7 ms·

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 man

• BasDirks 11y ago
  But wasn't he afraid of extradition?
  • fwn 11y ago
    Yep. But that is often left out. (No accusation intended. It's just something people forget.)
    • mike-cardwell 11y ago
      They don't forget. They leave it out on purpose because it destroys their argument. Oh. If only he'd have done this thing that I'm telling you, without mentioning the well known reason why he is against doing that thing!
    • cmdkeen 11y ago
      Well he became afraid of extradition conveniently at the point at which he was facing extradition. Before then he was quite happy to spend lots of time in the West apparently unconcerned by the threat. Something that is often left out... The UK was happy to extradite him to Sweden, we extradite people to the US as long as they aren't going to be executed. So quite why the UK extraditing him to Sweden who would then extradite him to the US is a plausible conspiracy never really gets explained.
      • PJDK 11y ago
        Particularly since he could still appeal back to the UK if Sweden tried to extradite him. Also weird this wasn't an argument he brought up while fighting the initial extradition to Sweden.
      • spiralpolitik 11y ago
        In the UK extraditions, especially ones to the US, are usually won or lost in the court of public opinion. I suspect that Assange feels he would have a better chance of resisting extradition in the UK than in Sweden. See the case of Gary McKinnon as an example (although McKinnon had much stronger grounds to appeal on than I expect Assange would)
      • marrs 11y ago
        In fairness, most people only become afraid of something when they're facing it. As for the conspiracy theory, maybe it was the product of paranoid thinking. A more obvious conspiracy theory to me is that the US saw an opportunity to smear Assange and lent on Sweden to trump up the charges.
        • FireBeyond 11y ago
          And yet the best they could do was 'these girls who said that he had quasi consensual ('I was sleeping') sex with them and want him to do a HIV test'? That's a pretty low bar for a smear campaign.
  • rmc 11y ago
    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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship ). Why go the UK if you're worried about extradition to the USA?
    • agd 11y ago
      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.
  • youngtaff 11y ago
    He was at more risk of extradition to the US from the UK than he was from Sweden
    • kagamine 11y ago
      Says who? Sweden? The UK? Assange? The US?
      • jamespo 11y ago
        Is Sweden a member of "Five Eyes" ?
        • comrh 11y ago
          No, it is made up of anglophone countries (Canada, UK, US, New Zealand, Australia)
          • zz1 11y ago
            But is still a close ally of the US when it comes to intelligence.
      • rmc 11y ago
        UK is in Five Eyes, Sweden is not. The UK is a co-founding member of NATO, Sweden is not in NATO. The USA & UK have a "special relationship", Sweden & USA don't. UK helped the USA invade Iraq, Sweden did not.
        • kagamine 11y ago
          Half of which if not all of which had absolutely no bearing on whether or not Sweden were more or less likely to extradite Assange as a result of pressure to do so by the US. The "special relationship" is not a cover-all term for the US & UK to do anything on a promise like a teen couple in love. It covers a lot of military and trade stuff, which wikileaks is a part of, but in this case Sweden clearly acted as a player in a larger game. Assange seems to have presumed an ulterior motive in the charges brought against him and proceeded accordingly.
• enraged_camel 11y ago
  Ignorance and arrogance make a terrible combination. The reason he didn't travel to Sweden to just get it over with is because Sweden was planning to extradite him.
  • youngtaff 11y ago
    Yup they do so where is your evidence he was going to be extradited from Sweden to the US?
    • trevelyan 11y ago
      You need to read the UK High Court ruling. As is explained there, if Sweden had sufficient evidence to charge Assange in absentia they could do so and issue a European Arrest Warrant. The problem is that this would require the prosecution to demonstrate probable cause and proportionality to a public Swedish court: > Under Swedish law the issue of a domestic detention order in absentia was a precondition to the issue of an EAW. That order was issued by a court which... had to be satisfied that there was sufficient evidence giving rise to probable cause and that domestic arrest was proportionate. The Swedish prosecution (a political appointee) is claiming she cannot demonstrate probable cause without interviewing Assange, and yet she refuses to interview him. Leaving aside the absurdity of any reasonable person thinking that any interview will give the Swedish authorities the smoking gun they obviously lack, from a legal standpoint the only sensible explanation for their behavior is that it allows the option of extraditing without public judicial consideration of probable guilt and proportionality of prosecution. Couple that with the very obvious irregularity of the prosecution, the very real prospect of Assange facing indefinite detention in Sweden and the refusal to offer any guarantees against hand-over to the States and there is plenty of evidence that his concerns are very well founded.
      • tedunangst 11y ago
        That explains a possible UK -> Sweden extradition, not a Sweden -> US extradition.
        • 11y ago
• tomelders 11y ago
  Or the Swedish investigators could have come to London and questioned him. It's conspicuous that they didn't.
  • cmdkeen 11y ago
    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 appealed extradition all the way to the UK Supreme Court then decided he didn't like the outcome, quite why the responsibility is on Sweden to cave to his demands has yet to be explained.
    • agd 11y ago
      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.
      • hahainternet 11y ago
        > 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!
        • pfg 11y ago
          The alleged victims are claiming no rape took place and that the police completely misinterpreted what they said, and later got railroaded by them. The initial prosecutor dropped the charges, but another prosecutor with a political background and a radical stance on what should be considered rape appealed that decision and got herself appointed to the case. She then declined multiple requests to schedule another interview with Assange (both in-person and via phone/video conference, which Swedish law allows). I don't understand how anyone could claim, with the facts we now know, that this case has any merit at all and is more than a politically motivated smear campaign.
• quonn 11y ago
  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 infuriated. I can't blame him for being worried.
  • trevelyan 11y ago
    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.
    • rmc 11y ago
      > Assange could then have defeated the extradition request by showing his behavior was not a crime under British law. Extradition is only allowed if it's for a crime that's illegal in both countries. Assange's legal team repeatidly challenged the extradition on the grounds that it wasn't a crime in the UK. The UK legal system consistantly said that it was. Remember one of the charges/claims is that he had sex with someone who was asleep. That's a crime in the UK and Sweden.
      • trevelyan 11y ago
        Assange has never been found guilty of a crime or even charged with one. The British legal ruling was not over guilt or innocence but simply over the bureaucratic definition of a crime. If the Swedish government reprinted the exact same request with your name on it, you would also face extradition without the ability to challenge the request on the grounds that its allegations are not factual. This is the key point that apologists for Sweden miss. The prosecution could have charged Assange and got an extradition warrant that way. They didn't because doing so would have required a court filing and granted Assange rights to a speedy trial and freedom from indefinite detention. Interviewing Assange in London was equally impossible -- once it was done the Swedish prosecutor would have been legally required to either charge Assange or close the case. And charging the case would have required a court filing, etc. etc..... Arguing that Assange would have been found guilty of rape also shows a lack of knowledge of the case. Despite what you seem to believe (who told you this?) the woman in question was not asleep and has in fact made statements contradicting your claims and accusing the authorities of railroading her. I do not personally know what happened that evening, but her description is striking in showing Assange complying with every request she made. The only possible breach of consent lies in the possibility that Assange broke a condom deliberately, but this is apparently contradicted by forensic evidence which shows the breakage was due to wear and tear. Add on the woman's affectionate treatment of Assange both before and after the night in question, and the way her change in behavior followed her realization that he was sleeping with someone else, and it seems rather obvious that while Assange may have been a cad the rape allegations simply don't hold water.
• littletimmy 11y ago
  Obviously he couldn't. He needed refuge from oppressive governments which he now has at the Ecuadorian embassy.
  • yclept 11y ago
    Ecuador isn't exactly known as a bastion of freedom.
    • littletimmy 11y ago
      Neither is the US.
• littletimmy 11y ago
  Obviously he couldn't. He needed refuge from oppressive governments which he now has at the Ecuadorian embassy.