Can the US President give a guarantee that the Supreme Court will decide a case in a certain manner? Because that's what that means.
Sweden is a country with laws, and an independent judiciary. Sweden has extradition treaty with the US (as do many people). If the USA follows a procedure, then the Swedish courts must hand someone over (and vice versa). That's what the (Swedish) law says. You're asking the Swedish government to guarantee that the Swedish courts won't decide a particular case in a particular manner.
I am not asking for anything, but as others have pointed out it is totally within the Swedish governments prerogative to deny the extradition of Assange to the USA. If they were truly interested in the Swedish case they wanted to question him about they would have come out and said this long ago.
If Julian has committed a crime in Sweden then let him be tried and sentenced in Sweden, but when the USA treats people like Chelsea Manning was/is treated then I think Julian has a point.
As an Australian I am most disappointed in how the Australian government has failed Julian. They should be pushing for a resolution of the whole situation yet they have basically washed their hands of him. No matter what he has done he is still an Australian in trouble overseas and the Australian government should be helping.
In Sweden it's the Government (prime minister, effectively) that decides, not any court.
The idea that there's some sort of independent, non-partisan process for extraditions is completely, totally false. It is entirely political.
Only in one direction. If the Supreme Court blocks an extradition as illegal under Swedish law then the Government cannot overrule that judgement (though I suppose they could change the law and ask the country to refile the extradition request). They can however refuse to extradite someone even if the courts rule the extradition legal.
So the catch-22 is that he says he is happy to go to Sweden in case he is given guarantees of not being extradited, but no such guarantee is possible under Swedish law.
What swedish authorities could (and should) do in this situation is just make some really broad statements about how even though they have agreements with the USA, no one would ever be extradited from Sweden to any country in case they risked facing the death penalty and/or are whistle blowers.
Capital punishment is against the European Convention of Human Rights. No EU (well Council of Europe) country is legally allowed extradite anyone where they would face the death penalty. That's been the law for years. There has never been any question of Assange being extradited and executed, because you can't extradite someone in that case.
Cripes, even Russia has stopped capital punishment because of the ECHR.
That is, claimed to stop:
Abu Salem was actually extradited from Portugal to India before this treaty existed
EU countries also extradite to the US. But only after the US assure that in the specific case the death penalty will be neither sought nor imposed.
> The treaty with Portugal comes after India accepted its two main conditions that the extradited person would not face either a death sentence or life imprisonment beyond 25 years.
Political fallout from actions taken in the war against whistleblowers has so far been quite minimal.
There is no legal impediment to for the Swedish government preventing them from refusing extradition. What makes you think there is?