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Assange Agrees to US Prison If Obama Pardons Chelsea Manning (theverge.com)
"If Obama grants Manning clemency, Assange will agree to U.S. prison in exchange -- despite its clear unlawfulness," Wikileaks announced on Twitter Thursday. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes The Verge:
WikiLeaks' statement was released one day before a Swedish appeals court decided to maintain a warrant for Assange's arrest over a 2010 rape charge. Assange has said that extradition to Sweden would lead to his eventual extradition to the US, where he could face charges related to WikiLeaks' publication of secret government documents... Assange has been living in political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012...
Chelsea Manning, a former US Army private, was convicted in 2013 for providing a trove of documents and videos to WikiLeaks, and is currently serving a 35-year sentence at the US Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas. She was hospitalized after a reported suicide attempt in July, and this month went on a hunger strike to seek treatment for her gender dysphoria. Manning ended her hunger strike this week after the military agreed to allow her to have gender reassignment surgery. She still faces indefinite solitary confinement due to administrative charges related to her suicide attempt.
The tweet also included a link to a letter from Assange's attorney, Barry Pollack, calling on the Justice Department to be more transparent about its investigation into WikiLeaks -- and citing the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information. "Director Comey made it clear his conclusion was based on the necessity of proving criminal intent [and] noted that responsible prosecutors consider the context of a person's actions... Criminal prosecution is appropriate only when a person...was intending to aid enemies of the United States or was attempting to obstruct justice."
Chelsea Manning, a former US Army private, was convicted in 2013 for providing a trove of documents and videos to WikiLeaks, and is currently serving a 35-year sentence at the US Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas. She was hospitalized after a reported suicide attempt in July, and this month went on a hunger strike to seek treatment for her gender dysphoria. Manning ended her hunger strike this week after the military agreed to allow her to have gender reassignment surgery. She still faces indefinite solitary confinement due to administrative charges related to her suicide attempt.
The tweet also included a link to a letter from Assange's attorney, Barry Pollack, calling on the Justice Department to be more transparent about its investigation into WikiLeaks -- and citing the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information. "Director Comey made it clear his conclusion was based on the necessity of proving criminal intent [and] noted that responsible prosecutors consider the context of a person's actions... Criminal prosecution is appropriate only when a person...was intending to aid enemies of the United States or was attempting to obstruct justice."
Chelsea is very unlikely to be raped at all, let alone daily.
His guards probably harass him in much more creative ways than the ones which have some prayer of getting sympathy for him.
They stuck that kid in a hole in the ground and are making it their personal lives' mission to show how miserable life can get without breaking any rules in the process. They would never do something as idiotic as sexually assaulting him and risk having their little slice of righteousness enforcement taken away from them.
Without scapegoats to torture, morons only have themselves to blame for their shitty lot in life.
"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
Patrick Henry, American colonial revolutionary
"2) Why would he flee to the UK and feel safe there, a country with such a special relationship with the US it is literally called the "special relationship"?"
This absolutely is it. I think he left Sweden because he was allowed to, rather than fleeing, and the charges appeared afterwards, but if he really feared extradition to the USA over Wikileaks, he would have gone _anywhere_ but the UK at that point; it's not as if there was anything particularly new on the US front.
The entirety of his argument seems to be that he is worried that he might go from being detained in Sweden on remand, directly to a court, and then directly to an extradition cell in a form of rendition before he was processed out, innocent or guilty. There's a suggestion that the swedish prosecutor in question is politically motivated, but would she even have that power?
I believe you left out the important fact that he stated he was more than willing to accept extradition to Sweden so long as they did not hand him over to the US when he got there at which point they refused. That is a huge point you missed.
Also, you missed the point that he didn't flee the country to avoid charges as none of that happened till after he was gone and even then he never was facing charge in Sweden either only questioning.
And he happily offered to do the questioning over the phone or they could send someone to him to question him which they had done before but refused to do specifically for him and would only question him if he came to Sweden after they already refused his request to guarantee they wouldn't hand him over to the US.
You also neglect the point where the girls who made the claim did so the direction of others in government and then dropped the claim only to have the government pick it up and continue the claims against their wishes.
These are huge, deal breaking, points you neglected in your post.
He's in solitary because he tried to kill himself. The correct action is to allow the suicide. I really hate the Christian idea that has become a part of US culture -- that we have to actively prevent suicides from succeeding. It's stupid and usually counter-productive.
The Rosenbergs were executed for Treason.
No, they were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage. You might think that's the same as treason, but it is not.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.