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WikiLeaks' Assange Hopes To Exit London Embassy "Soon"
An anonymous reader writes Julian Assange has hosted a press conference in which he indicated he is soon about to leave the embassy of Ecuador in London. From the article: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent over two years in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid a sex crimes inquiry in Sweden, said on Monday he planned to leave the building 'soon', but Britain signaled it would still arrest him if he tried. Assange made the surprise assertion during a news conference alongside Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino. But his spokesman played down the chances of an imminent departure, saying the British government would first need to revise its position and let him leave without arrest, something it has repeatedly refused to do.
Over here! Look at me! I'm still here!
I bet he could work out a deal with Sweden for time served.
Or is very soon about to, he has access to one of the top lawyers in the country (who also happens to date George Clooney) and wouldn't make this announcement if it could be easily repudiated. I guess this is his way of testing the waters, and calling the banners before he sets out...
I thought that embassy officials and their property had diplomatic immunity. (I remember stories about drugs being smuggled in diplomatic pouches.)
Suppose they drove a van into the embassy, Assange got in (or didn't get in), and they drove it out to an airport.
Wouldn't the van be covered by diplomatic immunity, and immune to being searched?
Given that he is no closer to getting Sweden to drop their charges, nor is it likely the UK will leave him alone, how on Earth can he leave soon?
Unless he has new dirt (wikileaks, remember) on either of them, such that the case gets dropped or the UK police suddenly develop extreme shortsightedness and, ahem, fail to spot him walking out of the embassy.
So much fuss around a common sex scandal that happens every day in the UK and Hollywood and nobody cares...
I almost want to believe he's deliberately teasing the authorities into increasing the surveillance around the embassy, at a time when that ongoing expense is causing angry murmurs the general public. That would be pretty clever.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Well, not yet. Move along.
***CODE***--h1-+URL 3 Content==h1-+==body-+==html-+***CODE***
He cannot be arrested because there is no arrest warrant. The British, will probably hold him for questioning and then do the inevitable and release him. His solicitor, or in the U.S., that would be his lawyer, says the U.K. signed a international agreement not to extradite somebody who was not under arrest for a criminal offence, he is only wanted for questioning. Living in a room with diplomats for two years he must be absolutely desperate to have a wank.. Good luck Julian, wish you all the best salute! don't let the bastards grind you down. That is the human being of the future. Ready to die for freedom.
Maybe he has a hot date and he needs to get to the pharmacy for some prescriptions?
No matter where you go, there you are.
It so typical in UK. Not my money, so let's employ hundreds of guards around Embassy.
Who cares in other parts of the country people wait 3-4 hours for somebody to show up after burglary or rape.
Corruption of politicians reached new heights.
...is shitting bricks over the thought of Sweden handing him over to the Americans
...handing him over to the despotic occupiers of the US government. FTFY.
The US is totally off its constitutional rails.
>the British government would first need to revise its position and let him leave without arrest, something it has repeatedly refused to do.
And assuming they can take Obama's dick out of they're mouth for long enough.
he should have snuck out in a laundry cart a long time ago.. heh, maybe he already has
I see from the comments here that the governmental mission of character assassination of this fellow is largely complete and successful. Do you know Assange personally? Have you ever had dealings with him apart from seeing stories online and on TV about him? I don't and I haven't, and thus I don't pretend the biases against him that most people here seem to have been suckered into (nor do I have any bias toward him).
I don't find a coordinated corporate media campaign to ruin this guy unrealistic in the least, though.
the big issue with EU countries is the federal death penalty is possible for treason and espionage. waive that and he could have a G-III all to himself, with just a few "friends" for a little chit-chat, for the ride to the US.
if it is up to Great Britain, Assange only leaves the embassy in a coffin. they're going to be standing there at the doors until the end of time. waiting. on alert. with cuffs. forever.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Assange may well not be around for much longer without access to sunlight or at least supplementing with vitamin D. The article says: "Asked about his health, Assange said anyone would be affected by spending two years in a building with no outside areas or direct sunlight, a complaint he has made several times before."
According to these, he probably needs on the order of 2000-5000 IU Vitamin D3 daily as supplements:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org...
http://www.grassrootshealth.ne...
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
He might need more for a while to catch up if he is already severely vitamin D deficient. The US RDA for vitamin D for most adults is about 5X-10X too low, so generally you don't get enough from food. Many indoor workers are vitamin D deficient these days, given we usually work, play, and commute inside something with windows that block UV-B radiation. Our carpets maybe won't fade from filtered sunlight, but our health will.
However, we don't know all the compounds that the human skin makes in response to sunlight. He might want to look into using special purpose UV-B lamps as well. Mercola talks about that:
http://articles.mercola.com/si...
There are some rare health conditions like sarcoidosis that make vitamin D supplements problematical, so if he has any special health issues like that, he should talk to a knowledgeable doctor before supplementing.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Ah, the good old "assange is irrelevant" ploy. If he's so irrelevant, why are you paid trolls here to smear him?
Diplomatic status is granted by the host country, it is not automatic. What happens is a country says "We want this person to be our ambassador to you." The host country, if they are ok with that person, says "Ok we grant this person status as an ambassador and the immunity that comes with that." However there's no immunity, and related things (like an amount of time to leave the country) until then.
Immunity is not a one-way street. A country can't say "This person is a diplomat, you have to give them immunity."
Come on, he can easily run for public office on some Green/Islamic party ticket somewhere.
Well then, if he's got nothing to lose, why not just accept the extradition, and surrender to the UK authorities for extradition to Sweden?
There are 4 possible outcomes given the constraints you've just suggested:
1) Stay in Ecuadorean embassy and waste away and die a sad, irrelevant wreck;
2) Surrender to the authorities for extradition, go to Sweden, and get whisked away for imprisonment in the US, where he will waste away and die a sad, irrelevant wreck;
3) Surrender to the authorities for extradition, go to Sweden, face charges, be condemned to a few years in prison, after which you're free to go on about your life;
4) Surrender to the authorities for extradition, go to Sweden, face charges, be decalred not-guilty (or have charges dismissed), after which you're free to go on about your life;
It would seem to me that in scenario 1 & 2, his only choice is which comfy prison couch he sits on until he dies, and I'd think for someone so dedicated to his cause, actually taking on the US as a "martyr" to their illegal renditions would be a pretty spectacular way for him to go out, as opposed to hiding behind the skirts of yet another *documented* human rights abuser like Ecuador.
In scenario 3 and 4 (i.e. - there is no secret "whisk Assange away to the USA because we're their lapdogs, jejejeje!" plan), the worst that happens is he spends a few years in a comfy Swedish prison after which he's free to allegedly rape again. And the best that happens is all charges are dropped, and he's sent on his way with a "See? All that worry for nothing, Julian."
At this point, I honestly think he fears the 4th outcome the most of all - that all the shadowy plotting he imagines is happening isn't happening, and in reality, the US government just has no case against him, or worse - doesn't give a shit about him.
Most people in the UK would be happy to deport him straight off to America after he leaves the embassy. Assange has just cost the UK taxpayer large amounts of money while trying to avoid facing the European legal system.
Mr. Assange needs to remain in a protected environment. I do not think the US government or someone acting t the request of the US government will be reasonable or fair with him. The US is infested with a lunatic right wing as well as a military establishment which simply has absurd beliefs as far as security is concerned. Mr. Assange has done no wrong and did all of us a huge service by getting a little bit of information to the public. If they can they will kill him or bury him in a prison under conditions designed to drive him insane.
Perhaps his lamp put out mostly UV-A (which tans and burns) instead of UV-B which produces vitamin D? See my other posts in this thread on the difference. But too much of almost anything can be a bad thing.
As you say, it sounds like, short of being smuggled to another country in a diplomatic courier bag, Assange can't avoid facing charges if he leaves the embassy. I don't see what leverage by Ecuador could cause the UK to relent.
Of course, in "real life", people also may just make up stuff for various reasons:
http://www.detainedbyus.org/th...
"In an effort to capture enemy combatants during the War on Terror the United States implemented a bounty program offering monetary rewards for information on, or the surrender of, possible enemy combatants. The bounty system has been beneficial in bringing forward actionable information against enemy combatants because it has functioned as a strong motivator, but that may also have led to the detention of innocent civilians at both Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Airbase. Turning over individuals to U.S. troops was a lucrative business venture for bounty hunters, the Pakistani and Afghan governments, and civilian reward seekers who could convince the U.S. that the person they had captured or were making accusations against, was connected to Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or another terrorist group."
Here is another article that mentions Vitamin D and Assange:
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
"It had been reported earlier that he is suffering from arrhythmia (abnormal heart beats), high blood pressure and other health problems associated with a lack of Vitamin D, after his not being exposed to sunlight for that length of time, and that he would need to leave the embassy to go to hospital."
Granted, it might be a "BS" excuse, as you suggest. Nonetheless, I still think it is possible he is not supplementing adequately given a too low RDA and also, perhaps, using the wrong UV sunlamps? There is so much misinformation out there about Vitamin D.
The good news is, more and more people in the UK are coming to understand the connection between Vitamin D deficiency and illness. Could it even contribute to some Middle Eastern (or US/UK) extremism? ... Dr John McGrath, international expert in schizophrenia based at the University of Queensland, Australia, says the evidence suggests that sun exposure in pregnancy and early life protects against schizophrenia and "raises the tantalising prospect that optimising vitamin D status during pregnancy may lead to the primary prevention of the disease". ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/hea...
"A deficiency in this crucial vitamin, thanks to our increasingly indoor lifestyles, is already blamed for the reappearance of rickets, the painful and deforming bone disease in children, in the UK. But gradually, evidence is emerging that links low vitamin D levels to a rise in a whole host of "modern" diseases, some of which were virtually unheard of in the pre-industrial era.
Could lack of vitamin D in pregnancy also explain autism? The latest evidence suggests that a low vitamin D level in the mother's body during pregnancy may induce her immune system to make antibodies which can damage the baby's brain, as well as causing certain genes to malfunction. Last month, Rhonda Patrick and Bruce Ames from the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, in California, published research findings that these genes normally make the chemical serotonin. Too little of this neurotransmitter is associated with abnormal social behaviour while too much in the digestive tract causes sensitivity to foods which may explain some autistic children's difficult eating habits.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
He's merely a *suspect* in a crime suspected to have been committed (or not) in another country. Short of capital murder, I've never heard of one country spending this much police manpower trying to pick up a suspect. But then we aren't talking about just anyone. Assange claims 1) he never slept with either woman, 2) one of the women was working for the CIA. So we are talking about something fabricated, so they can extradite him to Sweden which appears to be very willing to send him to the US where they can get their draconian mitts on him. Bradley Manning got 10,000 years. Adrian Lamo is a fink and a rat bastard (and needs the "Chicago Branch of La Cosa Nostra fish-shoes test). The US treats their own people (hello Thomas Drake, developer of NSA's 'thin thread'), like criminals. Someone they suspect of --not actually stealing-- but merely reporting information, is a messenger that they will want to shoot. Even if he is no longer a threat to them, they are like the Chicago branch of La Cosa Nostra in that they want to 'send a message'.
The last person you want running an organization that might draw negative attention from powerful entities is a guy who grew up (for a period, at least) in a white supremicist cult and then was pursued by them for years after he and his mother fled.
Assange might be paranoid and an ass, but the White Supremacist Cult which you describe is anything but that. Its a relatively harmless hippie type commune. Please do not to resort to falsehoods to bolster your case.
Tat Tvam Asi
It's called 'The Great Escape'
I have a far more interesting question. How much money paid by taxpayers has the UK spend until know to keep the embassy "escorted" 24x7x365?
to Julian DotComDotAu and a quick, but dubious, rubber stamp to settle in NZ, he's packing his bags already!