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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.
Yea Snowden really took his thunder away.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
Except per Swedish and EU law tht would be illegal. I dot know why you people keep bringing it up.
That doesn't mean it won't happen.
I don't think it will, but stranger things have happened and I understand his concern.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It was also illegal in the EU for poland to host a CIA torture site. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. Its illegality is small comfort to those that suffered there. If not illegal, it was extremely uncouth for France, Spain, Portugal and Austria to collude in bringing down the Bolivian Presidential plane down to search it for Snowden. I get the impression that most western European countries seem to be quite happy to ignore their laws and customs if the US government asks/tells them to.
There's law, and there's international diplomacy. If they yank him out of an embassy, every embassy is at risk of wanton search, and you can say goodbye to diplomatic immunity. If, at some point, Sweden extradites Assange to the US and there's a bit of outcry, they'll say "Oops, maybe we shouldn't have done that", and there will be no repercussions (except for Assange).
I haven't heard Sweden state that they will categorically not extradite him to the US, though.
...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.
If the Swedish charges against him were legitimate he could.
Are you suggesting......it might not have been a legitimate rape?
Under Swedish law, when you have sex with your girlfriend, you've raped her if you have a fling with a young chick afterwards.
You had sex with her under false pretenses: giving her the impression that she's your girlfriend now.
Sweden is a feminist paradise.
If the Swedish charges against him were legitimate he could.
He has not ben charged as far as I know, there's only allegations. What's not legitimate about that?
I'm not fond of conspiracy theories, but when his unnameable accuser turns out to have been on the payroll of a group funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, working in Cuba to "assist" the Cuban people develop democracy, I have to wonder.
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.
Over here! Look at me! I'm still here!
When a bunch of powerful people want to quietly vanish you, staying in the public's awareness could save your life.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways