8 ms·

Why? He's a high-profile fugitive who is evading arrest for alleged sexual offences against women in a member state in Europe.

realusername 11y ago
That's the official version indeed.
x5n1 11y ago
One charge was dropped, and it was for molestation and they ran out of time on that one. The rape charge is from a women who continued to sleep with after the alleged rape, according to Assange for a week. Not particularly serious charges, in my opinion.
- jgrahamc 11y ago
  So, if they are not serious charges he should have his day in court and get it over with. And, don't tell me the ridiculous story about how if he went to Sweden he'd be extradited to the US. He was in the UK, you think we aren't buddy-buddy with the US and would have handed him over?
  - x5n1 11y ago
    The UK or the Swedish government could easily determine his guilt or innocence -- as in questioning him in the embassy and he's said more than once he's willing, if that's really all they wanted to do instead of waste millions of dollars watching him. The burden of proof is never on the accused to prove his innocence. It's after all only an accusation. If they want to bring formal charges in court and send him a summons and try him in abstention they can do that too. It's just funny how they have played the game while claiming b/s like you are claiming. edit because of rate limit to the person below: If he has no guilty mind then why should he be willing to be arrested? In fact if he's afraid they will do to him what they did to Chelsea Manning, then he's perfectly in his right mind to attempt to avoid extradition by whatever means necessary. If a totalitarian government is pursuing you because you stole their secrets and exposed them to the public, and they have already imprisoned one of your partners for life in inhumane conditions. Why should you comply with that request?
    - jgrahamc 11y ago
      You seem to think Assange gets to make the rules and choose how he gets treated. There's a European arrest warrant, the UK needs to arrest him and he needs to go to Sweden.
      - x5n1 11y ago
        Assange is playing by the rules and that's why he's in the Embassy. He's following the rules to the book and so are the authorities. Why should they, well if they wish to bring justice and save money they should do it. Because if they do not, then the time expires which for the rape warrant is in 4 years. And justice will not be done.
        ascorbic 11y ago
        Skipping bail when the Supreme Court rules against you is not "playing by the rules" by any definition.
        chriswarbo 11y ago
        Of course it is. 'The rules' include things like "committing rape can cause rape allegations", "proving a rape allegation false causes criminal proceedings against the accuser", "skipping bail causes the authorities to pursue", "breaking/revoking diplomatic status damages foreign relations", etc. The whole point of 'the rules' is that they apply to criminals; the only way to force something on criminals (or anyone) is to make them unavoidable, i.e. make it impossible to not play by the rules. It's not like a game of chess, where the rules don't account for the use of tanks; or DRM, where "the rules" only apply to those with legal copies. It's more like Nomic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic), where the rules allow the rules to change. The difference is that Nomic's initial set of rules require unanimous agreement to rule changes (so any unfortunate consequences are ultimately a player's 'own fault' for agreeing to something long ago); the real world's initial rules were natural selection, which is a horrific way to live.
  - efdee 11y ago
    I like how you call it a ridiculous story while it's actually very credible and probable.
  - ryanlol 11y ago
    That's exactly the problem here, he hasn't been allowed his day in court. According to the Swedish supreme court being in Sweden isn't a requirement for that, no matter his behaviour he should be allowed his day in court. That behaviour includes refusing to personally come to Sweden, he has every right to do that. The only thing he has violated during the entire extradition process is his bail.
chippy 11y ago
One would expect that £12.6m would be spent for similar fugitives who are evading arrest for alleged sexual offences against women. Right? Oh, - it's because he is "high-profile" that makes him special. So it's not about the alleged crime at all? It's due to wikileaks after all! There is something illogical here, I think.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  To be fair it's high profile because it's known where he is and that he's attempting to avoid capture. Not because he's from wikileaks and he might get extradited, those merely gave him the celebrity clout to pull the stunt in the first place. If they actually gave up and he popped up in Ecuador and he's suddenly like 'haha, the british police, usually bunch of pricks', it would be embarrassing for the whole of the UK. So it's a bit of a catch-22 position. EDIT: Whoops, wrote wikipedia instead of wikileaks
  - nullc 11y ago
    FWIW, that ignorant bit of Wikipedia vs Wikileaks confusion has resulted in causing harm to people affiliated with Wikipedia when US customs officers have suffered from it.
    - mattmanser 11y ago
      Honest typo rather than ignorance.
    - chippy 11y ago
      My elderly father the other day told me that he thought the work I was doing with Wikimedia was related to "that wikileaks fella". Of course I corrected him, but I'm a little bit more accepting of the mistake!
  - gtk40 11y ago
    What association does he have with Wikipedia? You realize that "wiki" refers to a type of CMS software, like a blog or web forum, correct?
mrweasel 11y ago
He isn't high profile because of his alleged crime though. The amount of money they spend guarding the embassy is ridicules. A similar spending would have been accepted if it was just some random guy. The British public should furious about wasting £12.6 million trying to catch a guy that many not be guilty, or may only be guilty of something that's only rape in the Swedish sense. Don't get me wrong, if guilty then I don't care who he is. In that case he should be punished. It's just that I don't think Sweden should be allowed to hand him over to the US afterwards. Still the amount of money wasted trying to catch him should say something about why the UK police wants him. You simply don't spend that kind of money trying to catch a person, just so you can question him.
- webkike 11y ago
  Uh, what's rape in the Swedish sense?
  - freehunter 11y ago
    Everyone consented to sex, but he said he used a condom and didn't.
    - tedks 11y ago
      Meaning everyone did not consent to sex.
      - rurban 11y ago
        no, not all. she consented, but was surprised that he didn't use a condom. which could be legally interpreted as mutilation or rape in sweden. she didn't interpret it as rape at all
        bb88 11y ago
        It's not a crime to be sleazy in the US. Ask the Donald.
        11y ago

realusername 11y ago

That's the official version indeed.

x5n1 11y ago

One charge was dropped, and it was for molestation and they ran out of time on that one. The rape charge is from a women who continued to sleep with after the alleged rape, according to Assange for a week. Not particularly serious charges, in my opinion.

jgrahamc 11y ago
So, if they are not serious charges he should have his day in court and get it over with. And, don't tell me the ridiculous story about how if he went to Sweden he'd be extradited to the US. He was in the UK, you think we aren't buddy-buddy with the US and would have handed him over?
- x5n1 11y ago
  The UK or the Swedish government could easily determine his guilt or innocence -- as in questioning him in the embassy and he's said more than once he's willing, if that's really all they wanted to do instead of waste millions of dollars watching him. The burden of proof is never on the accused to prove his innocence. It's after all only an accusation. If they want to bring formal charges in court and send him a summons and try him in abstention they can do that too. It's just funny how they have played the game while claiming b/s like you are claiming. edit because of rate limit to the person below: If he has no guilty mind then why should he be willing to be arrested? In fact if he's afraid they will do to him what they did to Chelsea Manning, then he's perfectly in his right mind to attempt to avoid extradition by whatever means necessary. If a totalitarian government is pursuing you because you stole their secrets and exposed them to the public, and they have already imprisoned one of your partners for life in inhumane conditions. Why should you comply with that request?
  - jgrahamc 11y ago
    You seem to think Assange gets to make the rules and choose how he gets treated. There's a European arrest warrant, the UK needs to arrest him and he needs to go to Sweden.
    - x5n1 11y ago
      Assange is playing by the rules and that's why he's in the Embassy. He's following the rules to the book and so are the authorities. Why should they, well if they wish to bring justice and save money they should do it. Because if they do not, then the time expires which for the rape warrant is in 4 years. And justice will not be done.
      - ascorbic 11y ago
        Skipping bail when the Supreme Court rules against you is not "playing by the rules" by any definition.
        chriswarbo 11y ago
        Of course it is. 'The rules' include things like "committing rape can cause rape allegations", "proving a rape allegation false causes criminal proceedings against the accuser", "skipping bail causes the authorities to pursue", "breaking/revoking diplomatic status damages foreign relations", etc. The whole point of 'the rules' is that they apply to criminals; the only way to force something on criminals (or anyone) is to make them unavoidable, i.e. make it impossible to not play by the rules. It's not like a game of chess, where the rules don't account for the use of tanks; or DRM, where "the rules" only apply to those with legal copies. It's more like Nomic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic), where the rules allow the rules to change. The difference is that Nomic's initial set of rules require unanimous agreement to rule changes (so any unfortunate consequences are ultimately a player's 'own fault' for agreeing to something long ago); the real world's initial rules were natural selection, which is a horrific way to live.
- efdee 11y ago
  I like how you call it a ridiculous story while it's actually very credible and probable.
- ryanlol 11y ago
  That's exactly the problem here, he hasn't been allowed his day in court. According to the Swedish supreme court being in Sweden isn't a requirement for that, no matter his behaviour he should be allowed his day in court. That behaviour includes refusing to personally come to Sweden, he has every right to do that. The only thing he has violated during the entire extradition process is his bail.

chippy 11y ago

One would expect that £12.6m would be spent for similar fugitives who are evading arrest for alleged sexual offences against women. Right? Oh, - it's because he is "high-profile" that makes him special. So it's not about the alleged crime at all? It's due to wikileaks after all! There is something illogical here, I think.

mattmanser 11y ago
To be fair it's high profile because it's known where he is and that he's attempting to avoid capture. Not because he's from wikileaks and he might get extradited, those merely gave him the celebrity clout to pull the stunt in the first place. If they actually gave up and he popped up in Ecuador and he's suddenly like 'haha, the british police, usually bunch of pricks', it would be embarrassing for the whole of the UK. So it's a bit of a catch-22 position. EDIT: Whoops, wrote wikipedia instead of wikileaks
- nullc 11y ago
  FWIW, that ignorant bit of Wikipedia vs Wikileaks confusion has resulted in causing harm to people affiliated with Wikipedia when US customs officers have suffered from it.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    Honest typo rather than ignorance.
  - chippy 11y ago
    My elderly father the other day told me that he thought the work I was doing with Wikimedia was related to "that wikileaks fella". Of course I corrected him, but I'm a little bit more accepting of the mistake!
- gtk40 11y ago
  What association does he have with Wikipedia? You realize that "wiki" refers to a type of CMS software, like a blog or web forum, correct?

mrweasel 11y ago

He isn't high profile because of his alleged crime though. The amount of money they spend guarding the embassy is ridicules. A similar spending would have been accepted if it was just some random guy. The British public should furious about wasting £12.6 million trying to catch a guy that many not be guilty, or may only be guilty of something that's only rape in the Swedish sense. Don't get me wrong, if guilty then I don't care who he is. In that case he should be punished. It's just that I don't think Sweden should be allowed to hand him over to the US afterwards. Still the amount of money wasted trying to catch him should say something about why the UK police wants him. You simply don't spend that kind of money trying to catch a person, just so you can question him.

webkike 11y ago
Uh, what's rape in the Swedish sense?
- freehunter 11y ago
  Everyone consented to sex, but he said he used a condom and didn't.
  - tedks 11y ago
    Meaning everyone did not consent to sex.
    - rurban 11y ago
      no, not all. she consented, but was surprised that he didn't use a condom. which could be legally interpreted as mutilation or rape in sweden. she didn't interpret it as rape at all
      - bb88 11y ago
        It's not a crime to be sleazy in the US. Ask the Donald.
      - 11y ago