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Comment by agd | Hacker News Reader

Pretty outrageous that the prosecutor hasn't questioned him in London by now. This has been a huge police cost and is a great disservice to the alleged victims who would surely want the case to progress quickly.

I haven't seen any plausible reason why the prosecutor couldn't question him in London, especially given the exceptional circumstances of the case.

edit: Yes, I have seen the reasons put forward by the SPA mentioned in the article, but these complications were easily foreseeable and it is clear the Swedish prosecutor did not allow enough time to resolve them. Indeed the prosecutor claimed until this march (at which point she changed her mind) that it would be completely impossible to interview Assange at the embassy.

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The article covered that about half way down - the short version is that the Swedish authorities tried to interview him in London but Ecuador wouldn't let him be interviewed by the Swedish authorities unless Sweden agreed on a pre-condition that they couldn't lawfully agree to.

> In March 2015, however, the SPA changed its position and requested to interview Assange in London. A spokesperson for Assange welcomed the development and said Assange wanted to be interviewed.

> This was followed in June 2015 by a formal request to the English and Ecuadorean authorities.

> But the SPA were not able to proceed as Ecuador did not give the requisite permissions. The trip to London by a Swedish prosecutor had to be abandoned.

It should be noted that both sides blame the other for the delay.

It is also self-evident that this process was (foreseeably) complex and the Swedish prosecutor left it until the last moment to sort out.

Did you read the article? It's not normally acceptable to demand to be questioned in another country, and when the prosecutor agreed to make an exception, a new (and impossible) condition was added. This is what the author of the article called "calling the bluff".

Yes I have read the article.

The Swedish prosecutor has had at least 3 years to organize questioning in the embassy but has left it until the last moment. Now it appears there is not enough time to sort out the (obviously complex) details. Whose fault it that?

The obvious counter-argument to 'calling the bluff' is that the prosecutor has kept the case in limbo for 5 years and then left it too late to organise questioning at the embassy. This allows the prosecutor to save face, and maximises Swedish US relations.

Since when have suspected sexual offenders been the ones to set the rules on when and where they're interviewed?

Assange has played his supporters and the 'Sweden are going to extradite me to the US' line to avoid facing being questioned over his behaviour

Assange is not setting the rules. The Ecuardorians set the rules for questioning in their embassy and the Swedish have no rules against questioning suspects abroad if necessary.

Assange is trying to set the rules…

He only claimed asylum when British courts rules he should go to Sweden.

If he was innocent why did he argue against going to Sweden?

He was in greater risk of being extradited to the US from the UK than he was from Sweden!

> If he was innocent why did he argue against going to Sweden?

Because if he was innocent, why should some random person in Sweden, in office or not, be allowed to mess up his travel schedule, just because they want him for "questioning"?

If St. Kitts and Nevis were to file an Interpol Red Notice tomorrow, seeking a person going by the alias "youngtaff" on hackernews: would you drop everything and fly there to sort out whatever mess they've made?

There seem to this normally accepted statement that Sweden do not "normally" perform questioning in other nations, but doing just a lazy google search I find plenty of examples where Swedish police has ventured to other nations to conduct questioning with suspects, victims or relatives. Normally those news articles are about murders, but that is the focus of most news articles when dealing about crimes.

I would be very interested to see statistics on how often police from Scandinavian countries visit each other, interview criminals that jump borders, or simply ask the local police to do the questioning. I personally doubt its such a rare and exceptional occurrence, as I saw a article where police from south of Sweden was lobbying to address speeders who cross the bridge between Denmark and Sweden.

Dude, it's not like Assange is chained to a pipe inside the Ecuatorian embassy, he has been free to get a flight to Sweden for YEARS.

His continual refusal to do so is not a very convincing reason to concede to his demands, to quote Green:

"It is not for any person accused of rape and sexual assault to dictate the terms on which he is investigated, whether it be Assange or otherwise."

Some of the complications that have arisen, providing assurances that cannot be given under Swedish law, might well have been foreseen as part of the near futility of the entire attempt to get access to Assange.

Also, we can be fairly sure that Assange has no credible evidence for an extradition to the US being planned, as else he would have shared it as soon as it came in his possession.

This is covered in the article. Sweden has now (as of March) said they would be willing to interview in London.

http://www.aklagare.se/In-English/Media/News-in-English1/The...

http://www.thelocal.se/20150618/swedish-prosecutor-cancels-a...

What everyone with that point of view means is this: the prosecutor has had 5 years to fix a potential complex setup but waited for the very last minute.

> Pretty outrageous that the prosecutor hasn't questioned him in London by now. This has been a huge police cost and is a great disservice to the alleged victims who would surely want the case to progress quickly.

Which is Assange's fault, as he's fleeing justice at the same time as demanding others face justice.

I can't stand the hypocritical bastard, he's damaged his movement more than anyone else ever could.

But what if he's right about the risk of being extradited from Sweden to the US? If that happens, the US will surely be far more brutal and punish him for Wikileaks things. We've seen them to it to Manning and threaten it to Snowden.

Then perhaps he should become a martyr instead of a pariah. I certainly don't think that he can morally justify some of his Wikileaks actions and the resultant drama around it has completely ruined the cause.

He has done more to harm the movement for greater transparency than anything else. There are people who quote him saying he doesn't mind the death of civilians as they are complicit due to their actions. This is the motivation used by terorrists.

The only exceptional circumstance is Assange's arrogant assertion that he deserves special treatment. No reason why the Swedish justice system should kowtow to his demands.

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