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Assange Wins Right To Submit Appeal
beaverdownunder writes "Julian Assange has won the right to submit an appeal of his extradition to Sweden on 'public interest' grounds. He now has two weeks to come up with a convincing argument for Britain's Supreme Court. From the article: 'The judges ruled that Mr Assange's case is of general public importance, but the Supreme Court could still refuse to hear his case. Mr Assange now has 14 days to formally lodge an appeal, meaning his stay in Britain, where he has been staying since his arrest in December last year, is certain to stretch into 2012.'"
Yea, God damn those crazy, left wing Swedish liberals, always pushing their ridiculous "anti rape" agenda on the rest of the world.
If he wins his appeal then he's safe in the UK. If he travels anywhere else that has an extradition treaty with Sweden then he's at risk again, including possibly in his native Australia.
That does include Australia. If he wins the appeal, the only way he goes home again is if he just goes to Sweden and stands trial.
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2004C00142
Sweden also has extradition treaties with the rest of the EU, the US, and Canada. New Zealand doesn't even require an extradition treaty for another country to submit an extradition request. So if Assange ever wanted to live outside the UK again, he wouldn't have many First-world options left.
No the summary is awful, when I read it I thought "Oh god, people are going to completely misunderstand that", and it seems by the second post they have.
The "public interest" bit refers to the fact that it's within the public interest to determine in British courts whether it's right for a prosecutor for the government to issue a European arrest warrant when such warrants are meant to be issued by the judiciary. It's also questioning whether Assange can even be referred to as the accused, when the Swedish police still to this date haven't yet even actually charged him with anything.
So "public interest" isn't about Assange, it's about examining the issues Assange's case raises - the public interest is ensuring justice is done, at question because it's not clear that the European Arrest Warrant has been correctly issued not whether the British people have an interest in seeing Julian himself protected.
Effectively, it would not be in the public interest for someone to be extradited if there is no legitimate legal grounds to do so, whether they're Julian Assange, Abu Hamza, or Gary McKinnon, justice must be upheld regardless of whether they're perceived middle ground, bad, or good.
Most countries only extradite criminals. The main point is that he is only wanted for questioning and there has been no suggestion of there being a charge ready. Britain should not have arrested him as there are no valid grounds for that. If there was an charge pending then yes but there is not. The whole thing is just a show to get him to a country that will role over and give him to the US. I am not sure why the UK didn't ???
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
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Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
No - character assassination is much more effective. The crucial thing is to ensure that the whole wikileaks story is a story about Assange, and not a story about US gunships gunning down reuters reporters, or casual threats of violence made against Al Jazeera, or the leader of a major US ally and troop contributer calling the situation in Afghanistan a clusterf*ck, or afghan boys being bought and sold for sex to warlords by US companies, and the US government sitting on their hands.