Wikileaks definitely released an encrypted insurance file.
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Time will tell, but personally I’d be very surprised if Assange is headed anywhere other than an American prison.
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Ironic, really, that Assange will likely be renditioned to the same country whose “extraordinary renditions" he helped expose. And that whole “No extraditions to any country with the death penalty” thing?
Nah, we won’t apply it to him. We’ve never lied before, right? C’mon, trust us!
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Let me see if I’ve got it. The two arguments being made are:
- “They only wanted to send him to Sweden because that’s their big plan for how they can then send him to the US. Of course, Sweden’s bad. Everyone knows you can’t get to the US without going to Sweden first.”
- “They’ll never send him to Sweden because obviously they want to send him to the US. What does Sweden have to do with it?”
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Assange can not fail - he can only be failed.
Where have I heard that before?
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But do you support him facing trial for sexual assault?
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Didn’t Swedish authorities drop those charges against him awhile back?
I’m not going to post the link a third time, if people aren’t going to read it.
The charges weren’t “dropped”, they were deactivated because they admitted they couldn’t do anything more with the case while Assange was successfully hiding. It turned into a “cold case”, not a “closed case”.
Some of the charges are now past the statutes of limitation. The most serious charge is still within the statute of limitation until next year.
The original complainant is still complaining and her lawyer is still pressing for the case.
https://www.aklagare.se/en/nyheter--press/press-releases/?newsId=0A298F4C7F9646B9
Also, the other complainant didn’t recant or withdraw her complaint, Assange just hid long enough to deny her claims a time in court.
She gave up her anonymity and Assange fans were fucking evil to her.
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The Swedish prosecution might still decide to not pursue the case, but that’s more likely to be because they think it would be an un-winnable circus. That would be the reason most rape charges aren’t pursued in jurisdictions around the world, every day.
It’s important to remember that neither of the complainants has had time in public court to lay out their cases, and that’s been held against them to imply they don’t have a case to lay out. They’ve had to hold onto the detail in their stories, on the hope that there will be an actual trial one day.
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Do you think it’s true that if he’d gone there to face those charges, the U.S. would’ve then had an easier time getting him in its clutches?
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There are potentially three crimes to lay at Assange’s door.
The first is the Swedish sexual assault charges, which were dropped because he was beyond Swedish reach once he jumped bail to avoid being extradited from the UK. However these could be re-instated now he is available to be extradited to Sweden.
The second is the bail jumping. This is an open and shut case. He will probably get six months. If he hadn’t jumped bail in the UK, his view is that the Swedes would have handed him over to the USA, but there’s no way of knowing that. At any rate, does that justify him not being tried for the assaults?
The third is the computer intrusion charge from the USA. This needs to convince the British court that it’s worth extraditing him for. IDK what the chances are of that. Britain refused to extradite that UFO conspiracy guy recently, but he didn’t jump bail and instead co-operated with the courts.
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If the US can prosecute a journalist who’s not an American for revealing its secrets while in another country, doesn’t that mean it’s fine for North Korea to prosecute an American journalist in Washington revealing secrets about North Korea? How about Saudi Arabia prosecuting a journalist in say, San Francisco for revealing secrets about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?
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It’s the opposite.
Sweden extradites less than the UK. Its constitution has a stronger protection against extraditing for political reasons. (This is why when US-based spies fled, they fled for Sweden, because they could live there or go to Russia without the US getting them). If he’d been extradited from the UK to Sweden, there’s a mutual clause that meant both countries would have to agree to further extradition, which is more protection. The whole reason Assange was in Sweden in the first place is because it was the safest European country for Assange to go to.
“Walking around the UK” is not a better strategy for avoiding US extradition. The UK isn’t known as the strongest resister of US extradition requests.
An extradition request from the US is easier from the UK than Sweden. Everyone seems to believe that today, but they argued the opposite last week. If Assange went to Sweden tomorrow, the odds he’d go to the US drop significantly, and that was true in the past, as well.
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I think he’s more afraid of all the governments other than Sweden he’s pissed off with his all information should be free mission.
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Yes. Of course there is an interesting solution now that he is in British custody. We can just wait and see.
I would argue that if he was deported to the US it is indicative of a multi-state effort to get him back to the US. The fact that he is currently indicted on one charge, doesn’t mean that there are not multiple charges in the works.
Of course, he could be sent to Sweden first and then deported to the US. Given the crassness of the Trump administration I would not put much money on this one. I don’t think they care about how they look.
But I wonder how many would change their minds once he is serving time in a US Supermax regarding which was the crime which motivated the associated authorities actions? I would guess very few.
I don’t think the US has a strong moral case to extradite Assange. The publication of information can be done responsibly or irresponsibly, but I don’t think jailing the messenger is the best solution.
I also don’t think it was the CIA that made him rape anybody. I think he has a pretty compelling and public history of being deeply wrong in how he’s treated the people directly around him. I think the cult of personality that he’s fostered allows him to burn the good will the leaks achieved to protect him from the consequences of deeply hurting people, in the same way as any corrupt priest or public figure.
The main ironic thing here is that his flight from answering to the women who say he hurt them, is what may send him to the US.
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