4 ms·

While I think Assange has a good case against an extradition to the US, the chances of him successfully fighting it are not 100% and if I were in his shoes I wo

While I think Assange has a good case against an extradition to the US, the chances of him successfully fighting it are not 100% and if I were in his shoes I would not risk it.

jcranmer 9y ago
The extradition request that the US never filed? (That's the part I never understood... why would there be a need to spirit Assange from a Five Eyes country and very close ally of the US to one that is not before springing a surprise extradition?)
- gpm 9y ago
  On what basis do you say that no extradition request has never been filed? My understanding is that Assange and allies allege that there is probably a sealed one, and that there is a (leaked in Stratfor emails) sealed US indictment against him. Entirely biased source: https://www.justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html https://www.justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    > On what basis do you say that no extradition request has never been filed? You're asking the parent to prove a negative, which is impossible. No public extradition request has ever been filed-- indeed, the United States has never so much as commented on it-- and so the burden of proof is on you to show that there is such a request. And no, links on "justice4assange.com" aren't convincing
    - namelost 9y ago
      The context is whether Assange's behaviour is rational. If it is impossible to determine whether an extradition request has been filed, then he has to assume that one has been filed. So in fact the burden of proof is the other way around.
      - jcranmer 9y ago
        The existence of even a mechanism for secret extradition requests is itself unsubstantiated. Without that, the burden of proof is still on Assange to substantiate why we should expect to be unable to find any proof to support his claims.
        namelost 9y ago
        For Assange this is a life and death situation. Sure the US will have to promise not to execute him, but nobody can stop them keeping him in conditions where he wishes he was dead. Just ask Manning. So I maintain that Assange is acting rationally regardless of whether he is "right" or "wrong".
    - thesmallestcat 9y ago
      And that's what's so twisted about secret indictments. Straight out of Kafka.
- nailer 9y ago
  Sweden was revealed to be a covert member of NATO, by guess which website, way before crayfish-party-gate.
- codys 9y ago
  Politics? It's reasonable that the UK Government may not agree if the appearance is bad and would cause political backlash. It's also possible that they're harder to lean on than as smaller, weaker, lower GDP government. I mean, it could be as simple as "they won't agree, but other guys might". Maybe someone in US Gov has a better relationship with the person/people in Sweden that would need to approve things. Maybe someone owes someone else a favor. All of these are reasonable possibilities. Governments aren't 1 dimensional.
  - Lazare 9y ago
    The "extradite to a laxer jurisdiction so you can re-extradite to the real destination" idea is fun, but the legal system doesn't allow it. Under EU law, if Assange was extradited from the UK to Sweden, then both the UK and Sweden would have to approve of him being re-extradited to the UK. So either the UK will approve of Assange being extradited (and extraditing to Sweden isn't needed) or they won't (and extraditing to Sweden won't help).
- namelost 9y ago
  Who knows. It is obvious why the US initially did not want to extradite Assange from the UK, because such an extradition would seem to have a low chance of success and even if it did work it would take a very long time. The UK may be a five eyes country but it also has a strongly independent judiciary. To speculate, perhaps the US's original plan was to waiting for Assange to make his own way to a more pliant jurisdiction, and the whole Sweden case caught the US by surprise as well. As soon as Assange ended up in the Ecuadorian embassy, the US would have had no incentive to file for extradition.
- Lazare 9y ago
  As a bonus, under EU law, once Assange was extradited from Sweden to the UK, he couldn't then be re-extradited to the US without the permission of both Sweden and the UK (as per Article 28 of the 2002 EU Council Framework Decision (2002/584/JHA). So the options are: 1. The UK will not assent to to Assange's extradition to the US, so extraditing him to Sweden will protect him from extradition. 2. The UK will assent to Assange's extradition, but for mysterious reasons, they didn't just hand him over, when he was in their custody. Despite their status as a close ally of the US, and their long standing history of handing over anyone the US asks for, no questions asked (Gary McKinnon, Richard O'Dwyer, the NatWest Three, and many more). Plus, neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought, so...yeah. The more you think about it, the less sense extradition makes as an explanation for the Swedish problems. If extradition was going to happen, it would have happened when Assange was in British custody (and it didn't) or it would happen after Assange left the EU and was in a more pliant jurisdiction (ie, not Sweden).
  - gpm 9y ago
    > he couldn't then be re-extradited to the US without the permission of both Sweden and the UK (as per Article 28 of the 2002 EU Council Framework Decision (2002/584/JHA). That's a very good point that I hadn't seen made before. > neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought I'm not sure that "life in jail" (particularly an american jail) is much preferable... The US has been known to give those assurances.
- justAnotherNET 9y ago
  Lol you think we’d file a request. I mean really, these games are played on an entirely different level.
Analemma_ 9y ago
I know that Assagne supporters just treat it as a given that the Swedish charges are a cover for him to be extradited to the United States, but I do want to wearily point out, yet again, that there has never been any actual evidence of this.
- dilap 9y ago
  I think it is incredibly naive to not believe this.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Cynicism != Skepticism.
- shiado 9y ago
  Is it typical to spend £10 million trying to capture a sexual assault suspect? As much as I like to believe the UK takes sexual violence extremely seriously do you suspect no other motivations are at play? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/julian-assange-has-cost-taxpayer-10-million-by-avoiding-extradition-10025762.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/julian-assange-has-...
plugger 9y ago
If Lamo's testimony regarding Assange assisting Manning with exfiltrating the Iraq and Afgan War Logs, Collateral Murder, and State Cables is correct I can easily understand why he's fighting this. I would too as I rate his chances of successfully fighting the charges if the above is true close to 0% instead of 100%.

While I think Assange has a good case against an extradition to the US, the chances of him successfully fighting it are not 100% and if I were in his shoes I would not risk it.

jcranmer 9y ago

The extradition request that the US never filed? (That's the part I never understood... why would there be a need to spirit Assange from a Five Eyes country and very close ally of the US to one that is not before springing a surprise extradition?)

gpm 9y ago
On what basis do you say that no extradition request has never been filed? My understanding is that Assange and allies allege that there is probably a sealed one, and that there is a (leaked in Stratfor emails) sealed US indictment against him. Entirely biased source: https://www.justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html https://www.justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  > On what basis do you say that no extradition request has never been filed? You're asking the parent to prove a negative, which is impossible. No public extradition request has ever been filed-- indeed, the United States has never so much as commented on it-- and so the burden of proof is on you to show that there is such a request. And no, links on "justice4assange.com" aren't convincing
  - namelost 9y ago
    The context is whether Assange's behaviour is rational. If it is impossible to determine whether an extradition request has been filed, then he has to assume that one has been filed. So in fact the burden of proof is the other way around.
    - jcranmer 9y ago
      The existence of even a mechanism for secret extradition requests is itself unsubstantiated. Without that, the burden of proof is still on Assange to substantiate why we should expect to be unable to find any proof to support his claims.
      - namelost 9y ago
        For Assange this is a life and death situation. Sure the US will have to promise not to execute him, but nobody can stop them keeping him in conditions where he wishes he was dead. Just ask Manning. So I maintain that Assange is acting rationally regardless of whether he is "right" or "wrong".
  - thesmallestcat 9y ago
    And that's what's so twisted about secret indictments. Straight out of Kafka.
nailer 9y ago
Sweden was revealed to be a covert member of NATO, by guess which website, way before crayfish-party-gate.
codys 9y ago
Politics? It's reasonable that the UK Government may not agree if the appearance is bad and would cause political backlash. It's also possible that they're harder to lean on than as smaller, weaker, lower GDP government. I mean, it could be as simple as "they won't agree, but other guys might". Maybe someone in US Gov has a better relationship with the person/people in Sweden that would need to approve things. Maybe someone owes someone else a favor. All of these are reasonable possibilities. Governments aren't 1 dimensional.
- Lazare 9y ago
  The "extradite to a laxer jurisdiction so you can re-extradite to the real destination" idea is fun, but the legal system doesn't allow it. Under EU law, if Assange was extradited from the UK to Sweden, then both the UK and Sweden would have to approve of him being re-extradited to the UK. So either the UK will approve of Assange being extradited (and extraditing to Sweden isn't needed) or they won't (and extraditing to Sweden won't help).
namelost 9y ago
Who knows. It is obvious why the US initially did not want to extradite Assange from the UK, because such an extradition would seem to have a low chance of success and even if it did work it would take a very long time. The UK may be a five eyes country but it also has a strongly independent judiciary. To speculate, perhaps the US's original plan was to waiting for Assange to make his own way to a more pliant jurisdiction, and the whole Sweden case caught the US by surprise as well. As soon as Assange ended up in the Ecuadorian embassy, the US would have had no incentive to file for extradition.
Lazare 9y ago
As a bonus, under EU law, once Assange was extradited from Sweden to the UK, he couldn't then be re-extradited to the US without the permission of both Sweden and the UK (as per Article 28 of the 2002 EU Council Framework Decision (2002/584/JHA). So the options are: 1. The UK will not assent to to Assange's extradition to the US, so extraditing him to Sweden will protect him from extradition. 2. The UK will assent to Assange's extradition, but for mysterious reasons, they didn't just hand him over, when he was in their custody. Despite their status as a close ally of the US, and their long standing history of handing over anyone the US asks for, no questions asked (Gary McKinnon, Richard O'Dwyer, the NatWest Three, and many more). Plus, neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought, so...yeah. The more you think about it, the less sense extradition makes as an explanation for the Swedish problems. If extradition was going to happen, it would have happened when Assange was in British custody (and it didn't) or it would happen after Assange left the EU and was in a more pliant jurisdiction (ie, not Sweden).
- gpm 9y ago
  > he couldn't then be re-extradited to the US without the permission of both Sweden and the UK (as per Article 28 of the 2002 EU Council Framework Decision (2002/584/JHA). That's a very good point that I hadn't seen made before. > neither the UK nor Sweden can legally extradite him to the US without a binding assurance that the death penalty will not be sought I'm not sure that "life in jail" (particularly an american jail) is much preferable... The US has been known to give those assurances.
justAnotherNET 9y ago
Lol you think we’d file a request. I mean really, these games are played on an entirely different level.

Analemma_ 9y ago

I know that Assagne supporters just treat it as a given that the Swedish charges are a cover for him to be extradited to the United States, but I do want to wearily point out, yet again, that there has never been any actual evidence of this.

dilap 9y ago
I think it is incredibly naive to not believe this.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Cynicism != Skepticism.
shiado 9y ago
Is it typical to spend £10 million trying to capture a sexual assault suspect? As much as I like to believe the UK takes sexual violence extremely seriously do you suspect no other motivations are at play? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/julian-assange-has-cost-taxpayer-10-million-by-avoiding-extradition-10025762.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/julian-assange-has-...

plugger 9y ago

If Lamo's testimony regarding Assange assisting Manning with exfiltrating the Iraq and Afgan War Logs, Collateral Murder, and State Cables is correct I can easily understand why he's fighting this. I would too as I rate his chances of successfully fighting the charges if the above is true close to 0% instead of 100%.