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Time Runs Out On Sweden's Sexual Assault Charges Against Julian Assange
As the Guardian and many other sources report, the clock has run out on the three 2010 charges of sexual assault on which Swedish authorities had hoped try Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been waiting out those charges since 2012 in London, inside the Ecuadorian embassy, claiming that he feared extradition to the U.S. in connection to this Wikileaks work if he were first extradicted to Sweden. He was recently rebuffed after suggesting that he'd be interested in living in France as a political refugee. The linked Guardian story notes that the expiry of the Swedish prosecutors' time doesn't mean that Assange is no longer under scrutiny, as does CNN.
He was never formally accused, only wanted for questioning. And when it turned out that they could only question him, and not take custody of him they lost interest...
It reminds me of how some people refused to believe Hans Reiser might've indeed been guilty of killing his wife, apparently just because he gave us ReiserFS.
Except that the ReiserFS doesn't piss off the government of the country you've been brainwashed in and its corporate masters, you mentally diseased idiot. Now get back working like a donkey and tonight don't forget to watch the katrashians with some beer and junk food at arm's length, so you won't have to think, ever.
BTW, if you're going to read any links, check out the last one - "Ghosting" by Andrew O’Hagan. He was Assange's ghostwriter for his book and spent months living with him, interviewing him and recording every conversation. It's a... very revealing read, to put it mildly.
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
Swedish prosecutors have interviewed 44 suspects in the UK since 2010, while for five years declining Julian Assange’s offer to be interviewed at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
Meanwhile the UK already spent ~12M pound to make sure he doesn't leave the embassy. If these rape allegations where the only reason for this theatre then the British police would have told the Swedish prosecutor that they will make sure Assange stays put for two or three month in the Embassy to give them the opportunity to interview him, and then they would have stopped this wast of public money.
Does anyone actually care about this guy's legal troubles?
I've never understood why people simply assume there can't possibly be any basis in this story, just because he gave us Wikileaks. It reminds me of how some people refused to believe Hans Reiser might've indeed been guilty of killing his wife, apparently just because he gave us ReiserFS.
I think there were four important things to know:
1) There were real women who made real complaints, though they weren't particularly heinous and they dropped them fairly quickly.
2) The prosecutor decided to go ahead anyway, which is unusual, though potentially justifiable if the women dropped the complaints because they felt threatened or intimidated by Assange's reputation (ie, they didn't want to be the people who put an international hero behind bars).
3) The US really wanted Assange, it's quite plausible they Swedish authorities simply wanted to get Assange into the country to extradite him to the US.
4) Sweden went to very usual lengths to get Assange for a case of this stature, which might be evidence of an ulterior motive, or a proper reaction by the Swedish authorities to someone who was publicly flouting their legal system in a very public manner.
Personally I don't think the basic facts are in huge debate and I suspect Assange deserves some real (though mild) punishment, however I don't know if that's what he'll get in Sweden or if he'd eventually end up in a US prison cell.
I stole this Sig
An additional alleged incident of sexual molestation will be "time barred" - that is, time will have run out to question Mr Assange - on 18 August.
The Swedish statement also said an allegation of rape was due to expire on 17 August 2020, but that investigation would continue.
So those lucky Ecuadorian diplomats might have the pleasure of his company for another five years.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The curious thing is the sticking point. Equador wanted one of their diplomats to be present at the interview, Sweden refused that condition...
You can see Marianne Ny, just didn't want to interview him in London in the Embassy. She only started the process in June because the court pressed her to act. It didn't matter what the issue was, she was never going to act in good faith.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/13/julian-assange-wikileaks-swedish-prosecutors-london-interview
"“My view has always been that to perform an interview with him at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would lower the quality of the interview, and that he would need to be present in Sweden in any case should there be a trial in the future. This assessment remains unchanged,” Ny said in a statement."
See, interview in London..... bad.... interview in Sweden..... good. The GPS location totally changes the questions and answers....
More to the point,
1) Someone surrendered under an EAW, in order to be extradited to a third state, requires the consent of both states taking part in the EAW request, rather than just one. Being extradited under an EAW only further complicates any attempts at third party extradition.
2) Sweden is one of the few countries whose extradition treaty with the US flatly bans extradition for military or intelligence crimes, and has a consequence long been a place to where defectors and spies flee (the most famous being Edward Lee Howard, the greatest CIA defector during the Cold War period)
3) Sweden was so mad at the US extradition program ignoring their ban on use of their airspace for extradition flights that they caused a diplomatic rift with the US in 2006 by disguising their special forces soldiers as airport workers to sneak aboard a suspected extradition plane. And how do we know about this event? Why, Wikileaks of course!
4) Sweden has the world's strongest whistleblower protections, so the point where it's not even legal to look for the source of a leak, let alone prosecute them for it.
5) While no country's judicial system is completely devoid of controversial cases (Sweden included), as a whole Sweden has one of the world's highest rankings on judicial fairness according to the peer-reviewed World Justice Project. They actually use it as an example of fairness when discussing how other countries can improve.
6) Assange himself thought so much of Sweden that he was applying for a residence permit there and repeatedly called Sweden his "shield". Funny how Sweden instantly became evil US lackeys the instant he was investigated for rape, isn't it?
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
Sweden as impartial now as it was during WW2 when it did business with Nazis and took stolen gold as payment and prevented others from getting help against Russia. Don't trust sweden.
I would suspect that's largely due to globalization and the Internet making dissemination of information that much more public and difficult to control rather than any righteousness on the part of any intelligence agency. It's not that the spies of today are less ethical, it's that they can't lie so convincingly anymore.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.