4 ms·

Agree, this is ridiculous: > But Dinah Rose QC, for Mr Assange, said she could challenge the Supreme Court's decision because it relied on a 1969 convention re

Agree, this is ridiculous: > But Dinah Rose QC, for Mr Assange, said she could challenge the Supreme Court's decision because it relied on a 1969 convention relating to how treaties - such as those concerning extradition - should be implemented, and this had not been discussed during the hearing. Watch and see. Now his lawyer will put into question the very meaning of implementing an international treaty. All in order to prevent a possible rapist, who just happens to be just a little less famous than Polanski, from being charged. Only the Chewbacca defense could make this sillier.

okamiueru 14y ago
You do know the circumstances around the "accusation" right? I mean, it seems to me some people here are willfully ignorant. I despise willful ignorance. Assange hasn't been charged with any crime. If you looked at the actual circumstances, you would find the comparison to Polanski who indeed raped a 13 year old girl, is highly unfair, if not for a lack of word, stupid. Oh, and the sex was consensual according to the women... though because of Swedish legal definitions, it can still technically be called rape. The tweets of the two women in question expressed ulterior motives for going to the police. They also made tweets that contradict the "rape". Not only that, but the Swedish prosecutor named Assange publicly before having stood trial (and if you're not aware of it, the accused of rape cases is to be anonymous until he has been found guilty... if not, defamation becomes all too easy). It all smells so fishy, and I have no idea why people on HN don't think highly of him. That they would fall for such an obvious smear campaign, well.. I'm disappointed. WikiLeaks is probably one of the very few journalistic entities that fulfill the important role journalism was intended to have in a democracy. The majority of other news are regurgitated and preprocessed opinions on unimportant events. The bread an circus for the masses, if you will. --- Now that said, the thing I don't understand is why he doesn't willingly go to Sweden to get rid of the bullshit trials (note that it was already called such by the Swedish prosecutor who threw away the case). Perhaps it is based on principle? That the whole extradition is based on no real reason? That the reason provided for the extradition (questioning regarding the case), does not engender confidence, since alternative ways of doing an interview (webcam, etc) were suggested and rejected by the Swedish authorities.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- hythloday 14y ago
  Assange has not been charged with a crime because Swedish law requires him to be present in Sweden before they do so. This is one of 22 comment on this very article--if you're going to charge people with willful ignorance you probably need a more credible position to do so. :) As I understand it both women claim he had sex non-consensually with them - with one he had sex with her while she was asleep, in the other case she insisted he used a condom and he refused, while holding her down with his weight. Both of those sound like rape to me (and that's how the Swedish name for the offense, olaga tvång, is usually translated as I understand it). Assange, by his own words and actions, comes across as quite an unpleasant man. It's not hard to see him fighting his extradition to Sweden as being motivated by him feeling that his conduct in bed with these women was reasonable. It wasn't, and I'm sad (but I guess not surprised) at the misogyny some people defending him display.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    > Assange has not been charged with a crime because Swedish law requires him to be present in Sweden before they do so. He is wanted for arrest to be questioned on suspicion. He has not been interviewed. It would be absolutely shockingly unprecedented even for Sweden if they intend to charge him based on testimony that one prosecutor didn't even believe indicated a crime had taken place, without a formal complaint (see below), without physical evidence and without having conducted an interview to get his side of the story. You seem to try to make it out as if this is just a formality and he's "practically charged", just not technically because they need to wait until he'se there first. If this is just a technicality, then this case stinks to high heaven based on the information that's been disclosed about this case so far. The problem is, if it isn't just a technicality, and they seriously want to do an interview before making a reasoned decision about whether to charge him, they've had several opportunities to do so a long time ago, and refused, in order to spend a year and a half trying to get him into a Swedish jail. In either case something is up. Possibly just the career goals of the prosecutor. But this is not how this plays out for less high profile cases in Scandinavia. Not even in Sweden. > As I understand it both women claim he had sex non-consensually with them As I understand it, both women described something that the police decided to interpret as non-consensual sex without a formal complaint from either of them - an interpretation one of the prosecutors who reviewed the case thought was nonsense. > It wasn't, His behavior has not been proven to be anywhere near the media portrayal of the complaint, nor has the testimony of the women in question been under any kind of serious scrutiny. Maybe it was just like that. Maybe it was worse. Or nothing criminal might have happened. After all the case only still exists because it was in a pretty much unprecedented manner picked up by a second prosecutor known for her hardline views and desire to significantly tighten up Swedish rape laws well beyond anywhere else in Europe after one prosecutor dismissed it on the belief that there had not been any crime. At the same time, one of the women tried to remove tweets that described how she'd had a great time with Assange after the alleged rape, and a blog post describing exactly how to use a similar method of going to the police to describe a situation as a legal method of taking revenge on someone. Assange might very well be guilty, but there are enough bizarre things about this case that if he is innocent, he has every reason to fight this extradition, particularly given his background, out of a concern for the motivations of the prosecution. As such, using his decision to fight extradition as an indicator of what he thinks or doesn't think about what behavior is reasonable or whether or not he is guilty of a crime is flawed.
tomjen3 14y ago
Yes because anybody who has been accussed of rape is clearly guilty. And a child molester.
vidarh 14y ago
> All in order to prevent a possible rapist, ... who might just be innocent, in which case he has every reason to be paranoid about why they are pursuing him in this manner and why they are so concerned about getting him into a Swedish jail immediately instead of taking up the offer of questioning him in London. He has plenty of reason to fight extradition whether or not he's innocent. And FWIW, in my opinion the comparison to Polanski, given the different nature of the cases, borders on defamation.

okamiueru 14y ago

You do know the circumstances around the "accusation" right? I mean, it seems to me some people here are willfully ignorant. I despise willful ignorance. Assange hasn't been charged with any crime. If you looked at the actual circumstances, you would find the comparison to Polanski who indeed raped a 13 year old girl, is highly unfair, if not for a lack of word, stupid. Oh, and the sex was consensual according to the women... though because of Swedish legal definitions, it can still technically be called rape. The tweets of the two women in question expressed ulterior motives for going to the police. They also made tweets that contradict the "rape". Not only that, but the Swedish prosecutor named Assange publicly before having stood trial (and if you're not aware of it, the accused of rape cases is to be anonymous until he has been found guilty... if not, defamation becomes all too easy). It all smells so fishy, and I have no idea why people on HN don't think highly of him. That they would fall for such an obvious smear campaign, well.. I'm disappointed. WikiLeaks is probably one of the very few journalistic entities that fulfill the important role journalism was intended to have in a democracy. The majority of other news are regurgitated and preprocessed opinions on unimportant events. The bread an circus for the masses, if you will. --- Now that said, the thing I don't understand is why he doesn't willingly go to Sweden to get rid of the bullshit trials (note that it was already called such by the Swedish prosecutor who threw away the case). Perhaps it is based on principle? That the whole extradition is based on no real reason? That the reason provided for the extradition (questioning regarding the case), does not engender confidence, since alternative ways of doing an interview (webcam, etc) were suggested and rejected by the Swedish authorities.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
hythloday 14y ago
Assange has not been charged with a crime because Swedish law requires him to be present in Sweden before they do so. This is one of 22 comment on this very article--if you're going to charge people with willful ignorance you probably need a more credible position to do so. :) As I understand it both women claim he had sex non-consensually with them - with one he had sex with her while she was asleep, in the other case she insisted he used a condom and he refused, while holding her down with his weight. Both of those sound like rape to me (and that's how the Swedish name for the offense, olaga tvång, is usually translated as I understand it). Assange, by his own words and actions, comes across as quite an unpleasant man. It's not hard to see him fighting his extradition to Sweden as being motivated by him feeling that his conduct in bed with these women was reasonable. It wasn't, and I'm sad (but I guess not surprised) at the misogyny some people defending him display.
- vidarh 14y ago
  > Assange has not been charged with a crime because Swedish law requires him to be present in Sweden before they do so. He is wanted for arrest to be questioned on suspicion. He has not been interviewed. It would be absolutely shockingly unprecedented even for Sweden if they intend to charge him based on testimony that one prosecutor didn't even believe indicated a crime had taken place, without a formal complaint (see below), without physical evidence and without having conducted an interview to get his side of the story. You seem to try to make it out as if this is just a formality and he's "practically charged", just not technically because they need to wait until he'se there first. If this is just a technicality, then this case stinks to high heaven based on the information that's been disclosed about this case so far. The problem is, if it isn't just a technicality, and they seriously want to do an interview before making a reasoned decision about whether to charge him, they've had several opportunities to do so a long time ago, and refused, in order to spend a year and a half trying to get him into a Swedish jail. In either case something is up. Possibly just the career goals of the prosecutor. But this is not how this plays out for less high profile cases in Scandinavia. Not even in Sweden. > As I understand it both women claim he had sex non-consensually with them As I understand it, both women described something that the police decided to interpret as non-consensual sex without a formal complaint from either of them - an interpretation one of the prosecutors who reviewed the case thought was nonsense. > It wasn't, His behavior has not been proven to be anywhere near the media portrayal of the complaint, nor has the testimony of the women in question been under any kind of serious scrutiny. Maybe it was just like that. Maybe it was worse. Or nothing criminal might have happened. After all the case only still exists because it was in a pretty much unprecedented manner picked up by a second prosecutor known for her hardline views and desire to significantly tighten up Swedish rape laws well beyond anywhere else in Europe after one prosecutor dismissed it on the belief that there had not been any crime. At the same time, one of the women tried to remove tweets that described how she'd had a great time with Assange after the alleged rape, and a blog post describing exactly how to use a similar method of going to the police to describe a situation as a legal method of taking revenge on someone. Assange might very well be guilty, but there are enough bizarre things about this case that if he is innocent, he has every reason to fight this extradition, particularly given his background, out of a concern for the motivations of the prosecution. As such, using his decision to fight extradition as an indicator of what he thinks or doesn't think about what behavior is reasonable or whether or not he is guilty of a crime is flawed.

tomjen3 14y ago

Yes because anybody who has been accussed of rape is clearly guilty. And a child molester.

vidarh 14y ago

> All in order to prevent a possible rapist, ... who might just be innocent, in which case he has every reason to be paranoid about why they are pursuing him in this manner and why they are so concerned about getting him into a Swedish jail immediately instead of taking up the offer of questioning him in London. He has plenty of reason to fight extradition whether or not he's innocent. And FWIW, in my opinion the comparison to Polanski, given the different nature of the cases, borders on defamation.