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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."

12 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 Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This hypothesis needs to be tested using an Assange look-alike.

    2. Re:It's a TRAP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Personally, I don't think the Swedish police would just hand him over to the Americans - the Scandinavian countries have demonstrated several times in the past that they don't simply roll over when the States tell them to.

      Scandinavian here (Denmark)... I think you put way too much trust in our governments. Maybe Norway is still willing to stand up for themselves (they can afford it), but Denmark and Sweden tends to roll over when the US says so. Examples: Both Denmark and Sweden are EU members, and thus fall under the EU privacy directive. Yet, both countries are actively supplying information to the US. Or take the pirate bay. The founders got convicted, even though until the case, none of the lawyers sending DMCA notices to the pirate bay could come up with a Swedish law they were breaking. Not even the one Swedish university complaining about pirated books could find such a law. Yet, they all got convicted, including they guy whose only job function was speech (as in "freedom of") - the spokesperson for TPB.

  2. Gift Horse by RDW · · Score: 5, Funny

    And as a gesture of goodwill, they've also left him a large wooden horse with a bow tied around it outside the embassy.

    1. Re: Gift Horse by Dereck1701 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, the US government has never done anything crazy like abducting someone off the the streets, flying them to a foreign country black site for a little torture, and them realizing "oops, we grabbed the wrong guy" so lets dump him in the countryside another foreign country, oh wait.................

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  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 gweihir · · Score: 5, Informative

      And to add insult to injury, apparently nobody is responsible for that massive fuckup. It is just stealing from the taxpayer, no crime in that.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. 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
  5. Re:18 million for someone that was NEVER Charged?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, he has not been charged.

  6. Re:18 million for someone that was NEVER Charged?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're a liar. Assange has repeatedly offered to be interviewed at the Equadorian embassy. Swedish officials have interviewed people abroad in similar circumstances numerous times in the past. Those officials are every bit as dishonest and dishonorable as you are in this case. Read this. -PCP

  7. Re:18 million for someone that was NEVER Charged?! by careysub · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's not how things work here. The police typically interview you before charges are file. Assange has refused the interview.

    No he hasn't. The Swedes are refusing to interview him in the Embassy. Now, why would that be? Think, think...

    --
    Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
  8. Re:Extradition from Sweden is a lie by quenda · · Score: 5, Informative

    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/...