The Ecudardian embassy/Assange demanded from the Swedes that they agree to something that they legally cannot agree to before interviewing him. It's not really fair to blame the Swedish authorities for that.
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.
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...