Time and again the question of Assange "not being charged" is raised. Well, that all depends on how you translate the term. If you mean that being charged is the same as being prosecuted, then the answer is that Mr Assange is NOT charged.As I understand it, in the US or UK, at this stage of the process, we would say that someone has been charged or is under arrest, but the Swedish process doesn't quite work this way, and so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to say he's just wanted for 'questioning.' Frankly, given the significant negative impact even the announcement of an arrest has on one's life in America (lost jobs, education suspended and the like), even if charges are eventually dropped, I'm hard pressed to say they're in the wrong here.
If, on the other hand, the term is meant as a mandatory prelude to being prosecuted, then yes, Mr Assange is charged. This does not mean that he WILL be prosecuted.
even if asylum is granted, Assange may struggle to get to Ecuador. My colleague Owen Bowcott, the Guardian's legal affairs correspondent has sent this useful Q&A.posted by never used baby shoes at 11:33 AM on June 20, 2012
Q: Is there any way the Ecuadoreans can spirit Assange out of Britain and ensure he reaches the safety of Quito, their capital?
A: If Assange steps out of the embassy, he is liable to be arrested. Were he to be given a diplomatic passport, that would not alter the situation: immunity from arrest is only conferred on diplomats accredited to the Court of St James's by the Foreign Office.
Any attempt by the Ecuadoreans to have him accredited would be rebuffed by UK authorities. Were Assange to accept an Ecuadorean diplomatic pasport, some suggest, he would become an Ecuadorean national - and therefore be unable to seek asylum in what would now be his own country's embassy. It's a cunning profession diplomacy - dangerously double-edged.
Owen tells me that he has confirmed with the Foreign Office that if Assange exited the building directly into a car with diplomatic number plates, it would not give him diplomatic immunity. If he leaves the building he can be arrested.
A diplomatic bag, also known as a diplomatic pouch, is a container with certain legal protections used for carrying official correspondence or other items between a diplomatic mission and its home government or other official organizations.[1] The physical concept of a "diplomatic bag" is flexible and therefore can take many forms e.g., an envelope, parcel, large suitcase or shipping container, etcThe "pouch" can be as large as a shipping container, and occasionally is. See this list of similar, unusual shipments. Ecuador is not unfamiliar with this stunt, having recently imported 40 kilograms of cocaine exactly this way.
In December, 2001, Sweden handed over two asylum-seekers to the CIA, which then rendered them to be tortured in Egypt. A ruling from the U.N. Human Rights Committee found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for its role in that rendition (the two individuals later received a substantial settlement from the Swedish government). ...posted by snaparapans at 1:28 PM on June 20, 2012 [2 favorites]
...Seeking asylum based on claims of human rights violations (such as unjust extradition) is a widely recognized and long-standing right, as Foreign Policy documented during the recent Chen Guangcheng drama. It’s a right that Assange, like everyone else, is entitled to invoke. If Ecuador refuses his asylum request, then he’ll be right back in the hands of British authorities and presumably extradited to Sweden without delay.
Sweden is a Roman law country. Generally, the accused is presumed guilty, actually.I've heard this before, but only by some pretty rabid defenders of the common law system. It didn't ring true then, and I don't understand how it's true now. Is this a general principle they have, or due to some arcane working of the system? It doesn't sound like a principle any country would willingly have (at least in the modern age).
Informal discussions have already taken place between US and Swedish officials over the possibility of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being delivered into American custody, according to diplomatic sources.2. Sweden has a very cozy relationship with the United States, and hasn't refused an extradition in a decade. They also provide for channels of extradition that avoid legal oversight, such as temporary surrender. Sweden was also specifically called out by the UN for participating in rendition to CIA black sites.
Mr Assange is in a British jail awaiting extradition proceedings to Sweden after being refused bail at Westminster Magistrates’ Court despite a number of prominent public figures offering to stand as surety.
His arrest in north London yesterday was described by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates as “good news”, and may pave the way for extradition to America and a possible lengthy jail sentence.
This is the way it is in most of the world.So, let me get this straight: if Assange is accuse of rape (or any crime) in Sweden (or Mexico), he has to prove he didn't do that crime, and the accusers don't have to prove anything? Nothing whatsoever, not even a basic case? That doesn't even sound like a system which could even work, nevermind one which could produce justice. I don't believe you.
So, let me get this straight: if Assange is accuse of rape (or any crime) in Sweden (or Mexico), he has to prove he didn't do that crime, and the accusers don't have to prove anything? Nothing whatsoever, not even a basic case?I'm sorry, but I think you're either arguing a different point than I'm grasping, or this is just bull. To say that the majority of states in the world until recently allowed anybody to accuse anybody else of a crime with no evidence, and punish the defendant if they couldn't prove they were innocent, is nonsense. I don't get why you're riding this line against Sweden, but it's pretty weird.There is some question in Sweden, depending on its level of adherence to EU treaties. But historically it has been true. China changed over to presuming innocence in 1996. Most of the states who have switched over have done so in the last 40 years. It was very, very common.
The home secretary gave the pledge on Saturday after signing a new extradition treaty with US Attorney General John Ashcroft last week.UK rules out death penalty extradition
British objections to the death penalty, which was abolished for murder in 1965, are seen as a possible bar to UK troops in Iraq handing over senior Baath Party officials to the US.
The UK has long refused to extradite criminal suspects to states which use torture and execution.
What’s most notable here is that this is now the sixth prosecution by the Obama administration of an accused leaker, and all six have been charged under the draconian, World-War-I era Espionage Act. As EFF’s Trevor Timm put it yesterday: this is the “6th time under Obama someone is charged with Espionage for leaking to a journalist. Before Obama: only 3 cases in history.” This is all accomplished by characterizing disclosures in American newspapers about America’s wrongdoing as “aiding the enemy” (the alleged enemy being informed is Al Qaeda, but the actual concern is that the American people learn what their government is doing). As The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage wrote this morning, Obama has brought “more such cases than all previous presidents combined,” and by doing so, has won the admiration of the CIA and other intelligence agencies which, above all else, loathe transparency (which happens to be the value that Obama vowed to provide more of than any President in history).Rules of American Justice: A Tale of 3 Cases
But after assurances from lawyers that his Swedish residence permit wouldn't be revoked and that extradition to the United States was "out of the question", Hemler contacted the [Air Force Office of Special Investigations] a month ago to alert US authorities as to his whereabouts.posted by anigbrowl at 4:15 PM on June 20, 2012 [2 favorites]
He can't easily go home, but there is no way to extradite him. Given that the US beef with Assange is primarily rooted in his handling of material passed to him by Bradley Manning, a US military officer, and that the extradition treaty I've linked to above bans extradition for 'an offense committed in connection with a political offense,' it's rather difficult to see how the US would be able to compel the Swedes to lay hands on Assange in the first place.
The complaints about the dangers facing Assange in Sweden seem just a tad overblown to me.
Julian Assange's decision to seek asylum in Ecuador is, in the Australian vernacular, the percentage play. The only certainties that Assange knows are that the US government wants him, and that the Australian government has consistently shown -- and continues to show -- it is unwilling to do anything beyond the consular niceties to protect him.posted by wilful at 6:27 PM on June 20, 2012 [1 favorite]
To seek asylum, rather than to seek to address the allegations against him in Sweden (although Assange has repeatedly offered to be interviewed by Swedish authorities in the UK over the past 18 months), will undoubtedly further damage Assange's reputation. The stain of "alleged r-pist" will always follow him, until the claims are resolved.
But Assange knows that the Vice-President of the United States has called him a terrorist. He knows that the Obama administration readily kills those it labels terrorists, even if they are US citizens, and even if they aren't terrorists, without due process. He knows that a grand jury has been empanelled and has, according to those with connections inside the US security establishment, produced a sealed indictment against him. Being extradited to Sweden increases the risk that he will be surrendered to the United States where an uncertain fate awaits.
But who exactly is Assange claiming asylum from? Australia. Our government, he says, has effectively abandoned him, and produced as part of his justification the recent correspondence from Attorney-General Nicola Roxon to lawyer Jennifer Robinson declaring the government was unwilling to intervene on his behalf.
Whatever the merits of Assange's claim of "effective abandonment", it is clear that the Foreign Minister's claim that no Australian has had more consular support than Assange simply doesn't stand up -- and demonstrably not while Bob Carr is in Libya attempting to free an Australian lawyer. Further, it has made plain it has no concerns about a US campaign against one of its own citizens that is based entirely on his activities as a journalist and publisher.
In that regard, even if it hasn't legally "abandoned" Assange, it has been derelict in its defence of the basic right of free speech.
1) Sweden's legal process for sex crimes is archaic, and has not been overhauled properly. The slightest accusation -- in this case of non-violent sexual line-crossing -- not only earns the accused months in remand, but eventually results in a trial in a closed court, before judges appointed by the ruling political parties.posted by wilful at 6:57 PM on June 20, 2012 [4 favorites]
2) The process by which Assange was accused, cleared, and then re-accused of these incidents beggars belief. Two women went to a Stockholm police station one Friday afternoon in August 2010, to either (and here accounts vary) report Assange for sexual misconduct, or inquire as to how he could be forced to take an STI test. Only one woman, Sofia Wilen, gave a statement, saying that the morning after a sexual encounter with Assange, he had initiated sex while she was asleep, and without a condom; by her own testimony, she said that she then gave consent to continue the act.
3) While her statement was being given, police had already contacted a prosecutor to issue an investigation warrant for arrest. When Wilen was informed of this, she refused to sign her own evidence statement, saying that she had been pushed into making a complaint by people around her. The next day, the senior prosecutor for Stockholm rescinded the warrant, saying that there was nothing in the statement suggesting a crime had occurred.
4) By Monday, that decision had been appealed, with the two women now represented by Claes Borgstrom, a big wig in the Social Democratic party, and drafter of the 2005 sex crimes laws under which Assange was being accused -- laws that many had said were unworkable. The second complainant in the affair, Anna Ardin, now changed her story. She had been interviewed the day after Wilen had told of a rough but consensual sexual encounter with Assange, but suggested he had torn a condom off during sex.
5) In the weeks between the Stockholm prosecutor rejecting Wilen's statement as evidence of a potential crime, and the appeal, Ardin's story changed, and her account of rough consensual foreplay became an accusation that Assange had pinned her down with his body during sex to prevent her applying a condom. This became the basis for a new accusation -- sexual coercion -- which would have been sufficient as a felony, should the appeal prosecutor not reinstate Wilen's rape accusation. In that week, tweets were deleted and blog posts changed to remove any suggestion that Ardin had thought Assange's behaviour to her consensual.
6) The prosecutor to whom the appeal was made -- Marianne Ny -- was a former head of the "Crime Development Unit", whose specific brief was to develop new applications of sex crimes laws, in areas where they had not previously been applied. She had previously spoken of remand as a form of de facto justice for men accused of sex crimes, whom the courts would otherwise let free.
7) The European arrest warrant, and the Interpol red notice under which Assange is being extradited, was issued with a speed and seriousness usually reserved for major violent criminals, rather than someone simply wanted for further questioning, without a charge being present.
1) Assange’s visit to Sweden during which these incidents occurred had raised alarm in both the centre-right Swedish establishment and the US. Had he been granted the residency he applied for that month, Assange could have become a registered Swedish journalist and based WikiLeaks there, gaining the substantial protections the Swedish state extends to journalists. It has been suggested the US had told Sweden it would curtail intelligence sharing if that occurred. After the accusations were made, Assange was denied residency.posted by wilful at 6:59 PM on June 20, 2012 [1 favorite]
2) Sweden’s defence and intelligence needs are overwhelmingly oriented to its relations to Russia. Sweden runs a huge northern fleet, and maintains a national service-based conscript army, all based on the premise that a military emergency between Russia and Europe would see the former try to enter through the top. Sweden’s right, concentrated in the ruling Moderate party, have for years been trying to abolish Swedish neutrality, and have it join NATO. In fact, Sweden and NATO have been working together closely for years. Sweden becoming a centre for WikiLeaks would have been a disaster for that process.
3) Claes Borgstrom, the politician-lawyer who suddenly popped up to assist the two women accusers, is the law partner of Thomas Bodstrom, the former justice minister in the Social Democratic government that lost power in 2006. In 2001 Bodstrom had been an enthusiastic advocate of secret renditions at US request, with several Swedish citizens of Egyptian origin (Egyptian political refugees granted asylum and citizenship by Sweden, by another part of the state process) rendered back to Egypt and tortured. The entire interconnected Swedish establishment was oriented to a “war on terror” superstate strategy, and an Assange trial on criminal matters would fit that perfectly.
4) In 2011, a grand jury was secretly empanelled in Maryland in the US to bring down indictments in the matter of “cablegate”, the vast release of files that — it is usually assumed — were leaked to WikiLeaks by Bradley Manning, a junior information officer who had become connected to the world of hacking through a personal relationship with a Boston-based hacker. Manning is now on trial on a brace of charges that will most likely see him in prison for the rest of his life; the intent of the prosecutors convening the grand jury appears to be to dynamically link Assange with Manning’s leaking of the files, so that Assange can be indicted and extradited for espionage.
I suspect that if captured, he'll get the same treatment as Bradley Manning; solitary confinement until insanity.
"According to army witnesses, he was found curled into a fetal position in a storage cupboard, with a knife at his feet, and had cut the words "I want" into a vinyl chair. A few hours later, he had an altercation with a female intelligence analyst, Specialist Jihrleah Showman, during which he punched her in the face. The brigade psychiatrist referred to an "occupational problem and adjustment disorder," and recommended a discharge."Manning wasn't a stable individual in the first place.
to announce plans for the US and Sweden to combat Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCP).SLCP about sums it up as regards what the US thinks of Assange.
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice.Fuck. If I could only be half the person Julian Assange is.
If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find.
If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whos hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes.
The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them. "
JACOB APPELBAUM: Are you including national security letters in your comment about believing that there is judicial oversight with the FBI’s actions?So, in short, as an American citizen, I will get to find out if the FBI has a secret surveillance program targeting me as long as someone writes about it in the Wall Street Journal. What lengths do you think the USG will go to in order to apprehend someone like Assange?
FBI DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL: National security letters and administrative subpoenas have the ability to have judicial oversight, yes.
JACOB APPELBAUM: How many of those actually do have judicial oversight, in percentage?
FBI DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL: What do you mean by that? How many have -
JACOB APPELBAUM: I mean, every time you get a national security letter, you have to go to a judge? Or -
FBI DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL: No, as you well know, national security letters, just like administrative subpoenas, you don’t have to go to a judge. The statute does allow for the person on whom those are served to seek judicial review. And people have done so.
JACOB APPELBAUM: And in the case of the third parties, such as, say, the 2703(d) orders that were served on my - according to the Wall Street Journal - my Gmail account, my Twitter account, and my internet service provider account, the third parties were prohibited from telling me about it, so how am I supposed to go to a judge, if the third party is gagged from telling me that I’m targeted by you?
FBI DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL: There are times when we have to have those things in place. So, at some point, obviously, you became aware. So at some point, the person does become aware. But yes, the statute does allow us to do that. The statute allows us.
I mean, seriously - it is possible that Assange is the victim of a US counter-intelligence plot, but in what way is it 'fairly certain' that the UK would not be involved? Britain's favorite fictional hero is James Bond, for heaven's sake. Espionage is their national hobby.Because they think the UK has a less corrupt judicial system?
Heh. Now you mention it you can see why a country like Russia that has actual secrets people care about might not want him, no matter how chummy they are right now.Assange has a show on RT (Russia Today), which is run by the russian government and has a pretty heavy pro-putin anti-US slant. Presumably they are just doing it to fuck with the US, but obviously they don't have too big of a problem with him.
I don't really understand. Why would Sweden have any interest in going after Assange for Wikileaks? What's in it for them?Because the leaked documents detailed secret interactions between the sweedish and US government, which embarassed high ranking sweedish officials? I think I remember reading the president of sweeden is friends with Karl Rove.
Rove himself says on his Karl Rove and Company website that he has been advising Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. It’s well-known in Sweden how Rove has helped Reinfeldt lead the nation’s Moderate Party to election success over liberal competitors who previously dominated the nation’s leadership.The US obviously wouldn't need to twist arms here, these people all know eachother, are friends with eachother and would be willing to help eachother out. As far as UK consent, it might be easier to get the UK to "consent" to the 3rd party extradition then for the US to win extradition in the UK courts, which would take just as long as this one with sweeden has.
So I then wonder. JA must consider the possibility that he might spend years and years in the embassy. If he's guilty, wouldn't he reason that it's better to serve a year or so in a Swedish prison, than sit around in an embassy indefinitely, and basically not be able to move freely, sort of like Roman Polansky, hounded for the rest of his life. Is it worth being hounded like that for life, or is it better to serve the couple of years in a Swedish prison?obviously he belives he'll be extradited to the US.
Eric Holder doesn't give a damn about the law, and Obama has already used his executive privilege to shield him from going down for the Fast and Furious scandal.It's interesting how the opinion-sphere is so fragmented now that even whether or not a scandal is a "scandal" depends on your partisan persuasion. Everyone agreed that Iran Contra and the Lewinsky thing were "real" scandals.
AKA "What Your Uncle Who Watches Fox News All Day Is All Worked Up About"
Oh, absolutely. It was a huge fuckup and a real scandal. But now Issa has turned it into another political game in order to fuel conspiracy theories during an election year.Well, there is an argument that both parties should investigate each-other, and that way every scandal will be fully investigated. It's hard to see who else, other then congress, could investigate the DOJ itself. I'm sure republicans felt that congressional investigations by democrats (such as into the US attorney firing scandal) were political - they would make the argument that congressional dems were trying to cover up for ACORN and trying to legitimatize investigations into voter fraud, which they believe (incorrectly) is rampant and favors the democrats.
Bullshit. Not even a policy failure. Definitely not a scandal. A scandal is self-dealing. This is a drummed up which hunt.This is the kind of comment that really damages someone's credibility, by making them appear to see everything through a totally partisan lens. It's hard to see how the Lewinsky scandal involved "self dealing" or even the Iran Contra affair.
"One of the hallmarks of the establishment media is how it reverses its ostensible function: it is servile and reverent when reporting on or questioning the nation’s most powerful actors, yet becomes aggressively adversarial only toward those who challenge establishment factions and who are loathed within them. In sum, these media outlets are orthodoxy enforcers, little high school clique monitors venerating the popular and scorning the outcasts. The vitriolic media discussions this week of the widely-loathed-in-D.C.-and-London Julian Assange provided a perfect example (watch this incredibly hostile CNN interview with an Assange supporter and ask whether any upstanding, respected figure of D.C. power would ever be treated that way in a CNN interview)".posted by dunkadunc at 12:23 PM on June 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
By 2009 the Sinaloa drug cartel had made Phoenix its gun supermarket and recruited young Americans as its designated shoppers or straw purchasers. Voth and his agents began investigating a group of buyers, some not even old enough to buy beer, whose members were plunking down as much as $20,000 in cash to purchase up to 20 semiautomatics at a time, and then delivering the weapons to others.posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:46 PM on June 27, 2012
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But an official with Sweden's Ministry of Justice said that, according to current legislation, Sweden couldn't provide Assange with the guarantees he's currently seeking.I would say that's thickened; they can't guarantee it because there is no binding way such a guarantee could be made. Governments can't go round making guarantees for their courts or vice versa.
"Any such guarantee doesn't exist," Cecilia Riddselius, a staff member with the ministry's Division for Criminal Cases and International Judicial Cooperation, told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.
"After having worked on these issues for ten years, I can't see how it could become reality."
Riddselius emphasized that the matter remained hypothetical and that her assessment was restricted to that of a government civil servant.
The European Arrest Warrant is a fast-track system for surrendering people from one European country to another to face trial or serve a prison sentence. It has removed many of the traditional safeguards in the extradition process. If a court in one country demands a person’s arrest and extradition, courts and police in other countries must act on it. In 2009, this fast track extradition system was used to extradite over 5000 people across the EU (700 people from the UK alone).posted by snaparapans at 8:43 PM on July 4, 2012
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This is way, way past unreasonable behavior by both the Swedish and British authorities.
posted by Malor at 11:07 AM on June 20, 2012 [30 favorites]