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Comment by eof | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the current political reputation of USA and Trump will play into Assange dodging extradition.

That doesn't really bear on the independence of the US courts which would be the main issue, and they have recently proved themselves quite independent of an often opposed to the will of the president and political interference.

He will argue that the prosecution itself is political. That US courts might take a dim view of a political prosecution seems neither here nor there- if the underlying prosecution were shown to be political, then I can't see the UK courts allowing the extradition.

It might. Part of Ecuador's public justification for kicking Assange out was that it had received a "verbal" pledge [0] from the U.S. and the UK that the U.S. would not be seeking the death penalty. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who apparently agreed to this, is resigning. In 2010 [1], Trump commented that "there should be like death penalty or something" for Wikileaks. But obviously things have changed since then, and he wasn't a public official at the time.

[0] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-gave-verbal-pledge-death-...

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/politics/kfile-trump-wikileak...

The US cannot seek the death penalty for people extradited from the EU.

Well ok, they technically can break their own treaties but then no EU nation will ever extradite to them again. And many other countries require similar assurances which would now be worthless.

Incidentally, the maximum penalty for the charges is five years, which is far short of a death sentence.

He can face more charges later, possibly more are already under seal. It is very unlikely he will face capital punishment, there is also legal precedent from the '60s in federal cases that makes it so.

He cannot. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review...

> Extradition is prohibited by statute if:

> ...

> there are no speciality arrangements with the requesting country – ‘speciality’ requires that the person must be dealt with in the requesting state only for the offences for which they have been extradited (except in certain limited circumstances)

Here's the relevant law: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/section/95

Incidentally has the US filed its formal extradition paperwork yet? We can only speculate what charges Assange will face in US court until that document is filed.

The official charges will probably be put online as part of court transcripts eventually but I'd expect a journalist (or even Assange's lawyer) will post it sooner.

However it looks like the US indictment[0] is more or less the same as the formal charges will be, considering the exact same maximum sentence as for the indictment was stated at the UK hearing (five years).

[0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481...

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