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You should look into this a lot more. The core fact is that there are very little potentially valid reasons that Assange could be extradited - the prosecution i

You should look into this a lot more. The core fact is that there are very little potentially valid reasons that Assange could be extradited - the prosecution is mostly grasping at straws, as he has done nothing wrong by UK laws. That is why ancillary witnesses like this Thoradsson become crucial: the prosecution needs to invent something that could be a good enough excuse to get him in the hands of the US "justice system" (for people like Assange or Snowden, it is obvious there would be no real justice in the US).

KaiserPro 5y ago
> he has done nothing wrong by UK laws Two points here. He has skipped bail, which is most definitely illegal. Why he skipped bail is a different issue, but it cannot be denied that he has skipped bail. Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. That's the whole point of extradition. If you commit a crime abroad, you are almost certainly not guilty of it at home, because you are out of your home country's jurisdiction. Also I've never understood the whole Sweden is a stepping stone to the US. in my little understanding, I don't see why the US would seek to only issue an extradition order when he was in Sweden. They won't grant extradition to a place where there is a material risk of the death penalty (well, unless you're an asylum seeker, but that's a different issue.)
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Skipping bail in the UK isn't a justification for extraditing to the U.S.. Assange has beeen charged with a misdeamonor and with violating the Espionage Act, which has never before been used against a journalist. It's a huge attack on the 1st amendment. I personally also think it's unjust to extradite someone to a country without them actually have commiting crimes in that country (has Assange even been to the US)? It's like a US citizen being extradited to Saudia Arabia for watching porn on US soil.
  - KaiserPro 5y ago
    > It's like a US citizen being extradited to Saudia Arabia for watching porn on US soil. Its not the same. Regardless of your feelings on Assange, and regardless of your feelings on what the US had been doing in those cables, had this been a russian/chinese/british/french spy, they would have been treated far more aggressively. Again, this isn't a justification, or indeed an endorsement of either Assange, or the US & UK. but, it's clear by UK standards, Assange has a case to answer. The moral case is entirely different, on that I am not equipped to answer.
    - partomniscient 5y ago
      It's also clear that UK standards aren't very high. The US want their laws to apply beyond the US to non-US citizens. They can fuck off.
    - naasking 5y ago
      > Regardless of your feelings on Assange, and regardless of your feelings on what the US had been doing in those cables, had this been a russian/chinese/british/french spy, they would have been treated far more aggressively. Because actual espionage is working to undermine one government at the behest of another. That's not what journalists do, so the espionage charges against Assange are bullshit.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  > Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. That's the whole point of extradition. If you commit a crime abroad, you are almost certainly not guilty of it at home, because you are out of your home country's jurisdiction. The issue isn't one of jurisdiction, it's whether his actions would have been illegal in the UK _if_ they occurred in the UK. If not, why would the UK extradite? He wasn't in the US at the time and wasn't under US jurisdiction.
  - KaiserPro 5y ago
    > The issue isn't one of jurisdiction, it's whether his actions would have been illegal in the UK _if_ they occurred in the UK. That is really not how extradition works. But even if it was, illegally sourcing, publishing, and continuing to host secret documents is still very much illegal in the UK. The other important thing to note is that the UK extradited a number of British citizens to the US for computer hacking charges, even though they were on UK soil at the time. The issue is not where the person physically is, but where they were doing the damage. The crime happened in the USA, not on UK soil.
    - simiones 5y ago
      > publishing, and continuing to host secret documents is still very much illegal in the UK It is not - as seen by the many papers doing the same.
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago
      > That is really not how extradition works. > The judge must be satisfied that the conduct amounts to an extradition offence (dual criminality) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review#extradition-from-the-uk-category-2-territories https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review... That is from the section discussing extradition to the US. Clearly you are wrong. That said, out of your example only “illegally sourcing” the information is potentially illegal. The information I read previously released by the US supporting this claim was extremely weak. I personally would never have supported the extradition on the evidence I saw were I on a grand jury tasked with it. That said, the UK of course needs to decide that it is extraditable on their end as well. You have argued this isn’t the case for a few posts now. Clearly you’re incorrect. That is the point I intended to make.
- chmod775 5y ago
  > Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. Most countries won't extradite you if the thing you did isn't also illegal there. The reasoning being that you wouldn't want to extradite someone for being for instance a homosexual and that is illegal in the target country, but you would do so if they committed murder.
- simiones 5y ago
  > He has skipped bail, which is most definitely illegal. He has served the sentence for that crime, so it is no longer relevant. > Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. You misunderstand the point: extradition requires dual criminality: the offense that the US is seeking extradition for must be an offense recognized by the UK as well. If Saudi Arabia were to ask for the extradition of Stephen Fry to stand trial of his crime of being gay, the UK would not be able to extradite because there is no dual criminality - the UK does not find being gay a criminal offense today. Similarly, the offenses Assange is accused of are mostly not recognizable as UK offenses (the espionage act) or they have very low quality evidence. The direct hacking that Thordarson was a witness for would have been much stronger than the main case.
- vidarh 5y ago
  You're being obtuse. He has served his sentence for skipping bail. That is also not a justification for extradition, as skipping bail in the UK is not a crime in the US. As such it has no relevance. Secondly, the point is that the extradition treaty requires "dual criminality". That is, the charge needs to be over something which would have been a crime in the UK to if UK jurisdiction applied. The comment above is clearly making the argument that what Assange is accused of did not meet the test of dual criminality.
  - KaiserPro 5y ago
    > That is also not a justification for extradition correct. Hes in jail because hes a flight risk, whilst he is await the outcome of extradition. This extradition is _different_ to the one he was originally hiding from. > Assange is accused of did not meet the test of dual criminality. knowingly publishing government secrets is certainly going to be a specific crime under the heaps of crap thats in the official secrets act.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      > correct. Hes in jail because hes a flight risk, whilst he is await the outcome of extradition. This extradition is _different_ to the one he was originally hiding from. Yes, and this has no relevance to the claim you first replied to, and no relevance to the correction I made. > knowingly publishing government secrets is certainly going to be a specific crime under the heaps of crap thats in the official secrets act. That would be relevant if the US made allegations to that effect, but they can't because merely publishing government secrets is not a crime in the US. See e.g. the Pentagon Papers publication. So figuring out whether it meets the standard in the UK is irrelevant. This is not how dual criminality works - you can't say "this is illegal in the US, and this other bit over here is illegal in the UK". The same alleged action must be illegal both places.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  UK extradition law doesn't permit extradition for politicial crimes. Exposing the criminal behaviour of the US government by publishing secret files is a political offence par exellence.
ianhawes 5y ago
This is correct. The DOJ will unveil a “superseding indictment” once he is on our soil that will eliminate the testimony and charge him with more vague crimes like “wire fraud” and “conspiracy” that carry multi-year sentences. The require allegations of much more serious and harder to prove crimes in order to extradite him. He will be held for 3-5 years before his trial begins. The trial will last a month and he will be found guilty of at least 1 charge, enough to receive a sentence of 8 years.
- pmyteh 5y ago
  The principle of specialty prevents a requesting state changing the charges after extradition, without re-requesting the extraditing state. I mean, the UK has no way of stopping it, but it would undermine the legal comity that the US needs to get future cases extradited. Murder, for example, is only extraditable from the UK to the US if binding commitments are made not to seek the death penalty. If the UK courts stopped trusting US commitments then that would be at serious risk. Incidentally, this would also have been a bar to onward extradition from Sweden to the US if that had gone ahead. I'm not saying they couldn't get consent for the UK for a superseding indictment, but it's certainly not as straightforward as dropping one they've prepared earlier and laughing manically.
  - trasz 5y ago
    One key element of UK<->US relations is that the US can do literally anything and the UK will quietly accept it. Good example is the Anne Sacoolas case, where an NSA operative killed someone in a traffic accident, driving on the wrong side of the road, then fled the country, claiming diplomatic immunity. She avoided any charges, and the US won't extradite her - despite her lying about the immunity and fleeing from the country - because US.
    - pmyteh 5y ago
      That's absolutely true on a political level. I'm not so sure that it would apply to breaches of judicial assurances. British judges are cranky, have a strong sense of the dignity of their office and role, and would personally face no consequences for poking the US authorities in the eye with a stick.

KaiserPro 5y ago

> he has done nothing wrong by UK laws Two points here. He has skipped bail, which is most definitely illegal. Why he skipped bail is a different issue, but it cannot be denied that he has skipped bail. Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. That's the whole point of extradition. If you commit a crime abroad, you are almost certainly not guilty of it at home, because you are out of your home country's jurisdiction. Also I've never understood the whole Sweden is a stepping stone to the US. in my little understanding, I don't see why the US would seek to only issue an extradition order when he was in Sweden. They won't grant extradition to a place where there is a material risk of the death penalty (well, unless you're an asylum seeker, but that's a different issue.)

Miner49er 5y ago
Skipping bail in the UK isn't a justification for extraditing to the U.S.. Assange has beeen charged with a misdeamonor and with violating the Espionage Act, which has never before been used against a journalist. It's a huge attack on the 1st amendment. I personally also think it's unjust to extradite someone to a country without them actually have commiting crimes in that country (has Assange even been to the US)? It's like a US citizen being extradited to Saudia Arabia for watching porn on US soil.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > It's like a US citizen being extradited to Saudia Arabia for watching porn on US soil. Its not the same. Regardless of your feelings on Assange, and regardless of your feelings on what the US had been doing in those cables, had this been a russian/chinese/british/french spy, they would have been treated far more aggressively. Again, this isn't a justification, or indeed an endorsement of either Assange, or the US & UK. but, it's clear by UK standards, Assange has a case to answer. The moral case is entirely different, on that I am not equipped to answer.
  - partomniscient 5y ago
    It's also clear that UK standards aren't very high. The US want their laws to apply beyond the US to non-US citizens. They can fuck off.
  - naasking 5y ago
    > Regardless of your feelings on Assange, and regardless of your feelings on what the US had been doing in those cables, had this been a russian/chinese/british/french spy, they would have been treated far more aggressively. Because actual espionage is working to undermine one government at the behest of another. That's not what journalists do, so the espionage charges against Assange are bullshit.
CogitoCogito 5y ago
> Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. That's the whole point of extradition. If you commit a crime abroad, you are almost certainly not guilty of it at home, because you are out of your home country's jurisdiction. The issue isn't one of jurisdiction, it's whether his actions would have been illegal in the UK _if_ they occurred in the UK. If not, why would the UK extradite? He wasn't in the US at the time and wasn't under US jurisdiction.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > The issue isn't one of jurisdiction, it's whether his actions would have been illegal in the UK _if_ they occurred in the UK. That is really not how extradition works. But even if it was, illegally sourcing, publishing, and continuing to host secret documents is still very much illegal in the UK. The other important thing to note is that the UK extradited a number of British citizens to the US for computer hacking charges, even though they were on UK soil at the time. The issue is not where the person physically is, but where they were doing the damage. The crime happened in the USA, not on UK soil.
  - simiones 5y ago
    > publishing, and continuing to host secret documents is still very much illegal in the UK It is not - as seen by the many papers doing the same.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    > That is really not how extradition works. > The judge must be satisfied that the conduct amounts to an extradition offence (dual criminality) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review#extradition-from-the-uk-category-2-territories https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review... That is from the section discussing extradition to the US. Clearly you are wrong. That said, out of your example only “illegally sourcing” the information is potentially illegal. The information I read previously released by the US supporting this claim was extremely weak. I personally would never have supported the extradition on the evidence I saw were I on a grand jury tasked with it. That said, the UK of course needs to decide that it is extraditable on their end as well. You have argued this isn’t the case for a few posts now. Clearly you’re incorrect. That is the point I intended to make.
chmod775 5y ago
> Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. Most countries won't extradite you if the thing you did isn't also illegal there. The reasoning being that you wouldn't want to extradite someone for being for instance a homosexual and that is illegal in the target country, but you would do so if they committed murder.
simiones 5y ago
> He has skipped bail, which is most definitely illegal. He has served the sentence for that crime, so it is no longer relevant. > Secondly and more importantly, you don't need to be guilty of something under UK law to be extradited. You misunderstand the point: extradition requires dual criminality: the offense that the US is seeking extradition for must be an offense recognized by the UK as well. If Saudi Arabia were to ask for the extradition of Stephen Fry to stand trial of his crime of being gay, the UK would not be able to extradite because there is no dual criminality - the UK does not find being gay a criminal offense today. Similarly, the offenses Assange is accused of are mostly not recognizable as UK offenses (the espionage act) or they have very low quality evidence. The direct hacking that Thordarson was a witness for would have been much stronger than the main case.
vidarh 5y ago
You're being obtuse. He has served his sentence for skipping bail. That is also not a justification for extradition, as skipping bail in the UK is not a crime in the US. As such it has no relevance. Secondly, the point is that the extradition treaty requires "dual criminality". That is, the charge needs to be over something which would have been a crime in the UK to if UK jurisdiction applied. The comment above is clearly making the argument that what Assange is accused of did not meet the test of dual criminality.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > That is also not a justification for extradition correct. Hes in jail because hes a flight risk, whilst he is await the outcome of extradition. This extradition is _different_ to the one he was originally hiding from. > Assange is accused of did not meet the test of dual criminality. knowingly publishing government secrets is certainly going to be a specific crime under the heaps of crap thats in the official secrets act.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    > correct. Hes in jail because hes a flight risk, whilst he is await the outcome of extradition. This extradition is _different_ to the one he was originally hiding from. Yes, and this has no relevance to the claim you first replied to, and no relevance to the correction I made. > knowingly publishing government secrets is certainly going to be a specific crime under the heaps of crap thats in the official secrets act. That would be relevant if the US made allegations to that effect, but they can't because merely publishing government secrets is not a crime in the US. See e.g. the Pentagon Papers publication. So figuring out whether it meets the standard in the UK is irrelevant. This is not how dual criminality works - you can't say "this is illegal in the US, and this other bit over here is illegal in the UK". The same alleged action must be illegal both places.
denton-scratch 5y ago
UK extradition law doesn't permit extradition for politicial crimes. Exposing the criminal behaviour of the US government by publishing secret files is a political offence par exellence.

ianhawes 5y ago

This is correct. The DOJ will unveil a “superseding indictment” once he is on our soil that will eliminate the testimony and charge him with more vague crimes like “wire fraud” and “conspiracy” that carry multi-year sentences. The require allegations of much more serious and harder to prove crimes in order to extradite him. He will be held for 3-5 years before his trial begins. The trial will last a month and he will be found guilty of at least 1 charge, enough to receive a sentence of 8 years.

pmyteh 5y ago
The principle of specialty prevents a requesting state changing the charges after extradition, without re-requesting the extraditing state. I mean, the UK has no way of stopping it, but it would undermine the legal comity that the US needs to get future cases extradited. Murder, for example, is only extraditable from the UK to the US if binding commitments are made not to seek the death penalty. If the UK courts stopped trusting US commitments then that would be at serious risk. Incidentally, this would also have been a bar to onward extradition from Sweden to the US if that had gone ahead. I'm not saying they couldn't get consent for the UK for a superseding indictment, but it's certainly not as straightforward as dropping one they've prepared earlier and laughing manically.
- trasz 5y ago
  One key element of UK<->US relations is that the US can do literally anything and the UK will quietly accept it. Good example is the Anne Sacoolas case, where an NSA operative killed someone in a traffic accident, driving on the wrong side of the road, then fled the country, claiming diplomatic immunity. She avoided any charges, and the US won't extradite her - despite her lying about the immunity and fleeing from the country - because US.
  - pmyteh 5y ago
    That's absolutely true on a political level. I'm not so sure that it would apply to breaches of judicial assurances. British judges are cranky, have a strong sense of the dignity of their office and role, and would personally face no consequences for poking the US authorities in the eye with a stick.