Did Sweden Pay Cambodia For the Pirate Bay Co-founder?

An anonymous reader writes "At the start of this month, news broke that The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm had been arrested in Cambodia. A bunch of updates followed, including that Svartholm would be deported to Sweden, and that the two countries of course collaborated on his capture. The latest tidbit, as of today, is the craziest one yet: Sweden essentially paid Cambodia tens of millions of dollars. The Government of Sweden has agreed to give 400 million Swedish Kronor ($59.4 million) to Cambodia for various reasons, including democratic development, human rights, education, environment protection, climate change, sustainable development, and poverty reduction. You name it (just don't say international arrests)."

Comments

Conspiracy or not

[Isbiten]

I highly doubt that the Swedish government would have such a great interest in Svartholm that they would pay to get him extradited. Also how much aid was given to Cambodia before Svartholm was arrested? Unless that figure was close to zero I fail to see how Sweden payed for his extradition.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[Mr. Wok]

It's beyond stupid to suggest that Sweden paid Cambodia for TPB admin. Why would they do that? It's not personal. And this is Cambodia we're talking about. There would be no need to pay $40 million to the whole government, just a little to one or two people with connections to immigration office.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[gnasher719]

OMFG you think this isn't personal?!! I suppose all the Assange-hating isn't personal either.

All this extradition will achieve is that someone will go to a Swedish jail for a rather short time, and I'm sure there are many places in the world that are worse than a jail in Sweden.

In the case of Assange, he is in the public eye which is why we hear all these things, he is accused by two women of rape in Sweden, was supposed to meet the police for questioning (which in Sweden happens before you are charged, while in other countries you are first charged with a crime and then questioned), fled the country to the UK, was on bail while fighting an extradition order, violated his bail conditions by moving to the Ecuadorian embassy, which I believe is in itself a crime, plus the bail money that his supporters put up is now gone, and now Ecuadorian tax payers pay to feed him and give him a place to sleep. I can't see any particular hating here, everything happening to him is a normal consequence of his actions.

Re:Conspiracy or not

[DarkOx]

since most US charity is done for tax purposes and is highly ineffective as anything but constructions to avoid tax

That is just crazy talk. In the US you get to write charitable gifts off against income, not your final tax bill.

So most filers are a per dollar basis will be in the situation that $Gift $TaxSavings. There may be some corner cases where you are right on the cusp of a tax bracket and a large value for $Gift might push you down into the next lowest bracket. That might bring $Gift and $TaxSavings much closer together, it might even invert the relationship, but its still very unlikely to be significant source of savings.

If anything many people do give because they'd rather support some organization they see as doing good, rather than our Government, which will probably use the money to violate the 4th Amendment rights of your friends and neighbors, kill some brown skin toned people on the other side of the planet, conduct some social experiment many find unethical, etc. Actually I mostly feel guilty paying taxes. I love my country but I think we may have crossed the line where actions directly attributable to Washington amount to more harm than good. I am all for "Stave the Beast."

 

Yeah, and?

[girlintraining]

Wait, are you telling me that corporations paid the government to do what they couldn't do themselves? That's almost like saying that the government sometimes pays corporations to do what they can't do themselves... and we all know that never happens. Hangon, my cell phone is beeping... huh... I wonder why the GPS icon is blinking....

So?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Governments do this all the time. Jimmy Carter's famous Camp David Accords peace treaty between Sadat and Begin wouldn't have happened unless Carter bribed Egypt with $1.3 billion dollars per year in "aid". Not to be left out, Israel received a $3 billion bribe, I mean, foreign aid, for their part in the peace treaty. For accepting these bribes, Begin and Sadat shared a Nobel Peace Prize. Suddenly, everyone is shocked, shocked to find that aid is going on here?

Try this from now on: any time you hear the word "foreign aid", mentally substitute the word "bribe". You'll see it's a quite normal state of affairs among nations.

Re:Bullshit, figures please.

[Anonymous Coward]

you do realize what "per capita" means, right?

It's Sweden, again !!

[Taco Cowboy]

If the allegation of Sweden paying Cambodia, for them to body snatch a single person, - Gottfrid Svartholm, - so that they can then "deported" the guy back to Sweden - We would know what will happen to Mr. Julian Assange when he step on Sweden's soil --->

Mr. Assange will end up be "sold" to USA, just like Mr. Svartholm was sold to Sweden

Re:He broke the law (according to court)

[BlueStrat]

[He broke the law (according to the court)]....aaaaand that's pretty much it.

So did Rosa Parks.

I'm just glad there aren't more like you for the sake of the Rosa Parks of the world.

Strat

Re:Sweden seems to have problem with justice syste

[MoellerPlesset2]

These arrests must have been influenced/initiated/forced by politicians.

Because it's just unthinkable that someone sentenced for a crime could be extradited for it? And Assange's case is even more ridiculous. So was it political pressure that made the district attorney _drop_ the case, only for that decision to be successfully appealed by the women's representative? And given that the women and their legal representative are members of the opposition, are they working across the isle on this, too? You're living in a crazy fantasy.

In a healthy country, justice system is independent

But only if they're doing what you want, right? Because Assange doesn't think so. He thinks the Swedish government should provide guarantees he won't be extradited to the USA, despite the fact that this is a decision the courts would make. He's asking for the Swedish executive to tell the judicial what to do.