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British Police Stop 24/7 Monitoring of Julian Assange At Ecuadorian Embassy (ibtimes.co.uk)

Posted by samzenpus on from the stop-watching dept.

Ewan Palmer writes with news that police are no longer guarding the Ecuadorian Embassy where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been taking refuge for the past three years. According to IBTImes: "London police has announced it will remove the dedicated officers who have guarded the Ecuadorian Embassy 24 hours a day, seven days a week while WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seeks asylum inside. The 44-year-old has been holed up inside the building since 2012 in a bid to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. He believes that once he is in Sweden, he will be extradited again to the US where he could face espionage charges following the leaking of thousands of classified documents on his WikiLeaks website. Police has now decided to withdraw the physical presence of officers from outside the embassy as it is 'no longer proportionate to commit officers to a permanent presence'. It is estimated the cost of deploying the officers outside the Embassy in London all day for the past three years has cost the British taxpayer more than $18m."

22 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. It's a TRAP! by Derekloffin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Come on now, we all know they just replaced them with under cover officers...

    1. Re:It's a TRAP! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What about the Greeks?

      No. Greece ran out of money in 2010. They have squandered an additional 200B euros since then. There is little reason to stop wasting money as long as someone else is paying the bills.

    2. Re:It's a TRAP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well, the money given to greece has been spent primarily in paying previous debts and interests to european banks, so little of it was available to the greek government. Think of it as a 'under cover' aid to banks...

    3. Re:It's a TRAP! by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh Please! Sweden showed it was nothing but the USA's bitch when the Ecuadorian diplomat made it clear that all they had to do was agree they wouldn't ship him to the USA and they promptly REFUSED.

      Do you REALLY believe they went to all this trouble for a rape charge where the "victim" not only didn't call the cops while he was sound asleep in the bed, but instead actually went out, bought groceries, and then made him breakfast, really? If you but that horseshit I have a bridge you might be interested in.

      We all know that if Assange tried to go back to Sweden he'd never get to touch Swedish ground, they would divert the plane in the air to the USA where he would get stuck in Gitmo as an "example" of what happens when you dare to not bow down. they even have a name for this, its called a "rendition ride", look it up.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:It's a TRAP! by flink · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Perhaps. But it's also true that a country might refuse to guarantee it won't do something it has no intention of doing because it considers the demand an affront to its sovereignty.

      Or it might be that the ambassador has no legal authority to make such a guarantee. For example, if a country has a with no death penalty has a law not to extradite criminals to countries where they may be executed, it might refuse to extradite a person wanted for a capitol crime to the US. If it's not a federal charge, and assuming the state in question has a death penalty, our ambassador wouldn't be able to promise much: he has no constitutional authority to tell the state DA what to do.

  2. Yeah, makes perfect sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Spending $18m to monitor him was surely appropriate when he was wanted for "questioning in a sexual assault case", when anyone that wanted to interview him could visit him in the embassy.

    1. Re:Yeah, makes perfect sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      He had consensual sex without the use of a condom! He's a monster! Of course $18 million is worth it.

    2. Re:Yeah, makes perfect sense... by AK+Marc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, it does. The charges kept changing to make them worse, but the version of the charges I read (translated, of course) indicated that it was rape because the woman withdrew her consent after the act. Such a chance of mind wouldn't be rape in the US. He lied to her to get her in bed, that sexual fraud is "rape" in Sweden, but not in most places. Some of the press releases by the police made the charges sound worse, which is why I read the charges themselves in their entirety (translated of course).

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    3. Re:Yeah, makes perfect sense... by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wonder who decided at which point things went from "appropriate" to "inappropriate"? Is there a government guidebook that says that spending up to $17M monitoring someone who's charged with having a quick shag in Sweden is appropriate, but once the bill reaches $18M it's getting a bit out of hand?

      Just to put this into perspective, the cost of this little adventure would have put nearly two hundred extra police on the streets over the period in which it ran. So watching one attention-seeking Australian in an embassy potentially took two hundred policemen off the streets catching actual criminals.

    4. Re:Yeah, makes perfect sense... by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why does every piece of crap the government does always cost millions? What's the salary of a police officer? Lets be generous and for easy calculation say 100k in London. Say you have three police officers involved (2 in a car, monitoring, one in the office) working 8 hour shifts, so you need three shifts, meaning 9 police officers, lets make that 10.

      10 police officers for 100k a year is a million bucks. How does it cost EIGHTEEN times as much? Give another million for the cars and surveillance equipment, office work, whatever. How are the other 16 million justified?

    5. Re:Yeah, makes perfect sense... by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Can we please end this "only wanted for questioning" deception every time Assange comes up? The Swedish criminal justice system does not work like the US criminal justice system. In the US, "questioning" is just questioning, and comes at the beginning of the investigation, followed by charging, then investigation, then a trial. In the Swedish system, charging comes at the end, and is preceded immediately by questioning so the suspect has the opportunity to say "no, copper, you got it all wrong!" And that can actually work, because the Swedish investigatory system is inquisitorial rather than adversarial. But once the questioning happens, the "right to a speedy trial" bits kick in, so they cannot simply question him without the ability to immediately charge and try him. Which is the goal, as they believe they can convict him of rape.

      In the US, Assange would already be charged, and they'd be trying to bring him in for arraignment.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  3. maths seem off by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is estimated the cost of deploying the officers outside the Embassy in London all day for the past three years has cost the British taxpayer more than $18m.

    So dollars, then? Six million a year for 24 hour surveillance. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

    $684.93 per hour. Thank you Wolfram Alpha. This has the smell of one of those 1000 kilo drug busts that calculates the value of the seizure by multiplying by the gram price.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:maths seem off by lucm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is small potatoes. That government spent $15 BILLIONS on a patient records system for the national health services before giving up. That's 7x more than the wonderful healthcare.gov website (which at least is "working").

      --
      lucm, indeed.
  4. 18 million for someone that was NEVER Charged?! by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Insightful

    18 million for someone that was NEVER Charged?!

    Yup, no political motivation, move along citizen.

  5. Re: Gift Horse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except America has never done anything remotely like that, ever. Your story is a total fucking lie.

  6. Re:Extradition from Sweden is a lie by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Compare the extradition treaties between the UK & the US & between Sweden & the US.

    OK. Sweden has just handed us people without proper process before. Has the UK?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Re:Snowden will never leave Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Much like Kim Philby and others"

    Oh well done, slipped that in nicely.

    Snowden's a fooking hero, revealing massive law breaking and an out of control UStasi that threatens the very basis of the democracy. Every US candidate has a file on them in Alexanders database, because a fooking General decided that he was bigger than his country and it leaders.

    He shouldn't have to learn Russian, he should simply retire in the US protected by whistleblower legislation. Because he isn't, we know the US isn't free from military control and those Presidential leaders are more puppets than leaders.

  8. Either that or... by Xenna · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "He believes that once he is in Sweden, he will be extradited again to the US where he could face espionage charges"

    Hold on. That's what he says he believes. It's also quite possible that he believes he will be convicted for the sexual assault charges, but that he stands a better chance claiming that he's the victim of a conspiracy.

    Everybody loves a free speech martyr. Sexual predators are usually not so popular.

  9. Re: Gift Horse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's a link to something that never happened:

  10. Re: Gift Horse by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1, Insightful

    THe CIA has done so much crazy shit, it actually makes sense to assume that they did something similar, and that we just didn't hear about it.

  11. Re: Gift Horse by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The US has been using European airspace and airports for illegal kidnapping (rendition) flights. I wouldn't put much past them.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  12. Re:3 year sentance by Cederic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    still considered the world's fairest justice systems

    How anybody could describe the US justice system as justice, let alone fair, escapes me.