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.

Comments

I'm confused

[Squiddie]

What are they extraditing him for? Is he charged with any crime? This smells like bullshit to me.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't get these comments:

Why is Sweden easier to influence than the UK?
Why is Sweden more likely to extradite to the US?
What does the US want to extradite him for (specifically)?

Why does the US want him in Sweden given that:
1. there is clear evidence of the UK being complicit to some extent in extraordinary rendition cases to the US, yet - to my knowledge - no evidence of Sweden being involved.
2. the US has a much deeper intelligence and defence relationship with the UK than Sweden
3. the Swedish legal system is as, if not more, transparent and subject to due process and appeal as the UK one.

Have you ever been to Sweden or the UK? I have.

Re:I'm confused

[pipatron]

He's actually not charged with any crimes. As far as I know, he's to be questioned by the police as a suspect.

Note that I'm Swedish, meaning that a) I can read and understand what the Swedish prosecutor says, and b) I can not necessarily translate that to correct British or U.S. lawyerspeek.

Re:I'm confused

[Vanderhoth]

*tinfoil hat on*
I believe the Swedish cases against him is just a smear campaign meant to degrade his reputation, which in turn would degrade the reputation of Wikileaks. Most of the population isn't as well informed or cynical as we are here, and they do make associations such as head of organization is bad therefore organization must be bad too.

Once Assange has been sufficiently dragged through the mud he will be extradited to the US. At that point it won't matter what the US does to him most people won't care or will see it as a rapist getting what they deserve. It also won't matter what's posted on Wikileaks in the future because most people will pass it off as bad person spreading lies and discontent.

Of course none of us can actually see the future and this is entirely speculation and conspiracy theory. Only time will tell.
*tinfoil hat off*

Re:I'm confused

[Phrogman]

Well considering the women dropped the charges, this is a lot of trouble for the Swedish government to go through to just ask some questions. Couldn't they have sent a prosecutor over to England to just ask questions?
I don't think you can dismiss it all as "conspiracy thinking" when it IS highly likely that he will be whisked off to the US the moment he lands on US soil.

Re:Gee there's a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no charges. He's only wanted for questioning.

Re:Gee there's a surprise

[dkleinsc]

And let's also not forget that while Assange was in Sweden, he tried to comply with police requests as much as possible, to the point of saying to the Swedish police, "OK, I'm leaving the country now, is there anything else I have to do to help sort this out?" He left Sweden thinking that this was all over and done with.

In addition, Assange offered to answer questions by Swedish police over video chat or telephone while he was in the UK. He was refused, lending strong evidence to the idea that the purpose of the extradition request was not actually to answer the Swedish charges against him but instead to have him in physical custody so he could be shipped to the United States.

Re:Keeps reminding me of Al Capone

[crazyjj]

Apparently, the CIA's 21st century equivalent of assassination is the rape charge. Just ask Dominique Strauss Kahn. A few months after he began criticizing the value of the U.S. dollar as international currency, he became a rapist.