I appreciate the link, and it was definitely interesting reading.
To my reading, it doesn’t seem to present any actual evidence of either the US’ intention to insist on extradition, nor Sweden acknowledging that they would do so if asked. In fact, most of his initial article is pretty darn hand-wave-y (not to mention off-putting-ly egotistical and borderline victim-blaming).
Yes, he makes a decent circumstantial case for the fact that it could happen, including Sweden’s refusal to agree not to extradite. But --to torture a metaphor-- evidence of lack does not equal evidence, period. There are any number of legitimate reasons why Sweden would not agree to make this guarantee besides a presumed intention to to extradite; not the least of which is not wanting to set the precedent of publicly kowtowing to the demands of a “criminal” (I know this isn’t quite the word due to the complicated nature of Sweden’s legal processes). If they have a proscribed process for dealing with these things, its entirely within their rights to follow them. Their lack of desire to bend to Assange’s wants does not somehow make their motives immediately suspect (to me).
I’m not saying that it might not have all been a setup. But I still have yet to read anything other than supposition to that end. But, again, sincerely, thank you for the interesting read.
I’m personally flummoxed that so many people believe that Assange could not possibly be an asshole or someone who is a fellow traveler with the hard right, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Did he help reveal some damning information on the war on terror? Hell, yes. Did he also throw Chelsa Manning under the bus, knowing that, as a trans woman in prison, it would be a much harder sentence than what he would get? Yes. Did he regularly seem to ignore what the Russians were up to? Yes. Did he support an obvious authoritarian for president, who has probably completely broken US democracy, because of his Clinton derangement syndrome? Yes. Is it entirely possible that his accusers were telling the truth? YES.
It seems like a big ask to guarantee non-extradition when Sweden didn’t even know if the United States intended to charge Assange with a crime, let alone what that charge might be or what evidence the United States might have to support it.
Given Assange was directly coordinating with the Trump campaign to help him, I’m guessing he’s regretting that decision. Or should be, at least, if he had any self-awareness. (Which, from everything I read about him, he does not have.)
No, it doesn’t. But it I find it quite obvious that when giving said guarantees is customary even in the absence of a request for extradition, Sweden could easily have given that guarantee, because they could have settled that case. I don’t see the harm that could have caused to Sweden.
I don’t think it does, especially if such a request did not exist at the time, why would they care about a potential request for extradition when that would prevent Sweden from serving justice in a case they already knew about?
I don’t disagree at all. Having met Assange personally (~2007), I am even convinced he is a massive asshole. And it is obvious that he drifted pretty far to the right over the years.
And at the same time we know the way the UK behaved against Assange is proven to have been a a massive shitshow, and Sweden could have done a lot to end this AND serve justice for the women at the same time.
I don’t doubt that his accusers were telling the truth. And at the same time I do think that Sweden should have done a lot more to see this case through to its end, I think they had the chance and didn’t, and they have to take responsibility for that.
As somebody pointed out above in this special case Assange would have been much better off going to court and serving a sentence in Sweden. But of course this doesn’t make it an example of justice being served, justice cannot be merely a coincidence.
Because for all Sweden knew he’d committed even worse offenses abroad, and offering him a blanket guarantee against extradition would effectively mean giving him a get-out-of-jail-free card for those offenses before they even knew what they were?
Accused criminals don’t generally get blanket immunity from unrelated crimes for showing up to their own criminal charges that they absconded from. You don’t get to run away and hide in an embassy while being sought for prosecution and then claim you were in the right because some other law you might have broken elsewhere might get enforced.
It’s ridiculous that people are blaming Sweden for this man’s ability to basically dodge arrest when he’s in another country and breaking the laws of that other country in order to dodge that arrest.
Wild that a guy who – to the best of my recollection – admitted to inserting his dick into someone without their consent and who also admitted to removing a condom during intercourse without permission, somehow still has supporters, in [checks notes] the year 2021.
That’s sexual assault, yo, even if Sweden didn’t quite have laws against it, in virtually every other jurisdiction, this would be considered sexual assault.
I’m not saying that I approve of the Trump administration’s willingness to consider kidnapping or assassinating Assange. That’s pretty horrific, actually. But I am saying maybe people should not stan this utter shitehead.
Activists should always be willing to put their freedom at risk to promote positive change. Many MANY people who gave information to wikileaks did that. Assange was not willing to do the same, because he wanted to skate out on rape charges.
Oh, but boys will be boys! Since he’s out there cosplaying a hacker superhero, that’s all well and good! /s
If that were commonplace then a person could commit a murder in the US, flee to Canada, commit a lesser crime there, flee Canada for the UK, then cut a deal to face charges for the Canadian crime only under the condition they would never be extradited to face the murder charges. It would actually incentivize lesser crimes to escape accountability for major crimes.
Yep, typically espionage is a political charge that is outside the scope of extradition treaties. Unfortunately for Assange he decided to hightail it to the UK where there is more flexibility on the issue when it comes to extraditing to the US.
Assange would presumably have been way safer from extradition to the USA in a Swedish jail than in a UK jail. This applies especially in 2021 when the UK has all sorts of incentives to try to be nice to the USA.
Having said that, assassinating Assange would have been a monumentally stupid and ill-advised idea on the USA’s part because all it would have achieved is to cement the guy’s status as a martyr to the cause, when in fact these days he is mostly a whiny douchebag asshole. The powers-that-be should simply set him free and allow him to fade away into well-deserved insignificance just so our attention is no longer sidetracked from other things by more Assange-related “news”.
Sweden is one of six countries (known as 'Enhanced Opportunity Partners’¹ under the Partnership Interoperability Initiative) that make particularly significant contributions to NATO operations and other Alliance objectives. As such, the country has enhanced opportunities for dialogue and cooperation with the Allies.
Sweden participates in NATO planning, exercises, operations, and “peace-keeping missions” around the world, takes part in EU endeavours to build up a multinational “rapid-reaction force”, and avails itself of NATO’s cooperation in ensuring the security of the Baltic Sea region. It goes out of its way to ensure that its capabilities, procedures, and military hardware are compatible with what NATO uses. Etc.
Sweden may not officially be a member of NATO but they’re so closely aligned with NATO that it makes little difference in practice.
OTOH, if you want to gauge the influence that the USA has over actual NATO member countries, check out Turkey and its recent antics.
More directly, it would have been a stupid move because it would have massively pissed off Australia and the UK. According to the Yahoo article:
“There was a discussion with the Brits about turning the other cheek or looking the other way when a team of guys went inside and did a rendition,” said a former senior counterintelligence official. “But the British said, ‘No way, you’re not doing that on our territory, that ain’t happening.’”
And that was just the response to a possible kidnapping.
There was that time Sweden did a speed walk amendment to their Constitution under pressure from the US, on behalf of the Church of Scientology. (Something Assange would have heard of.)
I don’t know Sweden’s process of Constitutional amendment, but I doubt it could have been done at express speed without everyone involved, of whatever party and jurisdiction, realizing that it had to be done and signing off without delay.
Could be that they don’t give a shit about revealing the secrets of authoritarian states under Assange. No system of oppression in the modern era that secrets can’t get out. None. People always know, and can always leak. They CHOOSE not to do so, for one reason or another. One example, the singer and socialist Paul Robeson KNEW about the gulag system under Stalin, as he had Russian friends who TOLD him what was going on. But he made the decision NOT to reveal that information.
Assange may not be every Swede’s most popular house guest, but compared to the “Church” of Scientology he’s probably the equivalent of fluffy kittens and beer.
I can’t find anything about the purported “speed walk amendment”, but there have been a few prominent court cases in Sweden involving the CoS – one about a Swedish newspaper publishing some very unflattering remarks about the organisation, and another about an “e-meter” advertisement that according to the Swedish consumer-protection ombudsperson made inappropriate claims. Both went all the way up to the European Commission of Human Rights and were eventually decided against the CoS. US influence doesn’t seem to be evident in either of them. Today the CoS isn’t exactly big in Sweden.
What happeed was that Zenon Panoussis sent secret scientology documents to the Swedish parliament, which gave the public a right to access them as according to Swedish law almost everything sent to parliament is public. The scientologist were obviously not happy, and even if few directly supported the scientologists it was seen as a loophole, something not intended by the laws, to use parliament to disseminate private information not intended for it. The Swedish government solved the conflict by putting a ‘secret’ label on the document. A somewhat controversial solution, but there was no change in our constitution.
I suspect our government wasn’t entirely displeased with Assange fleeing the country. If USA had requested an extradition, whatever decision was made would have made Sweden look bad.
