Julian Assange 'disappointed' as sex assault case dropped
bbc.com
bbc.com
If you think of Sweden as ABBA, think again:
"In December 2010, The Independent revealed that the two governments had discussed his onward extradition to the US."
"The rendition and subsequent torture of two Egyptian political refugees in 2001 was condemned by the UN Committee against Torture, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch; the complicity and duplicity of the Swedish state are documented in successful civil litigation"
http://johnpilger.com/articles/assange-the-untold-story-of-a...
The "Chinese" certainly don't have too hard of time getting good info (OPM hack, etc), at least going by the way you hear the cries of fire in the crowded theatre of what passes for journalism and news.
Enemy of my enemy, and all that.
Onward extradition would have been far more complicated via Sweden as the UK would have had to approve it as well. Why not just have the US extradite Assange from the UK to the USA directly? If the CIA was going to concoct a rape claim why not make it a little more than "she was asleep"? If the USA is ruthless in the pursuit of its enemies (except of course Snowdon is a US citizen who, rightly or wrongly, very much did break US law) then why has it been so decidedly non ruthless in the pursuit of Assange?
Weeeell, maybe because Sweden is a democracy and has no "authorities" that can guarantee the outcome of hypothetical future legal proceedings.
Also, note that Assange was obviously in Sweden when the rape allegedly happened, and only became conveniently afraid of extraditiom to US after those allegations surfaced.
An extradition is not a legal proceeding, it's a diplomatic one and being a democracy they can very well agree not to engage in a diplomatic exchange beforehand.
Well, I don't know what treaties are to the United Kingdom and Sweden, so I can't speak to the relevant matter, but there is a general sense (insofar as "international law" can be thought of as an actual concrete thing) that treaties are laws. To the United States, for example, treaties are explicitly treated as laws (see http://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/18-treaties-...). Most other countries take their treaty obligations very seriously, although the actual mechanics depend on each country's legal/political system.
Source: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&art...
The allegations surfaced in August 2010, four months after Collateral Murder and one month after the Afghan War Diary was released. Also earlier that year the diplomatic cable releases began, and while most hadn't been released yet by August, some had, and they were a recently-known quantity by then.
The timing of the allegations was awfully convenient. Far more "convenient" than Assange's paranoia.
[1] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html
http://johnpilger.com/articles/assange-the-untold-story-of-a...
OTOH we have Assange saying "this Swedish official refused both", which could be conflicting, but it's pretty vague.
The closest I can see to this is:
> From the beginning I offered simple solutions. Come to the embassy to take my statement or promise not to send me to the United States.
which doesn't contradict the Swedes saying they've tried and failed. I guess you can argue that it's disingenuous.
Maybe some Swedish comedian (or Sacha Baron Cohen in a blonde wig with a fake Swedish accent) will rock up to the Ecuadorian embassy, claim to be a Swedish prosecutor and ask to be let in and we'll finally learn the truth.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/10/us-sweden-assange-...
> The Ecuadorian embassy also said in its statement that no representative from Sweden has turned up on their steps to interview Assange.
> Karin Rosander, spokeswoman for Swedish Prosecution Authority, said a prosecutor had been to London in June, ready to question the Australian, but lacking necessary permissions, she had to return home without visiting the embassy.
So the prosecutor flew to London but wasn't willing to just take a taxi over to the embassy and knock on the door?
"Sweden’s justice ministry said it welcomed Ecuador’s acceptance of its offer of negotiations, but the Guardian understands the ministry rejected a proposal by Quito to meet this week because officials were on holiday"
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/11/julian-assange-...
I'm curious what that was.
From: http://jackofkent.com/2015/08/assange-the-law-of-limitation-... and http://www.thelocal.se/20150807/sweden-hits-out-at-illegal-e...
Basically they want the Government to interfere in another body's decision. Could you imagine if the someone asked the US government (or Obama) to agree that the Supreme Court will find a certain way?
There is a good writeup from a British legal blogger at http://jackofkent.com/2015/08/assange-the-law-of-limitation-...
It's worth picking out as well that Assange faces British legal issues from breaching his bail conditions. The bail set during his very lengthy legal process which validated the Swedish process as just. The British legal system isn't perfect but when you're a high profile individual with access to plenty of fine legal minds it's about as good as you're going to get.
The problem for Assange is that "but the Americans might try to extradite me, and the Swedish and British courts might suddenly become supine" isn't a valid reason to not be extradited.
They specifically didn't look at anything other than the allegations made on the European Arrest Warrant. From the High Court decision:
> In respect of each offence, Mr Assange contended that the court should examine the underlying material from the prosecution file... [W]hat was provided contained the principal statements of the complainants and other material which made it obvious that the conduct of which he was accused was not fairly and accurately described in the EAW. [...]
> In our view, it is not apposite to take into account the material in the prosecution file. [...]
Although to be clear, there are no rape charges involved in the Assange case. The crime he is accused of in Sweden is not even illegal in some countries.
"There is reason to believe that a crime has been committed," she says in a statement. "Considering information available at present, my judgement is that the classification of the crime is rape."
Wikipedia [4] gives the Swedish term as "våldtäkt", which Google translates as "Rape":
"On 18 November 2010, the Stockholm District Court ordered Assange detained in absentia, on request by prosecutor Marianne Ny. As basis for the ruling, the court stated Julian Assange to be suspected on reasonable grounds to have committed rape (våldtäkt), unlawful coercion (olaga tvång), and three cases of sexuellt ofredande — which has been variously translated as "sexual molestation", "sexual assault", "sexual misconduct", "sexual annoyance", "sexual unfreedom", "sexual misdemeanour", and "sexual harassment" [3]
(The above, to be clear, are allegations).
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11949341
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33907874
[3] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/13/julian-assange-...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...
Your [4]:
> The decision was appealed by Assange on 22 November to the Svea Court of Appeal, which two days later upheld the warrant but lowered it to suspicion of rape of a lesser degree, unlawful coercion and two cases of sexual molestation rather than three.
However, I think we can all agree that it doesn't do the conversation any justice to discuss it in such a way as to give people the impression that he held somebody down or used violence or anything. All he did was something creepy and gross, and the only reason the woman brought it up with the cops was because she wanted him to get an STD test.
Except that if you'd read further (or not taken the Wikileaks edited highlights) the court immediately goes on to say "Nonethless, as the material was put before us de bene esse, we will express our view on what difference it would have made if we have taken it into account in determining whether the description of the conduct was fair and accurate."
The court did specifically look at whether the offences alleged would constitute crimes in the UK for instance in para 96: "In our view, therefore, the description was fair and accurate; the offence was, for the reasons we have given an offence under the law of England and Wales; the requirement of dual criminality was satisfied".
On the rape question in para 109: "In our view on this basis what was described in the EAW was rape." it even goes on "A requirement of proof of coercion, if that is what Swedish law requires, is a more onerous test for the prosecution to satisfy than the test for consent in the 2003 Act".
So the court went "you showed us this, we don't need it but we're going to point out how it doesn't help your case anyway". Assange got spanked by the British Courts, repeatedly, who were convinced that he had to go to Sweden to assist in the investigation into serious offences. Despite the best efforts of some very experienced and serious lawyers no Human Rights angle was found to stop it either.
I wonder what recognizing that asylum would do to Sweden's ability to prosecute. If Assange (or Ecuador) is, in effect, saying "you can talk to him about it, but you can't prosecute him for it", that's a pretty cheap trick to avoid the charge.
But even if it's only talking about whether it's valid for Assange to claim asylum to avoid extradition to the US, why should Sweden have to agree to that before investigating a sexual assault accusation?
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&art...
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/11/julian-assange-...
Ecuador had insisted on negotiating a specific agreement with Sweden over the conditions for questioning Assange in the embassy, which would be contrary to the Swedish constitution, Riddselius said last week.
She said Quito had also demanded that Sweden confer upon Assange the same status of political refugee bestowed on him by Ecuador, which had created a fresh obstacle to agreement. This appeared to prompt a statement by the Ecuadorian embassy on Monday: “At no point has the Republic of Ecuador asked the Kingdom of Sweden to grant Mr Assange asylum”.
Particularly in a case like Assange's, where there are accusations of propaganda and lies aimed at multiple players, I dislike repeating unnecessarily vague claims.
(As for the larger issues, I have no useful facts that would allow me to figure out what's going on. But I'd like to avoid muddying the waters any further.)
It is worth reiterating the facts of the case:
1. The Swedish prosecutor refused to question Assange in London for the last 3 years.
2. Sweden’s Court of Appeal rebuked the prosecutor Marianne Ny in November 2014 for breaching her duty to progress the preliminary investigation.
3. The prosecutor only changed her mind in March this year which left little time to resolve these difficulties.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/swedish-prosecutors-slammed-victim...
This should have been in the headline.
This seems significant too.
Wikileaks published a cable from 2012 detailing Ecuador's invitation to question Assange in the embassy. What took Sweden so long?
Update:
> “As a condition to let Assange be heard they [Ecuador] have demanded a special agreement in which Sweden recognizes asylum status for Assange. But the government cannot make such a commitment because it is the Migration Board which decides whether or not a person has the right to asylum.”
From: http://jackofkent.com/2015/08/assange-the-law-of-limitation-... and http://www.thelocal.se/20150807/sweden-hits-out-at-illegal-e...
If Sweden was serious about getting this sorted out then they could have done so years ago. Instead they've been unusually inflexible about the whole affair which makes the whole thing smell even more than it did at the beginning.
(I don't have a dog in this fight, I just find the whole situation interesting.)
(While I admire the work WikiLeaks has done, I find Assange to be an egotistical idiot but given the number of unusual events that have occurred during this whole affair one can't help being interested.)
Because the actual headline doesn't support or agree with the SJW agenda.
Neither woman claimed she had been raped. Indeed, both have denied they were raped and one of them has since tweeted, "I have not been raped."
-from http://johnpilger.com/articles/assange-the-untold-story-of-a...
If rape was defined just be whether or not the victim felt it was rape, the victim could change their mind after-the-fact and Assange would go from not-rapist to rapist (and possibly to not-rapist again) based on not on their own actions by based on someone's feelings of guilt, anger, intimidation, or forgiveness a month from the act. This only makes any sense if you view crimes as being individual injuries to one person. But that isn't how criminal law works. If I walk up to you in the middle of a hackathon and stab you in the forearm, I have indeed harmed you and you can sue me for damages in civil court. However, I have also harmed society, specifically that part of society where people assume they can go to hackathon a without being stabbed.
A great source to learn about the fundamentals of criminal law and criminal procedure is this page maintained by a former prosecutor who now works as s defense attorney in NYC. http://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5
All of this should also apply on a smaller scale to communities with Codes of Conduct: http://thebias.com/2015/08/12/take-responsibility-for-handli...
EDIT: I am not a lawyer and comments from a random person on the Internet do not establish an a attourney-client relationship. For actual advice about criminal or international law, please contact Nathan Burney, an actual lawyer who also happens to maintain the illustrated educational resource that I've linked to and I think is fantastic.
Plus your stabbing example doesn't explain anything since you would have indeed physically harmed someone which is against the law in most jurisdictions. Considering your rape/not-rape example, a better example is that you would be arrested for thinking about stabbing someone in the arm as you are placing your hand on that arm.
If I were on the jury for either of these examples, supposed victim says no crime committed and the only evidence is the accusation from the state? There's no way you could convince me to vote to convict.
If the victim says that the accused did X, Y, and then Z, that is a statement of fact about what happened. If the victim then says that he doesn't think that X, Y, and Z constitute a crime, that is a statement about the law..which might just be incorrect.
* except for strict liability crimes like speeding
However, if the "victim" says there was no rape, and has never said so, then the whole premise, including both the intent and the act, is unseated.
Disclaimer: I am no lawyer, and do not know much about this specific case. These are just my intuitions about rape laws. I also believe that if the laws, in fact, are much different from these ideas in spirit, they are SORELY off-base.
I am simply saying that in a criminal case if the only evidence presented is the accusation of the prosecution, especially if the supposed victim proclaims they are not a victim of the alleged crime, then I will find it hard to convict if I'm on that jury. Regardless of what the law says or the alleged intent of the accused.
In cases that any law can provide a conviction with no evidence other than an accusation from the state then that's an extremely bad law and should be stricken.
That sounds like an interesting theory on Crime and Punishment.
Edit: If you feel I've misunderstood the parent comment, please provide a better explanation.
This concept is called "mens rea" or "guilty mind". A statute for each crime should define what type of mens rea it requires. As an example, generally murder requires an intent to kill or seriously injure someone. Manslaughter only requires a reckless disregard for whether or not you've harmed someone. However, some crimes do not have a mens rea requirement. They are usually minor, like speeding.
For a better explanation of mens rea, see this part of the linked site: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=173
EDIT: For an interesting example of when the mens rea requirements for a crime are unclear, see Elonis v. US: a free speech case involving intimidating speech posted to Facebook. http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/elonis-v-united-s...
For instance, murder requires both intent and action but manslaughter only requires action. Which leads to the canonical law school example of a hit man who shoots his victim with the intent to kill him but the victim does not die. Mistakenly thinking the victim is dead, the hitman leaves the body in a deserted spot in the woods whereupon the victim finally dies of exposure. The hitman technically did not commit murder because when he shot the victim, he intended to kill him but did not actually succeed. However, when he did finally kill the victim (by leaving him out to die of exposure), he had no intention of killing the victim (because the hitman thought the victim was already dead).
Of course, this is all theoretical and if you did try to pull off a crime by manipulating mens and actus rea, you would find prosecutors very creative in finding ways to throw the book at you.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/londons-police-is...
The combined sentence is capped to the maximum for the most severe charge plus 3 years (when the most severe max is at least 4 years). In this case the most severe one is "lesser degree rape", for which the max is 4 years (that is still open).
Based on what I've read about the case, I would have been very surprised if the actual sentence was anywhere near the maximum. Probably more like a year for the rape and another for the other three charges, if they even hold up in court.
I wonder how much pressure they have experienced from the US and EU over granting him asylum.
http://reinounido.embajada.gob.ec/statement-by-the-embassy-o...
But that's probably not allowed in the legal framework.
What makes this whole process so strange is the fact that there's multiple countries involved. Each country has it's own idea of human rights, it's own conception of judicial process. Judicial process in one country can easily resemble a human rights violation in another. It's one of the reasons political asylum exists. Ecuador granted Assange asylum because they recognize the possibility of Assange being extradited to a country where he's never resided for a political crime and possibly tortured for is a grave rights violation.
Ecuador is now responsible for ensuring that those rights aren't violated. They're the one's laying out the conditions, not Assange. It would make Ecuador look bad if they allowed Sweden to take charge of him, and then he ended up being extradited to the US by an organ that doesn't recognize his asylum status in another country.
Everybody involved is just trying to do their jobs, it just takes a long time to work everything out because the legal systems involved were never intended to work like this. If it were just one system, it could work as designed.
I'd be shocked if Assange didn't agree to them.
It's almost as if he has some ... "rights", correct? What a concept!
'Swedish prosecutors have been accused of "victimising" Julian Assange after it was revealed they had interviewed 44 people in the UK but were refusing to question the WikiLeaks founder in the London embassy where he is living.' [1]
[1] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/swedish-prosecutors-slammed-victim...
He could have avoided disappointment by allowing the Swedish authorities to question him!
All that time he was stuck in a Norfolk mansion he could have travelled to Sweden been questioned and if he was innocent as he claims be free to travel the world again.
Oh. If only he'd have done this thing that I'm telling you, without mentioning the well known reason why he is against doing that thing!
The UK was happy to extradite him to Sweden, we extradite people to the US as long as they aren't going to be executed. So quite why the UK extraditing him to Sweden who would then extradite him to the US is a plausible conspiracy never really gets explained.
Also weird this wasn't an argument he brought up while fighting the initial extradition to Sweden.
See the case of Gary McKinnon as an example (although McKinnon had much stronger grounds to appeal on than I expect Assange would)
As for the conspiracy theory, maybe it was the product of paranoid thinking. A more obvious conspiracy theory to me is that the US saw an opportunity to smear Assange and lent on Sweden to trump up the charges.
That's a pretty low bar for a smear campaign.
The "special relationship" is not a cover-all term for the US & UK to do anything on a promise like a teen couple in love. It covers a lot of military and trade stuff, which wikileaks is a part of, but in this case Sweden clearly acted as a player in a larger game. Assange seems to have presumed an ulterior motive in the charges brought against him and proceeded accordingly.
The reason he didn't travel to Sweden to just get it over with is because Sweden was planning to extradite him.
> Under Swedish law the issue of a domestic detention order in absentia was a precondition to the issue of an EAW. That order was issued by a court which... had to be satisfied that there was sufficient evidence giving rise to probable cause and that domestic arrest was proportionate.
The Swedish prosecution (a political appointee) is claiming she cannot demonstrate probable cause without interviewing Assange, and yet she refuses to interview him. Leaving aside the absurdity of any reasonable person thinking that any interview will give the Swedish authorities the smoking gun they obviously lack, from a legal standpoint the only sensible explanation for their behavior is that it allows the option of extraditing without public judicial consideration of probable guilt and proportionality of prosecution. Couple that with the very obvious irregularity of the prosecution, the very real prospect of Assange facing indefinite detention in Sweden and the refusal to offer any guarantees against hand-over to the States and there is plenty of evidence that his concerns are very well founded.
The fact that extradition is legally possible and the Swedish prosecution is proceeding against all common reason and established judicial practice in the only way that keeps it possible is very much "probable cause" as regards the motives of the Swedish prosecution and thus constitutes reasonable grounds to believe that Assange's concerns about extradition to the United States are sensible.
The paragraphs are conveniently numbered. Which one discusses extradition to the United States?
Of course, since your objection is disingenuous (you cannot possibly be so naive as to believe that the Swedish prosecutor will publicly state that her goal is to indefinitely detain a suspect), let us just force your actual beliefs into the open: (1) why do you believe that an interview with Assange will provide the Swedish prosecutor evidence to prosecute if she doesn't already have it? (2) why do you coonsider it reasonable to extradite someone who has never been charged with a crime to answer questions instead of asking them over the telephone, Skype or in person?
Not even the UK High Court considered the Swedish position reasonable (see Section 160), so it is hard to imagine any sentient person coming to the opposite conclusion.
However, look at what happened to Snowden, stuck at the Moscow airport, because no country in the world (bar Ecuador and Cuba, I think) was brave enough to take him (fearing US wrath). The pressure from the US was immense.
At some point a plane flying from Moscow to Ecuador (via Paris) was intercepted and forced to land in Vienna, because it was suspected that Snowden was on it. An out-in-your-face violation of international law.
So, it is now completely reasonable to assume that, if "asked", Sweden would extradite Assange to the US, where he is a wanted man.
From The Guardian: "The US government is conducting an active, long-term criminal investigation into WikiLeaks, a federal judge has confirmed in court documents"
Feinstein (and other Congressmen/Senators) wanted Assange – who isn’t even a U.S. citizen and never served in the U.S. Government – prosecuted for espionage for exposing war crimes.
More here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/05/us-government-s...
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/12/dianne-feinste...
It's conspicuous that they didn't.
Prior to that they were dealing with an obstructive, bail jumping individual thumbing their nose at the legal systems of two countries (the UK and Sweden). Assange appealed extradition all the way to the UK Supreme Court then decided he didn't like the outcome, quite why the responsibility is on Sweden to cave to his demands has yet to be explained.
Whilst this is ongoing, there would be risk of US extradition requests were he to leave the embassy (to Sweden or elsewhere). His best strategy is therefore to stay in the embassy for now.
Of course his best strategy is to avoid prosecution. That should mean we condemn him as a hypocrite, instead he has actual supporters blaming the victims!
The initial prosecutor dropped the charges, but another prosecutor with a political background and a radical stance on what should be considered rape appealed that decision and got herself appointed to the case. She then declined multiple requests to schedule another interview with Assange (both in-person and via phone/video conference, which Swedish law allows).
I don't understand how anyone could claim, with the facts we now know, that this case has any merit at all and is more than a politically motivated smear campaign.
So the Swedish courts certainly don't agree that this is a case without merit.
I'm usually the last person to fall for any kind of conspiracy theory, but this case could literally be taken straight from one of Kafka's books. Given all the things we know about this case, and things that went on during the peak of Snowden's story (presidential planes forced to land, among others), it would be naive to think this is not politically orchestrated, and arguing on technicalities plays right into their hands.
Apologists for Sweden never seem to have read the UK high court judgment or seem familiar with the actual legal reasoning behind the extradition request. To secure extradition, the Swedish prosecutor needed to insist that Assange was only wanted for questioning (else they should charge) but since questioning alone is not a sufficient basis for extradition requests they also needed to state it was extremely likely Assange would be arrested once questioned.
It is of course nonsensical for the Swedes to refuse to question Assange in London if speaking to him were at all material to the case. As such, their refusal to do so speaks plainly to the obviously political nature of the persecution.
Extradition is only allowed if it's for a crime that's illegal in both countries. Assange's legal team repeatidly challenged the extradition on the grounds that it wasn't a crime in the UK. The UK legal system consistantly said that it was.
Remember one of the charges/claims is that he had sex with someone who was asleep. That's a crime in the UK and Sweden.
This is the key point that apologists for Sweden miss. The prosecution could have charged Assange and got an extradition warrant that way. They didn't because doing so would have required a court filing and granted Assange rights to a speedy trial and freedom from indefinite detention. Interviewing Assange in London was equally impossible -- once it was done the Swedish prosecutor would have been legally required to either charge Assange or close the case. And charging the case would have required a court filing, etc. etc.....
Arguing that Assange would have been found guilty of rape also shows a lack of knowledge of the case. Despite what you seem to believe (who told you this?) the woman in question was not asleep and has in fact made statements contradicting your claims and accusing the authorities of railroading her. I do not personally know what happened that evening, but her description is striking in showing Assange complying with every request she made. The only possible breach of consent lies in the possibility that Assange broke a condom deliberately, but this is apparently contradicted by forensic evidence which shows the breakage was due to wear and tear. Add on the woman's affectionate treatment of Assange both before and after the night in question, and the way her change in behavior followed her realization that he was sleeping with someone else, and it seems rather obvious that while Assange may have been a cad the rape allegations simply don't hold water.
The UK legal system says he has. In the High Court judgement[1], the judge says:
> 153. ... there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced. If the commencement of criminal proceedings were to be viewed as dependent on whether a person had been charged, it would be to look at Swedish procedure through the narrowest of common law eyes. Looking at it through cosmopolitan eyes on this basis, criminal proceedings have commenced against Mr Assange.
> despite what you seem to believe (who told you this?) the woman in question was not asleep
Assange is/was wanted in Sweden for 4 cases, with at least 2 different women. One of which is the charge that[1]:
> 3. ... deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep. was in a helpless state.
Is he guilty? I don't know, that's up to the Swedish courts to decide.
[1] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html
> The UK legal system says...
Section 153 is quoted out of context (it is a response to Section 129, not a finding of guilt). Sections 124 and 125 also state clearly that the only things being considered are whether the allegations may constitute parallel crimes. Objections on factual grounds (the woman was not asleep, provided consent, relationship context, etc.) "are matters of evidence which would be highly relevant at trial. But it is not for this court to asses whether the allegations may fail." (Section 125)
> one of which is the charge that[1]:
Note the sleight of hand. There have been no charges.
> Is he guilty? I don't know, that's up to the Swedish courts to decide.
The Swedish courts are not involved until Assange is charged. Until he is charged he will be imprisoned and face indefinite detention. This inconvenient point is of course ignored.
If RMC was honest and believed Assange should face trial he should be demanding that Assange is actually charged with a crime. Instead, his defense of prosecution either makes him corrupt (for demanding prosecution without reasonable evidence of wrongdoing), an obvious fool (for believing Assange will incriminate himself) or an apologist for what is clearly an abuse of due process, basic human rights and the welfare of the British and Swedish taxpayers.
Yes, Assange hasn't been tried. The courts want to try him, but he's avoiding them. Yes, that High Court judgement is not a trial, but Assanges challenge to the Swedish extradition request. Which was upheld, and found to be valid and legal under UK law.
> he should be demanding that Assange is actually charged with a crime
He has been charged.
"Sweden has yet to formally charge Assange with any offense." - The Guardian
"Sweden has yet to formally indict Assange." - New York Times
"Mr Assange has not been formally charged with any offense." - BBC
"Sweden does not have a time limit on how long the pre-trial stage will last or how long a person can be held in pre-trial detention.... only when an indictment is brought does the suspect acquire the formal rights of the accused." - United Nations UPR http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session...
It's almost like directly translating a word from one language and one country's legal system to a different language and a different legal system can be misleading.
If only there were some sort of body of legal experts who decided this, some sort of "court" of people to "judge" meanings.
If there was "some sort of body of legal experts" that... wait a minute... there IS and they condemned Sweden for its routine indefinite detention of people who have yet to be formally charged IN SWEDEN.
Truly baffling why you think a British ruling on the narrow validity of an extradition request translates into formal rights in a foreign criminal system where the defendant has not been charged and the prosecutor has stated there is not enough evidence to charge him.
There was a fairly high-profile money laundering case in the conservative party in Germany at the end of the 90's. It involved a German arms trader who lived in Canada. They wanted to question him and, had he been in Germany, he would presumably have been arrested. Alas, he was in Canada. So they made the effort to travel and question him there, if I remember correctly. (But eventually he was extradited.)