Hacker News Reader

The author here is painting the UK as rolling over and doing whatever the US says, rather than applying proper justice.

This is why people were skeptical of the Sweden charges. It was commonly believed that the point of those charges (whether they were true or not) was to get Assange to Sweden, at which point Sweden could roll over, do the US's bidding and extradite him to the US.

View on HN

> It was commonly believed that the point of those charges (whether they were true or not) was to get Assange to Sweden, at which point Sweden could roll over, do the US's bidding and extradite him to the US.

Which was always ridiculous, as it was based on the idea that Sweden would be more willing to extradite than the UK, a ridiculous notion.

Sweden is one of a number of nations who have cooperated with US Extraordinary Renditions in the past [0] and also has an extradition treaty with the United States. The extradition request probably has a similar chance of success in both countries.

It is a notion that can be very reasonably entertained; especially since there are a very limited number of Swedish lawyers on HN who can interpret the extradition treaty. Sweden could easily fold like an origami under US pressure regardless of the law too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Sweden

Reply on news.ycombinator.com