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British Police Stop 24/7 Monitoring of Julian Assange At Ecuadorian Embassy (ibtimes.co.uk)
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."
Come on now, we all know they just replaced them with under cover officers...
And as a gesture of goodwill, they've also left him a large wooden horse with a bow tied around it outside the embassy.
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.
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.
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How can this be shown to be false before he actually tries it?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Also your sig doesn't match with the sentiment your expressing.
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18 million for someone that was NEVER Charged?!
Yup, no political motivation, move along citizen.
There have been other cases of people interviewed remotely. It seems unusual that Sweden would not follow their regular procedure with him.Sweden has previously tried others in absentia. By international law, he has been "charged" with the crime (by the nature of the Interpol Warrant for Arrest Sweden has issued).
By US standards, he was charged, then dismissed of the crime, and is now being tried a second time for the same crime. Almost nowhere else in the world has the strict double jeopardy laws the US has, but if we apply US standards, the charges and process are invalid many times over for many different reasons.
Learn to love Alaska
OK the average British bobby earns about 45k a year. Lets have 18 of them, that gives us 6 policemen x 3 spots which should cover weekends and 3 shifts easily. 18 cops x 45k gives 810,000 a year. Ok let's round that up to 1 million pounds a year. Assange has been there 3 years now, so thats 3 million pounds. Now I realize there's plenty of other stuff to cover other than actual manpower, but I'm wondering where the other 15 million pounds is coming from.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Assuming they even bother with the formality of extradition.
Remember, Sweden (like other European countries) has a record of just handing over foreign suspects to the CIA for torture.
The police took them to Bromma airport in Stockholm, and then stood aside as masked alleged CIA operatives cut their clothes from their bodies, inserted drugged suppositories in their anuses, and dressed them in diapers and overalls, handcuffed and chained them and put them on an executive jet with American registration N379P.
I don't think any extradition lawyers were present.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Double jeopardy is about being tried and found innocent by the court, and then being tried again for the same crime. It says nothing about being arrested/charged, then released, then being re-arrested/re-charged, as the outcome of the charge was never decided by a court. A judge may optionally dismiss a case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought back before the courts unamended.
When he was in Sweden and initially charged, he cooperated fully. After he was released, and cleared to leave the country, the US pressured Sweden to press charges. So his dismissal was reversed, and he was re-charged after being cleared. He has notified Sweden of his location and invited Sweden to interrogate him in person or via phone, and Sweden refused, despite having done that with other people.
He's not made any special demands of Sweden, and doesn't act like he's above them. He just has acted in a manner to avoid increased chance of contact with US officials. He has "dictated" nothing extraordinary.
Learn to love Alaska
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.'"
"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.
I wonder how much this has to do with the frosty US/UK relations as of late? If you think about it this whole Get-Assange-At-Any-Costs thing is mostly for US benefit. The conventional wisdom is that if the UK gets him they immediately turn him over to the US authorities who want to lock him up and throw away the key.
Personally, I think that many countries - not just the UK - are a bit pissed at the US for the middle east retreat and the resulting onslaught of refugees. Maybe I'm connecting too many dots here but this might be just a Fuck-You-Obama-Go-Get-Him-Yourself kind of thing, *Shrug*
There are no sexual assault charges. Assange is not formally charged with anything at all. He has repeatedly asked the Swedish authorities to come question him at the Equadorian embassy with regard to as-yet completely unjustified allegations from years ago. The Swedish authorities, against all reason and without explanation, have refused to come question him. Why do you think that might be? -PCP
You're clearly not bothered with listening to what anyone else has to say on this matter - you've already made your mind up it seems. AK Marc has spelled out why your nonsensical narrative is nonsensical, but you seem to be incapable of listening.
This makes a pretty convincing case, IMHO:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/18/would-sweden-ever-extradite-assange-to-the-united-states/
I guess a three year sentence was what they wanted to give him. This guy is so paranoid that he imprisoned himself for years vs just trying to face the justice system, and perhaps getting out with a fine, or even declared innocent.
This guy had locked himself to prevent dealing with the legal systems of the UK, Sweden, and the United States. While they are not perfect and need reform, are still considered the world's fairest justice systems. Compared to the many other parts of the world where you would just had been shot or poisoned.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.