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Julian Assange will be granted asylum, says official

• sp332 14y ago
  Why is his mother referred to as "Ms Assange"?
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  • andrewcooke 14y ago
    it's not so unusual in the uk / europe. maybe she prefers it to mrs. and the guardian isn't the kind of paper that will go out of its way to force a woman's marital status down her throat...
    • sp332 14y ago
      OK I guess I was wrong but I was pretty sure she had remarried after divorcing "Mr." Assange.
      • deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
• Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  It would seem unlikely that the UK government will grant him the safe pass that they refer to. Asylum is meant to be used for political charges and while there is a suggestion that there are political motives around what is happening to Assange the charges against him are criminal ones. That means that on paper this is an abuse of the asylum process (and one which as a result actually damages it) so it's possible or even probable that the UK government will decline to grant him passage to Ecuador which leaves him exactly where he is now - in the embassy in London with no way to get out. One thing I don't understand is the idea that the US want him in Sweden so they can extradite him to the US from there. Why not just extradite him from the UK? The UK has a very favourable extradition policy, the government are supportive of the US and likely to be more sympathetic than Sweden. It just makes no sense to me. Yes things can get tied up in the UK courts but I doubt that's different to Sweden.
• andrewcooke 14y ago
  NYT is reporting a denial - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/world/americas/president-of-ecuador-denies-granting-asylum-to-julian-assange.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/world/americas/president-o...