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Comment by ageofwant | Hacker News Reader

It was blindingly obvious that it was. Sweden's reputation took a huge hit because of this incident, and rightly so. They should have resolved the matter within 6 months. But it became such a hot potato that they were willing to sacrifice a man's live, and demonstrated to the world that principles and truth is inconsequential when the bully is sitting on your chest. The stench of this shit will cling to Sweden for generations.

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Whether Swedens's reputation took a hit is a matter of opinion.

If he was innocent why didn't he go back to Sweden and face the charges?

All the stuff about the risk of US extraditing him in nonsense, they'd find it easier to do from the UK.

All he did is use political asylum to avoid facing charges of a sexual assault.

"All he did is use political asylum to avoid facing charges of a sexual assault."

All they did was use sexual assault charges in order to force him into political asylum.

He was quite happy to use the judicial system until it ruled against his case…

At the time, Sweden was a better candidate for extradition because it has less limitations on extradition than UK in Assange's case (because he is a Commonwealth citizen).

As for the 'if he was innocent', I see this argument quite often, and I have only this to say: his self-imposed punishment of being locked up in a closet for 5 years is worse than any possible punishment he would have received for the crime he was accused of. So tell me, if he was only looking to avoid punishment for the crime he commited, why did he impose an even worse punishment on himself?

Because he's a narcissist and martyrdom suits his ego

(and perhaps he figured it would come to exile in an embassy, or for so long)

So, for negative conclusions about Assange we need to apply Occam's razor (if he's innocent why didn't he turn himself in), but for positive conclusions about him we need to avoid that and invent more and more complex, evasive answers?

Thank you for your help in getting president Donald Trump elected.

Sincerely,

A Russian Bot

Gitmo was and is still full of innocent people. Just sayin.

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