WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Asks UK Judge to Drop His Arrest Warrant (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian: WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has asked a UK court to drop the arrest warrant that prevents him from leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living for five and a half years. Assange, 46, skipped bail to enter the embassy in 2012 in order to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault and rape, which he denies... Mark Summers QC told senior district judge Emma Arbuthnot at Westminster magistrates court on Friday that now that the Swedish case had been dropped the warrant had "lost its purpose and its function". He said because Swedish extradition proceedings against Assange had come to an end, so had the life of the arrest warrant... Arbuthnot said she would give her judgment about the arrest warrant on 6 February.
Judge Arbuthnot said she'd rule only on the legal issue, though the court had also received evidence about medical problems which included "a terrible bad tooth, frozen shoulder and depression."

Representing the Crown Prosecution Service, Aaron Watkins it would be absurd for defendants to be "rewarded with effective immunity" simply for having evaded proceedings for long enough.

Comments

Re:Breaking the law.

[Computershack]

He skipped bail, that is what the arrest warrant is for in the UK. It is nothing to do with extradition, it is nothing to do with the now discontinued EAW.

The UK arrest warrant is still valid.

[Computershack]

The UK arrest warrant has nothing to do with the European Arrest Warrant. The UK one is for skipping bail. It doesn't matter whether or not the Swedish government is still pursuing him, he has committed a crime in the UK which is an arrestable offence regardless of his innocence of the charge he was facing.

Re:The UK arrest warrant is still valid.

[vux984]

Precisely correct.

But at the same time it is a bit ridiculous. Legally the magnitude of his crime is skipping bail for an arrest for a crime in another country that has been dropped.

Why are they still maintaining a round the clock covert monitoring of his actions so they can arrest him the moment he steps out of the embassy? Lots of people skip bail. Their's a whole industry of 'bounty hunters' to round them up. And the vast majority of THOSE bail jumpers have been convicted or are still wanted for actual crimes against citizens in the country in question. Where is the multi-year multi-million dollar operation to find them and bring them in?

Yes, Assange is guilty of skipping bail. But he is clearly still being singled out in a way that defies all proportion and sense. If the Ecuadorian embassy wanted to transport 50 other bail jumpers out of the country on a diplomatic flight, the UK government wouldn't even so much as bat an eye... good riddance they'd say.

Years under effective house arrest, and then effective deportation, with an automatic arrest if he ever comes back... isn't that 'good enough' justice for the harm to Britain and British citizens by his skipping bail for an international warrant for a crime that was dropped?

Re:The UK arrest warrant is still valid.

[Hal_Porter]

The UK government basically has three options

1) Close the embassy, expel the diplomats and arrest Assange as his diplomatically protected bubble evaporates.
2) The status quo where they keep a watch on the embassy and arrest him if he leaves
3) Allow him to leave unmolested.

I think 1) is dangerous because it would allow foreign governments to do the same to arrest a fugitive who took refuge in a UK embassy and claim this case as a precedent, so they've decided not to do it. Also 1) implies the UK will probably lose diplomatic relations with Ecuador. British personnel would be expelled from the British embassy there. Some might be arrested or otherwise harassed. The Foreign Office is a cautious place and would probably advise the government this is opening a can of worms. The UK did close one embassy and expel the diplomats but that was in a very extreme situation where Libyan diplomats literally murdered a UK policewoman. Merely shielding Assange doesn't justify such extreme measures.

If the UK allows Assange to avoid justice by spending a couple of years in the Ecuadorian embassy then it would be setting a precedent that anyone (in)famous enough to get in there would be literally above the law which rules out 3)

So they've decided on 2) by a process of elimination. Sure there are costs to it in police time but it's better than the other two. Assange is locked up, just in better conditions than he probably deserves. And if he doesn't like that he's free to come out, get prosecuted for skipping bail, serve his time and get deported.

Re: Breaking the law.

[Hal_Porter]

And its absurd to say just because someone broke UK law they should be held to account. I break Chinese law all the time when I criticize the Chinese government. I've never been to China though so why should I be held to account for unconscionable laws or under an unconscionable state such as the UK where you can't possibly get a fair trial?

That's a ridiculous thing to say. Criticizing China outside of China is not the same as going to Sweden and raping someone.

Assange committed offences in Sweden that met the dual criminality test they needed to meet for him to be extradited.

If Assange didn't think he could get a fair trial in Sweden or the UK then he shouldn't have visited them and broke the law.

And any state that prosecutes someone where there is no victim of actual violence is not a conscionable state.

SW and AA were victims of violence, and the Swedish and British legal systems are doing the right thing in prosecuting Assange.

The state is violence and the only justification for violence is when acted upon from a reasonable self defense position. ie government attacks you then fighting back is reasonable.

Well if you think like that then you're going to spend a lot time either in court or in prison.

For gods sake, just get rid of him

[Mr_Silver]

It's costing us, the UK tax payer, about £10k per day for the policing. Quite frankly, it's a colossal waste of money at a time where the amount of public spending available cannot be pissed up the wall on something like this.

Part of that daily money would be better spent purchasing him a one way ticket to Ecuador, escorting him to Heathrow, onto the aeroplane and then waving him goodbye.

And then we can go back to spending that kind of money on far far more important things.