Slashdot Mirror
Julian Assange Still Faces Legal Jeopardy In Three Countries (chicagotribune.com)
Though Sweden dropped an investigation into rape allegations against Julian Assange, "I can conclude, based on the evidence, that probable cause for this crime still exists," chief prosecutor Marianne Ny told reporters in Stockholm. An anonymous reader quotes Newsweek:
Ny stressed in her statement Friday that the investigation could be reopened before the statute of limitations on the case expires in 2020. If Assange "went into British custody, then the Swedes may well revisit their decision ⦠as extradition is suddenly easier", tweeted legal expert David Allen Green. Assange failed to answer a bail hearing when he took refuge in the embassy, resulting in an active warrant for his arrest by London's Metropolitan Police, punishable by up to a year in prison. Foremost of Assange's concerns is possible extradition to the U.S., where he he could be detained on espionage charges... Ecuador has offered Assange asylum should he be able to leave Britain.
Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune reports that "a federal inquiry is widely assumed to be underway by prosecutors in Virginia." According to a former senior Justice Department official, who requested anonymity to discuss the Assange case, American authorities are now presented with a "cat and mouse game." "The decision on whether to indict him rests largely on whether they can get their hands on him," the former official said. Indicting the head of an organization such as WikiLeaks presents a huge number of First Amendment issues, but the Trump White House has indicated such issues may be less of a hurdle than during previous administrations. Prosecutors could seek a sealed indictment -- or may have one already -- to be unveiled if and when Assange strays within reach of American law enforcement, the former official said.
Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune reports that "a federal inquiry is widely assumed to be underway by prosecutors in Virginia." According to a former senior Justice Department official, who requested anonymity to discuss the Assange case, American authorities are now presented with a "cat and mouse game." "The decision on whether to indict him rests largely on whether they can get their hands on him," the former official said. Indicting the head of an organization such as WikiLeaks presents a huge number of First Amendment issues, but the Trump White House has indicated such issues may be less of a hurdle than during previous administrations. Prosecutors could seek a sealed indictment -- or may have one already -- to be unveiled if and when Assange strays within reach of American law enforcement, the former official said.
" Indicting the head of an organization such as WikiLeaks presents a huge number of First Amendment issues, but the Trump White House has indicated such issues may be less of a hurdle than during previous administrations. "
Unless the constitution has changed since he took office, the only way the hurdles should be any less is if he plans on ignoring said constitution.
I can see that happening for some reason.
Maybe it's just me but I think it's bizarre that the US wants prosecute someone that was never in their jurisdiction nor attempted to help one country over another. It wreaks of tyranny.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I'm not in Sweden, but from other more knowledgeable sources, I'm led to believe that this is indeed legal.
Really, very little has changed. The charges have not been dropped. Rather, the case has been suspended. In fact, the official statement sounds more like Sweden is saying "there's nothing else to do unless he comes out", so they're not putting more resources into the investigation until new options present themselves.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The US secret justice system, with secret orders, inquiries, etc is really a beautiful mark of democracy...
It sounds like Ny playing politics.
Ny: "Dropping the investigation is not a result of deciding he is not guilty, Ny added -- it's because there's no practical way to continue it. "
The woman only pressed charges when he refused an aids test, and she cannot remove consent AFTER THE FACT, which is what her and Ny tried to do. She cannot change it to conditional consent either, after the fact. i.e. its OK to have sex without a condom as long as you have an aid test afterwards, made no sense.
Ny should be more professional and less political.
As for Assange, he evaded the extradition and will face charges from that. In the USA, he's simply a conduit for Russian propaganda leakers, if he wasn't the conduit, some other conduit would be used. If it was PasteBin, would PasteBin be prosecuted? Nothing to see there.
They're not dropping the charges. They're dropping the investigation and arrest warrant.
It's not a matter of dropping the charges (after all, no charges has been formally presented)
Yes and no. The Swedish system differs from the American system most here are familiar with, and distinguishes between "häktad" (arrest charge) and "åtalad" (trial charge). The US system doesn't have a two-tier system and treats informal and formal arrest the same, requiring a trial charge and court order for keeping the person jailed during investigation.
US prosecution is a bit laughable. Assange did not steal any documents - they were given to him. As a non-US citizen, not resident in the US, all of whose actions took place outside of the US: he is clearly not subject to US jurisdiction.
I'm sure the US would love to prosecute him, but doing so would be a mockery of justice.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Translating the charge against him to "rape" is already fucked up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority
It's technically a charge of "lesser rape"- we wouldn't call it rape in the English speaking world. Sweden has three types of "rape" on their laws, only one of which we would call rape, and the least serious of which is what Assange is accused of.
This is a common argument made by Assange supporters - that the "rape" allegation is only "rape" in Sweden.
Its a bullshit argument.
Here in the UK, for extraditions to be approved by the court, the reasons for extradition need to meet the "dual criminality" test - they need to be equitable crimes here in the UK, and if they are not then the extradition is not carried out.
Assanges lawyers tried arguing that "its only rape in Sweden" to the UK High Court during their appeal in July 2011 - the court threw their arguments out, giving a lengthy ruling on this very exact issue:
See points 104 to 127 in the High Court ruling - the court spends five and a half pages giving its reasons why the court has judged that the fourth offence being considered against him is also considered "rape" in the UK.
Five and a half pages. And that doesn't even count the pages spent giving reasonings for the other three offences being considered!
And yet people like you still use the "its only rape in Sweden" line!
The word has been redefined. It used to imply violence or threat thereof, not any more. Underage sex is also called "rape". Newspeak.
The sexual case against Assange was always very dubious. Women accusing him of "rape" then having a lobster dinner with him the next night. None of them wanting to press charges etc.
The Swedish prosecutor knows this which is why she never questioned Assange in the embassy. She was relieved when the statutary time limit expired on the lesser charges. And now she is just rationalizing her position. The last thing she wants is this farce to go to trial.
The British bail charge is also irrelevant. At worst Assange could spend a few months in jail, but that is unlikely.
But the US charges are a different matter. He could spend the rest of his life in a very uncomfortable cell (quite unlike Swedish jails). And their justice system is pretty rough. Also remember, they have huge sentences for minor crimes, so being found guilty of anything at all would be very serious.
Assange's real crime was publishing that video of US soldiers shooting up civilians. That is unforgivable.
It is painfully obvious that the charges in Sweden against Assange were only brought because someone in the Swedish government wanted to curry favor with the US. This type of sex charge is almost never used in Sweden; it is extremely rare.
That's probably because Swedish men know how the system work and don't do that kind of shit. It's painfully obvious that Assange did badly misbehave, in a way that would find him guilty of rape, if proven according to the standards required in Sweden. And a UK court agreed with that. It's also painfully obvious that he jumped bail in the UK, and that's a crime that he ought to go to court for in the UK.
I live in Sweden and you are partly correct.
The charges have been dropped, but the reason is because they cannot get any further in the investigation. This is quite common practise, unfortunately, and it means that if that condition changes (for example if Assange would turn up in Sweden) they might find that they can get further and can reopen it.
So you might want to call it suspended but the case is dropped and there are no current charges against him, but that could change at any time if the circumstances change.
I guess the most important thing here is that:
1. He is still innocent and has no serious charges against him atm (only the escaping bail in England)
2. The European warrant is withdrawn so other EU-countries have no obligation to arrest him based on that
3. Sweden have no longer anything to say if Britain or any other EU country managed to get to him and want to extradite him to US
This means that it might be easier for England to extradite him to US. It also means that England has less serious charges against him and, if no other secret legal orders exist, they are much more likely to let him go as the proportions of the operation to keep him in the embassy is way of the charts at the moment.
Yes, here you actually need reason to believe a crime has been committed in order to incarcerate someone. That seems superior to me.
You need that in Sweden too. The difference is that Sweden does not have a conveyor belt system of trial court judges that rubberstamps arraignments and arrest orders for cases they have no background knowledge about.
Because the arrest charges can differ from the trial charges, there's less of the American practice of tossing everything you can on the wall in the hope that enough sticks.
There's also a safeguard in that can sue for restitution for the time spent jailed if the case doesn't go to court. So it's not done lightly. In fact, that it isn't done lightly is what allowed Assange to leave the country.
But you have your cherry picked biased source and you wil not move from it because it says someone you don't like was doing something you don't like and therefore it must be real.
His 'cherry picked biased source' is the fucking high court ruling. That's the decision in law on whether
1) Only the prosecutor claims it was rape.
and says that no, not only the prosecutor claims it was rape, and
4) The actions were not rape in the UK, where the EAW was enacted
to which it demonstrates through law, legal precedent and the known descriptions of the acts which took place, that the acts would justify an accusation of rape under UK law.
5) The UK law courts only decided whether the EAW being written by the prosecutor not the judge (you know, as in an actual arrest being required) was legal, NOT whether it was likely rape, that was specifically off the cards for the law lords to determine.
That's because they had to rule on the legality of the EAW, and not pass judgement on whether the acts described were actually rape. To answer the legality they did ascertain whether an act as described would be rape in the UK and confirmed that it would.
That does not mean that the act took place as described, or that it would result in a criminal conviction.
I have read scores of other links, including the translated court documents
But not the one in its original English that you're claiming is cherry picked and biased. This doesn't reflect well on you.
What are his civil rights under Ecuador law?
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Still a sham ...To extradite him to the US, nothing more
To the contrary. At the time that he jumped bail on his promis to appear in Sweden for questioning, there really was no threat to extradite him to the U.S.. The Obama administration was vigorously prosecuting Americans who leaked U.S. secrets, but it had no apparent intent of going into dubious legal territory of trying to prosecute a foreigner who assisted publication of secrets he didn't leak himself. At the time, the threat to extradite him from Sweden to the U.S. was all in his mind. (And in any case, if the US had wanted him, it would have been just as hard, or just as easy, to extradite him from Sweden as from the UK.)
But by fleeing his bond and hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy, he allowed a new presidential administration to come to power in the U.S., and now there really is a credible threat, since this administration has no problem with dubious legal territory.
The threat at the time was "extraordinary rendition" such as what occurred to Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery from Bromma airport in Stockholm.
Please do try to keep up.
Lest we forget: His present conditions and the preconditions imposed during the interview are entirely of his own making.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
He's never been charged so how can they be dropped?