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I was writing a long post but I deleted it. I don't know what to say, I don't like the guy, but I have an even stronger dislike for how international politics a

• tramtrist 8y ago
  I also feel the same way. He may have committed some heinous crimes outside of the actual hacking/leaking but to say we all didn't benefit from what we learned regarding how our government spies on us would just be flat out wrong..
  • fxbl0i 8y ago
    What crimes did he commit? Honest question. I heard that someone accused him of being a rapist but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. What else is there?
    • 0x54D5 8y ago
      He skipped bail. That is a crime. He literally locked himself up for 7 years for something that in the UK would never have been as severe as 7 years of imprisonment.
    • josteink 8y ago
      Fleeing the arrest for fake rape-allegations staged by the CIA. I can’t see why anyone would do that if they valued their own personal security. /s
    • toby- 8y ago
      Skipping bail; failing to surrender to the court after he was previously released on bail. The sexual assault case against him in Sweden has since been dropped, but the warrant for skipping bail is still active.
      • askmike 8y ago
        Though given his situation and the quite likely extradition to the US, who wouldn't have done the same? Technically something criminal but..
        • stingraycharles 8y ago
          Why would he be extradited to the US instead of Sweden?
          • garmaine 8y ago
            Because the he has already been indicted in the US on secret charges, but presumably something Patriot Act related due to Wikileaks involvement with the Iraq war. Remember, the US government views Wikileaks the same as ISIS.
            • nagVenkat 8y ago
              If I were a betting man, I would probably say this is not true. He most certainly got indicted for interfering in 2016 election and hacking Clinton/DNC emails. I don’t have a horse in this race. Just follow this as I think it is very entertaining. Edit: It could be both!
              • nagVenkat 8y ago
                Looks like I lost. He is being charged for the dissemination of classified material.
              • deleted 8y ago
                [deleted]
          • tirpen 8y ago
            If he was extradited to Sweden, he would shortly be extradited from Sweden to the US. The Swedish government always folds like a wet paper towel as soon as the US asks for anything.
    • blisterpeanuts 8y ago
      At this point, his "crime" is simply evading arrest. It will be interesting to see what they charge him with to justify a seven year siege.
      • Angostura 8y ago
        > It will be interesting to see what they charge him with to justify a seven year siege. I think only Assange and Ecuador really had it in their power to alter the length of the "siege", I don't think the Met Police were going to simply say "whatevs" once he had skipped bail.
        • sgift 8y ago
          You think wrong. The police decides all the time to call off operations. There is a difference between dropping the charges (that one they probably wouldn't do) and stopping the 24/7 patrolling of the embassy.
          • ascorbic 8y ago
            They stopped the 24/7 patrols years ago.
      • julsimon 8y ago
        Absolutely. So much for "heinous crimes", hey?
      • hardlianotion 8y ago
        They will charge him with jumping bail. Someone contributor here says that carries max 2 years.
      • matt4077 8y ago
        If you spent a decade hiding in the basement because you're afraid of the neighbour's cat... ...it's not the cat's fault, and the cat doesn't have to prove that it is a vicious killer one needs to hide from.
    • DavidVoid 8y ago
      What you've heard is false. The investigation was dropped simply because there was no way to proceed with the investigation with him still hiding away in the embassy. The investigation will be reopened if he returns to Sweden before August 2020 when the statute of limitations expires for the minor rape allegation. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39973864 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39973864
      • draugadrotten 8y ago
        You are misrepresenting the article or may not understand the finer details here. One example: Ny says they "Sweden did not expect Ecuador's co-operation in formally notifying Mr Assange of the allegations against him", yet that makes it clear that Sweden has not attempted to formally notifying Mr Assange.
      • doctorfoo 8y ago
        No, they chose not to interview him at the embassy or via weblink, because had they done so, the case would have been closed. They rather keep it open.
        • matt4077 8y ago
          Accused criminals don't get to set the rules. There are many jurisdictions where criminal trials in absentia are not possible, legally. That's mostly to the benefit of the accused.
          • kkarakk 8y ago
            >That's mostly to the benefit of the accused. How? if they can get a conviction they should get the conviction. For eg, Vijay Mallya from india was convicted of a crime and india is now seeking his extradition. how does it make sense that you keep the case open?
            • matt4077 8y ago
              Mostly it's due to the accused's right to confront the accusations and be heard. There is also a lot of ugly history of using trial in absentia to, for example, get rid of political enemies: quickly convene a trial and convict them while they are abroad, avoiding a long trial allowing them to make their case and forcing them into exile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_in_absentia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_in_absentia Note that Mallya has not been convicted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijay_Mallya#Accusations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijay_Mallya#Accusations He is charged with different crimes and therefore there is a warrant out, and a request for extradition: "When he failed to appear, the Supreme Court said the contempt case would only proceed further after he is produced before the court". There are also multiple court verdicts in favour of banks and business partners, but those are all civil law, not criminal.
    • matt4077 8y ago
      > [..] but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. There are many reasons for dropping charges besides "she obviously lied". One of the reason might be that nobody wants to get all this attention and ensuing insults and death threats. In this specific case, there wasn't even much debate over facts, only law. She refused to have sex without a condom, then woke up to him having sex with her, without a condom.
      • dahfizz 8y ago
        There has to be more than one accusation to prove guilt. Did police get any physical evidence?
      • sievebrain 8y ago
        That isn't "facts"! There was tons of evidence at the time that the women were lying, the charges were dropped because there was zero chance of any conviction given their behaviour. How quickly people forget! Reasons the women were lying: the first had tweeted and texted about how happy she was to have slept with Assange. She later tried to destroy this evidence after deciding she'd been "raped", a decision that was triggered by meeting another woman he'd also slept with and getting mad she wasn't the one. The reason Assange went to the embassy after the charges were resurrected is that it was obvious the case was a dud as it has already been dropped due to the hopeless case of the witnesses. So why did Sweden suddenly decide to try again? Assange was right to judge it as being politically motivated.
    • X-Istence 8y ago
      The charges were suspended under Swedish law, however they can be brought back, they haven't been outright dropped.
    • garmaine 8y ago
      The state prosecutor accused him of being a rapist. The alleged victim didn't accuse him of anything and only went to the police in an attempt to contact him to tell him to be tested for STDs since the condom broke. The state prosecutor found a way to twist that into a rape charge under Sweden's laws, even though the purported victim disagreed. Those charges were later dropped. The only "crime" he committed was refusing to cooperate and fleeing the country, since he saw this only as a pretext to get him in custody for US extradition, which objectively was the case (the US wasn't hiding its attempts to get him extradited).
      • blkhawk 8y ago
        He did not "flee" the country - he asked and was allowed to leave - the rape case was later reopened while he was in the UK and a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden. That was extremely strange and suspicious so he resisted the extradition first legally then by fleeing into the embassy. And in there he deteriorated greatly - spiraled into conspiracy and paranoia.
      • hopler 8y ago
        Are you claiming that the police report is false or the Guardian is mistaken? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange...
        • garmaine 8y ago
          The Guardian was mistaken, according to the alleged victim's own statements at the time.
      • Tomte 8y ago
        > The alleged victim didn't accuse him of anything and only went to the police in an attempt to contact him to tell him to be tested for STDs since the condom broke. Strange how her lawyer today told the press that the victim hopes that Sweden re-opens the rape case. Definitely no ill will towards Assange, only concern for his health.
    • smcl 8y ago
      I don't think OP is taking a position either way on whether Assange was guilty or not. It's that regardless of the outcome of the rape allegations against him in Sweden, we learned more about the shady goings on in our government due to the drops that were leaked to Wikileaks.
    • Kiro 8y ago
      It was dropped due to technicalities.
  • mikorym 8y ago
    I found the Swedish rape case fishy. Are there any facts (going both ways) to speak of at all?
    • josteink 8y ago
      The accuser has ties to the CIA. You don’t need to know more than that. It was all really badly staged.
      • tendencydriven 8y ago
        I'd massively disagree with the statement "You don't need to know more than that.", and I'd love to see some sources to back this up. Randomly spewing "facts" with no evidence to back up your claim can be quite damaging.
        • stupidthrottle 8y ago
          This was widely reported back when the case was hot. It’s not exactly news. https://www.rawstory.com/2010/12/assange-rape-accuser-cia-ties/ https://www.rawstory.com/2010/12/assange-rape-accuser-cia-ti...
          • pmarreck 8y ago
            it’s not exactly news because it’s “rawstory” propaganda. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Raw_Story https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Raw_Story
          • bjourne 8y ago
            "One accuser, Anna Ardin, may have “ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups,” according to Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett, writing for CounterPunch. While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group." Israel Shamir is not only the spokesperson for Wikileaks Russia, he is also bat-shit insane. Accusing people of being CIA operatives is right up his alley.
  • ehrtt 8y ago
    > He may have committed some heinous crimes outside of the actual hacking/leaking Pretty serious throwaway comment without stating what "heinous crimes" were apparently committed..
    • vinceguidry 8y ago
      If they were heinous then a) they wouldn't have needed a sealed indictment, and b) the US couldn't possibly claim jurisdiction, surely the country he committed them in would have laws covering it. So we can dismiss the possibility.
• black_puppydog 8y ago
  Yeah, really interesting to see how there was some sort of slow-motion character assassination over the years. Put him under pressure, wait for him to lash out, portray him as a raging lunatic and generally bad person. He went from an unsympathetic yet credible figure to one that's hard to side with for virtually anyone. It's weird that for the most part, all his "crazy talk" has pretty much held up so far. I hope he's wrong about the extradition that's supposed to follow now, but honestly I doubt it. This is gonna go down in history as one of the more random biographies, and a pretty damning one at that.
  • rofo1 8y ago
    > He went from an unsympathetic yet credible figure to one that's hard to side with for virtually anyone. The MO is shoot the messenger. As old as the hills. We aren't discussing what Wikileaks leaked anymore. We are discussing Julian Assange's cats. See how they shifted our attention? That's the power of a propaganda - eventually, it will work. They just have to keep at it, and they did. Nobody even disputed what was leaked. Officials confirmed the authenticity and so far, 0% is wrong of the leaks. Yet, we are still discussing how the condom slipped, the smell of the cat, and so on, and so on. No consequences for anyone, almost. We should focus on whether the leaks are legitimate or fabricated and then deal with the perpetrator(s) in a court of law. We should not focus on the person that had the platform to leak them on. It's so easy to see that this is orchestrated. This cannot be a coincidence. I can only imagine the kind of pressure Ecuador was under for the last few years. Finally, they conceded. Can't blame them - you can't go against military superiority of that kind.
    • Loughla 8y ago
      > I can only imagine the kind of pressure Ecuador was under for the last few years. Finally, they conceded. Can't blame them - you can't go against military superiority of that kind. Maybe I'm too cynical, but my guess is Ecuador only used him as a pawn to get something. Somebody else linked in this thread that they recently received like a 4 billion IMF loan. My guess is they immediately began angling to improve their own country in some fashion as soon as he stepped foot through their embassy doors. Maybe I'm too cynical, but that's my guess. I feel like through this whole thing, they walked through shit and always intended to come out smelling like roses.
• blablabla123 8y ago
  True, to me he's not exactly an attractor of sympathy. It's neither clear whether he is guilty regarding the - dropped (!) - sexual assault case or not, but mere speculation. On the other hand one must say he acted quite self-less by publishing information on how governments act in a criminal manner. Intelligence services in particular, if they should have any right to exist they must do so in the most ethical manner as there is zero way for the public to see what's going on - them, in an ideal world helping us protect against the most evil parts of society. But if they can't manage to be ethical, it's cynical that people like Assange get locked away.
  • sedeki 8y ago
    The sexual assault case is not dropped. They said they will resume it today.