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Supreme Court Rules Julian Assange May Be Extradited
sirlark writes with an update on the protracted legal proceedings regarding Julian Assange's extradition to Sweden: "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has lost his Supreme Court fight against extradition to Sweden to face accusations of sex offenses. The judgement was reached by a majority of five to two, the court's president, Lord Phillips, told the hearing. Mr Assange's legal team was given 14 days to consider the ruling before a final decision is made, leaving the possibility the case could be reheard."
This may, however, not be the end. From the article: "Lord Phillips said five of the justices agreed the warrant had been lawful because the Swedish prosecutor behind the warrant could be considered a proper 'judicial authority' even it they were not specifically mentioned in legislation or international agreements. This point of law had not been simple to resolve, said Lord Phillips, and two of the justices, Lady Hale and Lord Mance, had disagreed with the decision. But Ms Rose immediately indicated she could challenge the judgement saying that it relied on a 1969 convention relating to how treaties should be implemented. She said this convention had not been raised during the hearing. " This led to the court staying the order until June 13th to give Assange's lawyers time to argue this avenue.
What are they extraditing him for? Is he charged with any crime? This smells like bullshit to me.
It's total bullshit. The entire point here is that the United States wants to get him out of the UK so that he'll be easier to legally extradite back to the US so he can be tortured.... err, prosecuted, to the fullest extent of the law.
"to the fullest extent of law."
Really?? since when does the extent of law matter in post-9/11 US ?
Probably just to draw attention to how ridiculous, trumped-up and politically-motivated these nasty allegations against him are. Assange knows that the people behind this are hugely powerful and are not fighting fair, his only weapon is publicity. Fighting every little thing tooth and nail, with press releases all along the way, is about all he can do.