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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

While I am saddened by this decision I hope he now is able to get proper medical care and fight the case against extradition. As long as he is not on London streets the US can't just snatch him up. [1] [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Omar_case

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There may not be and extradition case. It doesn't seem like Sweden is still keen, and on balance, the US mightn't want him either at this point.

It's not a guaranteed conviction. The president has an embarrassing YouTube reel where he "loves WikiLeaks" 50 times. It'll drag the contents of contentious leaks back into the spotlight. It could be more convenient to let it go.

> The president has an embarrassing YouTube reel where he "loves WikiLeaks" 50 times. It'll drag the contents of contentious leaks back into the spotlight. It could be more convenient to let it go.

But America isn't a dictatorship so the decision isn't exactly up to him. There's a whole legal system operating under their own framework that the president doesn't have much control over.

He can always issue a pardon, which would end the entire thing.

Thanks; today I learned the US President can pardon a non-US-citizen. Your post made me go look it up. I would never have thought...

The President can pardon all crimes against the United States- the citizenship of the perpetrator doesn't come into it.

Only federal crimes though, so if a state picked up any charges against him the president can't do much about it.

US States can't request extradition though because they can't maintain diplomatic relations internationally.

It is an extradition case: the US have made an extradition request for conspiracy to hack (only). Assange is currently held for that as well as the Bail Act offence.

Has that request been made yet?

Yeah, Scotland Yard confirmed it about an hour after his rearrest.

The President can ask the DOJ to drop things, but they don't "have to" listen.

>There may not be and extradition case.

You should probably let the Met know. They seem to think there is one.

>UPDATE: Julian Assange arrest.

>Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court later today (Thursday, 11 April).

http://news.met.police.uk/news/update-arrest-of-julian-assan...

Has the US ever “snatched up” someone from the middle of London?

[redacted]

Not in London, but GP linked two examples (one in Macedonia and one in Italy). There are also many other examples of CIA-run extraordinary rendition[1].

However in these cases they were both done with co-operation from the local police (or military) and government as part of the US "war on terror" (abductions without local government approval have also happened in the past -- Mossad did this in the 1960s[2] -- but I don't recall a US example).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann#Capture

Where is the cooperation here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Omar_case I really fail to see it.

In the second sentence:

> The case was picked by the international media as one of the better-documented cases of extraordinary rendition carried out in a joint operation by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) [emphasis added]

A joint operation implies there was co-operation. I'm not saying the US has never conducted extraordinary rendition without local government involvement, just that the two examples aren't like that.

You are right then. I missed it because I was focusing on the way the Italian judiciary handled the case afterwards, which indicates the clandestine nature of the co-operation.

Going to throw out there that they've done the same in Sweden as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...

They've done it in countries to which they are way less "aligned" than the UK [0] and the UK has historically been the US's strongest partner on all things "national security/terrorism".

In that context, I wouldn't really be surprised if it's happened before, tho the blowback potential, if it should become public, would be massive so it will probably be kept under extremely tight wraps.

[0] https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/20-extraordina...

For whatever reason, the UK has been extremely against extraordinary rendition despite being aligned with the US.

It was a decent sized scandal that rendition flights had even just refueled in Diego Garcia (a UK territory).

These sorts of things can't be looked at in terms of broad 'alignment'.

Come on, they also went through Prestwick Airport, just outside Glasgow.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-told-to-stay-off-u...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/29/msps-demand-...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22680924

Word, I didn't see that last year.

So yes, even just refueling is something the MSPs demand action over.

Not sure why that's worthy of "come on" like it invalidates my point.

>even just refueling is something the MSPs demand action over.

Yep, Members of the Scottish Parliament have been pissed off. Scottish police were blocked from doing anything however. Westminster unfortunately rides roughshod over both of them and has been a supporter of the rendition flights, as noted in the article from The Times.

>"The CIA has been accused of using Scottish airports to facilitate the transfer of terrorism suspects to overseas black sites for interrogation and torture.

>A report by Westminster’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) says that MI5 or MI6 was involved in at least 50 rendition operations."

Yes, it's contentious and causes a huge deal everytime it hits the media, but ultimately they allow refueling.

They don't allow extraordinary rendition starting from the UK.

We do grab people and then give them to the USA, help set up the bases, let our airports be used for the flights, our officers take part in interrogations and our soldiers guard the whole thing while blocking our own police from investigating it, but no, we don't generally practice extraordinary rendition starting from the UK and ending up in the USA, for one thing our diplomatic agreements and cooperation mean it isn't neccessary.

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