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One Year Since Assange Took Refuge in Ecuadorian Embassy
Daniel_Stuckey writes with an article marking the one year anniversary of Julian Assange seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy. From the article: "Uninterested in facing U.S. justice, Assange said he's prepared to spend five years living there. If he goes out for a walk, he'll be extradited to Sweden to answer rape accusations —after which he has no promise from Sweden to deny further extradition efforts to America, where a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks awaits. This also means that London's Metropolitan Police have been devoting their resources to keeping tabs on Assange for a year. Yesterday, a spokesperson explained the updated costs of guarding the embassy over the phone: 'From July 2012 through May 2013, the full cost has been £3.8 million ($5,963,340),' he said. '£700,000 ($1,099,560) of which are additional, or overtime costs.'
Julian has a treadmill, a SAD lamp, and a connection to the Internet, through which he's been publishing small leaks and conducting interviews. The indoor lifestyle has taken its toll on Julian, and it led to his contracting a chronic lung condition last fall."
Lots of people turn to raping after making speeches criticizing the primacy of the U.S. dollar, or revealing U.S. top secret documents. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Edward Snowden weren't considering raping some poor women right now, or molesting kids, or selling secrets to the Chinese, or kicking puppies.
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Last I checked he was willing to go to sweden for the questioning (no charges have been put forward at all to my knowledge yet) so long as he had a guarantee to not be extradited to the US while there.
Sweden refused.
If I were him I'd take that as intent to ship him off after he gets there.
use a ladder between the steps and the car door so you're not touching the ground?
Couldn't they then claim he was violating their airspace and shoot him down?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
There's no real evidence that requires him to be extradited to Sweden. This was all hashed out last year. There's no evidence and noone is pressing charges. There were no charges pending when he left Sweden, long after the alleged incident happened. A prosecuter decided to open a closed case with no new evidence and no victim and demanded Assange show up in person for questioning.
If he wasn't wanted in the US, there's no reason for Sweden or Great Britain to go to the lengths they've gone to or to spend the money they've spent.
No it's worse than that, he posted some text on the internet!
hes lived in a room in an embassy for an entire year, but its just questioning
hes prepared to live 5 more years in the embassy, but its just questioning
£200,000 bail was required to get him out of the klink, where he was awaiting extradition for questioning
swedish prosecutors have been given access to assange in jail, in the embassy, and during his house arrest on bail to which they declined
the british government has committed £3.8 million to playing what amounts to a very childish game of whack-a-mole with no end in sight...just to process an extradition for questioning about a possible rape.
The case is hillariously frought with inconsistency. There are more consistent rape and assault allegations on an episode of Jerry Springer, but for some reason the swedish criminal justice system cant seem to get this one even remotely credible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Allegations_of_sexual_assault_and_political_refugee
the US denies any "witch-hunt" is being undertaken but this is coming from a country that practices rendition, operates torture camps, and executes its own citizens without trial. So its safe to say the opinion of the government targeted by Assanges leaks is wholly unqualified to comment upon their response.
Assange knows what we all refuse to admit: Sweden might be his country of extradition, but his final destination is the cuban resort with the lemon-pepper fish and waterboard wednesdays.
Good people go to bed earlier.
many cases like this also end up as a political football, and it doesn't help that the girls who raised the allegations have previous history with the CIA.
something stinks, but nobody wants to talk about the smell.
Extradition has to be OK'd by the foreign minister (in the case of foreign nationals in the country). And they have questioned putative murderers by going there and asking them questions. Yet in this case, they say they can't ask him questions unless they have him on their soverein ground.
Why the sudden inability?
THAT is why his worries are NOT paranoia: they are blatantly out to get him, by hook or by crook.
How much is this costing Ecuador and how long are they willing to host Assange?
three extra meals a day $50
extra laundry bills $10 a day
limitless internet $100 a month
Annoying America - Priceless!
A. Not your concern.
B. At least as long as it gets Slashdot topics.
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Lots of people turn to raping after making speeches criticizing the primacy of the U.S. dollar, or revealing U.S. top secret documents. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Edward Snowden weren't considering raping some poor women right now, or molesting kids, or selling secrets to the Chinese, or kicking puppies.
In politics that if you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger. The United States has several organizations dedicated to discrediting people who come forward with allegations of impropriety against the government. It is a standard tactic used by many governments; Distributing disinformation is a time-honored military and political strategy.
And it is very effective. Just look at this thread: Some people have been completely taken in by it and the discussion now revolves not around the correctness of whistle blowing, or whether society benefits from an organization like wikileaks, or if what the government was exposed in having done was right or wrong... the entire discussion now centers largely on Julian.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The difference is that he isn't facing prison. He's facing Gitmo.
No he's not. He's wanted for questioning. There's a distinct difference.
If he was officially accused of rape - i.e. if there was enough evidence to accuse him then the Swedish authorities would've decided to prosecute and ask for extradition based on that prosecution, instead they just want to get him to Sweden merely to "question" him, even though as the Ecuadorian authorities have pointed out there's no reason they couldn't do this at the embassy if it's necessary before pressing charges because they've done this before in other cases so it's perfectly possible under Swedish law.
Which is really what makes it all so odd, if there's so much certainty he committed rape, why not just press charges and issue a warrant based on that? Why pull him all the way to another country merely to just ask a few questions? He even offered to go to them and do this at the Swedish embassy in London for a while prior to seeking asylum.
Really if the rape charges are legit and he desperately needs to answer them this question could be resolved way more cheaply than funding this ongoing saga. Flying a couple of officers to the UK or using some possibly already present in the Swedish embassy would cost next to nothing just to question. Then once they've question if they want to press charges they can, and Assange's case is suddenly greatly weakened. The fact they're unwilling to spend next to nothing to backup their assertions is quite telling.
You don't spend $3.8million guarding an embassy and then millions more in politician, advisor, lawyer and additional police wages just to ask some questions. There's much more to it than that.
Actually, in this case, it is justified to berate the women.
Anna Ardin made boasts about having sex with Julian on Twitter, tweets that were later deleted.
Sofia Wilen sent SMS's to a friend stating that she was half asleep when one sex act occured.
In statements to prosecutors, Anna Ardin gave in total 5 different versions of events. Sofia Wilen gave in total 3 different versions, one of them being that she was fully asleep, and was awakened by Assange having sex with her. The original prosecutor dropped the case, because she could establish no credibility to the claims made by the women. Then Marianne Ny, a well-known ultra-feminist manhater, who has a track record of not only prosecuting men just for being men, but also for destroying evidence that proves their innocence, and, when higher courts clear their names, she insists that they have not been cleared, in media campaigns.
The defense laywer for both women was a well-known politically motivated person with previous shady dealings with courts and prosecutors(Famous for the Quick case mishandling for example), namely Claes BorgstrÃm. He's also a close personal friend of Marianne Ny. Anna Ardin, BorgstrÃm and Marianne Ny are all activist members of the same politcal party, a party known for extra-legal maneuverings.
Here's the kicker: The last statement by both women, made when Marianne Ny had taken over, suddenly had the events match exactly.... From previously being totally incoherent and unsubstantiated due to evidence to the contrary, to coordinated and coherent, with important evidence to the contrary suddenly not taken into account.
One of the women, Sofia Wilen, refused to sign her statement in the end, and later on said she felt railroaded into making a particular statement.
A rather famous old guard swedish feminist, of the old and respectable "Equality means equal rights, but also equal responsibilities" philosophy, who also happens to be a journalist, has looked through the case, including all the testimonies, and she's highlighted a lot of inconsistencies. A former High Court judge, also a woman, classes it as a "case with questionable validity, driven by political demand".
Marianne Ny in march retreated from being the actual prosecutor in the case, but she will still be the leader of the group handling the case.