would probably do the same as they did with Bin laden; after all, he is a threat to their National security. Apparently.
The case against him in Sweden was already dropped. It was reopened again at the behest of some unknown entity. They reopened it - not because of new evidence but because of pressure, from... somewhere. Maybe it really was one or both of these women? Certainly they didn't seem too concerned at the time.
What many people don't appreciate is that he has already answered for these charges in Sweden, and they were dropped.
He has offered to be interviewed by Swedish police here in the UK, they've refused (even though they've interviewed suspects abroad in the past). If this were really about finding out the truth they'd definitely head on over to the Ecuadorian embassy and at least hear what he had to say. This is about getting him back to Sweden.
One other thing, from the article above. Let me quote this, it's really important:
Let's see that again...
We have a man seeking political asylum from both the EU and the USA here, and the reasons he needs asylum are not even secret. This really is 1984 type stuff.
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That's a good point, that I might have overlooked a bit. My understanding is that the US doesn't have an Official Secrets act like the UK. In the UK it is possible to break the law by "publishing" secret (technically "protectively marked") information even if it arrived in your hands innocently e.g. was wrongly delivered to you in a postal mix up.
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So JA would not have any legal obligation not to publish and government information that fell into his lap, regardless of wheter it was previously in the public domain. If a clerk in the pentagon accidently emailed "JA@wikilaks.com" instead of "POTUS@Whitehouse.gov" there would be no obligation for JA to keep the info secret. The poor clerk would be in for a roasting though.
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What might be arguable is if JA had had, in anyway been involved in the process before the info arrived in his possession. Say Bradly Manning (I will use his name as it was then to avoid confusion) initially contacted JA and said "I have secret stuff, shall I send it to you?" and JA said "Email it over". It could be argued that JA was complicit in the act of it being stolen rather than a passive publisher who had nothing to do with the how the info arrived in his possession.
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Either way, whether or not JA has a case to answer in the US or not is sort of a side show. I'm not advocating that he should be shipped to the states. As I mentioned previously, I don't think he did anything wrong and certainly nothing that would justify some of the sentences that some (admittedly not all in a position to actually make the decisions) in the US have called for.
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The point is that JA's public defence against his extradition to Sweden is that the extradition is improperly motivated (i.e. it is a ruse to get him out of the UK so that he can be extradited to the US to face political charges with unreasonable punishments).
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I've actually had a peek into the judgments
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It seems that his appeals were not on the grounds that he may be sent onwards to the US but on more banal "technicalities"
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The high court decision is here (https://info.publicintelligence.net/UK-AssangeJudgment.pdf) It's nearly 50 pages, but I recommend reading it (ok I skimmed it) it does lay out the prosecution case and why, despite the women inviting him into their homes and continuing to associate with him afterwards his bedroom behaviour might constitute .
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Essentially he claimed 4 things
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1) The EAW was not valid as it had not been issued by a "Judicial Authority" as required
2) 3 of the 4 accusations would not be considered crimes in the UK and the 4th ( ) would not be considered in the UK
3) JA was not an "accused" as required by the EAW legislation as he had not been charged
4) The use of an EAW was not proportionate to the crime
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The appeal failed on all 4 counts
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1) The court found that a the Swedish prosecutor was a "Judicial Authority" as meant by the EAW and therefore could issue an EAW
2) Based on the evidence provided the court thought that the accusations would be considered crimes in the UK.
3) Although JA had not been charged, he could still be considered "accused", the court noted that had the investigation taken place in the UK JA would have been charged already. The difference stemmed from the different legal practices in Sweden where the charge is applied late in the process, a practice similar to several other EU countries.
4) Although the use of an EWA for minor crimes is discouraged it is not a legal requirement not to use it, and in any case the crime of , addressed in (3) was serious enough to warrant the use of an EAW (no pun intended)
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I find it interesting that JA's legal team did not use the "headline" argument (i.e. the US extradition threat) as grounds as it is a specific and valid "statutory bar" to extradition. If they could prove that then the extradition would be barred regardless of the strength or severity of the Swedish case.
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The supreme court appeal was just on the matter (1) and they again found that a Swedish Prosecutor would be considered a "Judicial Authority" under the EAW legislation.
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Here is the press summary of the supreme court decision https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2011-0264-press-summary.pdf
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This is the nub of my uneasiness about the affair. Assume the US extradition thing is a red herring, what we have is a man who is accused of a crime in Sweden avoiding extradition by hiding in an embassy and by so doing commiting another crime of breaking his bail conditions. He is then complaining that he is being arbitrarily held.
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Next stop a peek at this UN ruling to see their arguments.
Yes he did embarrass the administration, though that particular one is long gone now and a different bunch are in charge. I don't know how long grudges persist at this level.
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As I said, his position with the US is not the issue here. he ( and others) keep bringing it up. For the record I would support him in his legal battle against the US gov. But not in his battle against the Swedish and UK govs.
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But have the US made a demand? I don't think they have. Ironically if they had it would have made JA's defence easier. We can invoke the "secret deal" or they're going to wait until he's in Sweden argument but they are all simply theoretical possibilities.
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JA might be innocent and this might just be a plot to get him to the US
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or
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The US might not give a toss and JA is using the fear of them as a version of "do you know who I am" to avoid having to face a Swedish court.
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Both are possibilities and whatever our suspicions (and I do view the US suspiciously) the evidence (as in provable stuff) does not seem to support the theory that the US wants to use the Sweden route to extradite JA.
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Look at it another way, JA was in Sweden (allegedly the easy place for the US to extradite from) for a fair time, during which these allegations surfaced. If the US was behind the plot why did they ever let him leave (right after he was informed of the case restarting). I'd have thought the whole "frame him, charge him and extradite him" thing would have happened a whole bunch quicker.
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I think people who are wanted in the US can be arrested in the UK even if they have not committed a crime in the UK. Several bankers were sent over for financial misdeeds that happened in the US and angered their SEC. As I said earlier, JA was in Sweden for well over a month after the initial allegations. The case was initially dropped, but was restarted after the lawyer for two of the women appealed.
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Given Sweden is supposed to be the country of choice for the US to extradite from and he was there for over a month after some allegations, I'd have thought the US would have had it all sewn up quick.
Phew..... had a read of the un working group judgement, the time just flew by...... (/s)
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Here it is, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/A.HRC.WGAD.2015.docx
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Here's my td;dr
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the group seems to rely on a "source" for the Assange side, rather than going off and doing it's own digging. Large chunks of the document are made up of text from "the source", which I am assuming is a lawyer working on JA's behalf. The uk and Swedish governments the get to rebut the source's arguments, and then the source gets another shot.
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There was one dissenting opinion at the end, which i'll get to.
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The source claims JA has been arbitrarily detained in 3 blocks, 10days in solitary confinement at wandsworth prison at the beginning, the 550 days of house arrest and then being detained in the Ecuadorean embassy since then.
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put like that it does sound terrible.
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What the source fails to make clear (and to be fair neither response from the govs clears this up, it's not clear if the full text of the source was made available to the govs or if they were only provided with sections) is that
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the 10days "solitary confinement" was the 10days on remand between arrest and the point he was released on bail pending his appeals
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The 550 days of "house arrest" were the days he was on bail whilst fighting extradition. He had restrictions like being tagged, surrendering his passport, having to sleep at a defined address because he was deemed a flight risk, a judgement that proved correct.
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His detention in the embassy was of his own violation as he is evading arrest.
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The dissenting opinion makes this clear.
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I recommend looking the document over. I was really disappointed at how little research the group seemed to do and just seemed to look at the material provided by the source and the two govs, whose rebuttals seemed a little narrow.
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they criticized the length of time the process has taken, yet do not acknowledge that the delays are entirely down to JA not cooperating (fighting through the courts and latterly evading arrest). It is true that JA has offered to be interviewed by video link or at the embassy, but that is not cooperating that's negotiating. If the police ask me to come to the station for an interview and I say "no, you must come to my house" that's not cooperation.
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They criticized the fact that the investigation was stalled, offering JA ".... no predictability as to whether and when a formal process of any judicial dealing would commence....", but there is predictability, as soon as JA surrenders to the Swedish authorities the process can begin again. JA has effectively caused everyone to stop then complained that nothings happening.
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A central argument has been, why can't the Swedes interview him in the uk or by video? Fair point, that might at least move things along a bit. However, what confidence do the Swedes have should they conduct their interview and charge him that he'd surrender? I'm going to guess zero.
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I have heard that the reason JA needs to be in Sweden is to be charged, an Swedish law dictates that this must must happen in Sweden. I cannot find anything at the moment to back it up but will keep looking. If that were the case then there would literally be no point in trying to do it remotely.
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the source makes much of JA's fear of US extradition, but only offers that a US investigation is ongoing and fails to acknowledge the EU safeguards built into Swedish (and uk) law to prevent that.
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Once again we come down to the issue of US extradition.
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Here's another thought on that.
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If we say that we can only extradite JA to Sweden if it can be proved that when he gets there he won't be extradited to the US. How do you prove a negative? If we say "there are no current requests" and JA can say "it's a secret request". We can say "there is no evidence" JA can say "it's a really good secret". Even if we prove beyond a shadow of doubt that no request exists now, JA can say "but it might do in the future"
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Effectively JA would have cast iron immunity from extradition. That seems...... odd.
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Here it is, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/A.HRC.WGAD.2015.docx
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Here's my td;dr
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the group seems to rely on a "source" for the Assange side, rather than going off and doing it's own digging. Large chunks of the document are made up of text from "the source", which I am assuming is a lawyer working on JA's behalf. The uk and Swedish governments the get to rebut the source's arguments, and then the source gets another shot.
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There was one dissenting opinion at the end, which i'll get to.
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The source claims JA has been arbitrarily detained in 3 blocks, 10days in solitary confinement at wandsworth prison at the beginning, the 550 days of house arrest and then being detained in the Ecuadorean embassy since then.
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put like that it does sound terrible.
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What the source fails to make clear (and to be fair neither response from the govs clears this up, it's not clear if the full text of the source was made available to the govs or if they were only provided with sections) is that
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the 10days "solitary confinement" was the 10days on remand between arrest and the point he was released on bail pending his appeals
:
The 550 days of "house arrest" were the days he was on bail whilst fighting extradition. He had restrictions like being tagged, surrendering his passport, having to sleep at a defined address because he was deemed a flight risk, a judgement that proved correct.
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His detention in the embassy was of his own violation as he is evading arrest.
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The dissenting opinion makes this clear.
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I recommend looking the document over. I was really disappointed at how little research the group seemed to do and just seemed to look at the material provided by the source and the two govs, whose rebuttals seemed a little narrow.
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they criticized the length of time the process has taken, yet do not acknowledge that the delays are entirely down to JA not cooperating (fighting through the courts and latterly evading arrest). It is true that JA has offered to be interviewed by video link or at the embassy, but that is not cooperating that's negotiating. If the police ask me to come to the station for an interview and I say "no, you must come to my house" that's not cooperation.
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They criticized the fact that the investigation was stalled, offering JA ".... no predictability as to whether and when a formal process of any judicial dealing would commence....", but there is predictability, as soon as JA surrenders to the Swedish authorities the process can begin again. JA has effectively caused everyone to stop then complained that nothings happening.
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A central argument has been, why can't the Swedes interview him in the uk or by video? Fair point, that might at least move things along a bit. However, what confidence do the Swedes have should they conduct their interview and charge him that he'd surrender? I'm going to guess zero.
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I have heard that the reason JA needs to be in Sweden is to be charged, an Swedish law dictates that this must must happen in Sweden. I cannot find anything at the moment to back it up but will keep looking. If that were the case then there would literally be no point in trying to do it remotely.
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the source makes much of JA's fear of US extradition, but only offers that a US investigation is ongoing and fails to acknowledge the EU safeguards built into Swedish (and uk) law to prevent that.
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Once again we come down to the issue of US extradition.
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Here's another thought on that.
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If we say that we can only extradite JA to Sweden if it can be proved that when he gets there he won't be extradited to the US. How do you prove a negative? If we say "there are no current requests" and JA can say "it's a secret request". We can say "there is no evidence" JA can say "it's a really good secret". Even if we prove beyond a shadow of doubt that no request exists now, JA can say "but it might do in the future"
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Effectively JA would have cast iron immunity from extradition. That seems...... odd.
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Considering that basically the same people dealing with, 'How to get AJ into the USA?' Would be the same as those that found evidence of WMDs some time ago. It is easy to understand the shall we say; the delay?
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Really, who would they be then?
The 1st, 5th and 15th, of my last post.
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From my understanding of this, it's not that the government would will it, but that they don't want to will anything, publicly, and have any blame for Assange ending up in Guantanamo laid at their door, and would therefore make it very clear that the courts had a free hand in any decision. The courts that, these days, aren't keen to play ball with authorities who keep cutting their budgets.
Thanks for your intensive efforts to scrutinise this issue, though. Are you resident in this country? Perhaps you could go to the Ecuadorian embassy and interview Assange for the Swedes?
These are not the issues at all.
The case was investigated and dismissed by the Swedish police.
It was pressure from the US that cause it to be revived, but only when it was handed over to a different prosecutor.
In fact, because the extradition is to Sweden, no prima facie need be made. But the US will, apparently, be able to ask for his extradition on the secrets charges, from Sweden.
In answer to your question, if the details are the same then it should matter whether it is Joe Bloggs or Assange. Both should raise our suspicions.
I would have found myself being a lot less sympathetic if there had not been such a vociferous campaign of vilification of the guy. Even, at one point, attempting to claim he wasn't a real journalist, because he doesn't work for a recognised publication! (Wikileaks not withstanding, presumably.)
I think the outcome is obvious. He will eventually leave or be forced out of the Embassy. He will be sent to Sweden where he will be quickly cleared and immediately sent to the US. From there he will almost certainly vanish from view with a few lurid claim about his sex life until eventually he gets murdered by another inmate.
Or found hanging from a tree with signs of electrocution :/