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Comment by pvnick | Hacker News Reader

How dire is Assange's situation? Is it really possible that the US will try to imprison or even execute him?

Edit: I know were not talking directly about the US here, but the reason I made the jump is that I see Sweden as a lot more likely to allow the US to bully it into giving up Assange

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US imprisonment has very little to do with this. The man faces rape and sexual assault charges, one of the most serious offenses a person can commit.

Though I back his politics 100% and consider him a hero to be remembered, he has every responsibility to face his accusers in a fair trial. Shame on Sweden if they hand him over to the Americans after his trial has concluded.

> Though I back his politics 100%, he has every responsibility to face his accusers in a fair trial.

With Sweden's looney toons laws, I strongly disagree.

This is getting really tired now.

Assange and his legal team have tried every possible angle. Sweden has very different laws to say the US. This is not unexpected. The English courts have determined that Sweden's justice system is fair and balanced. Assange attempted to avoid extradition by arguing Sweden didn't have the right to issue an arrest warrant, not that he was going to get an unfair trial.

This is an act of total desperation. It does nothing to further his innocence. If the US wanted him they would have extradited him from the UK already - Britain has a long history of being more than happy to comply with US extradition requests. It's why Roman Polanski refuses to visit the UK from France.

This is all about accusations of sexual assault and rape which Assange is totally unwilling to face.

Assange stayed in Sweden for 5 weeks to be interrogated and only left Sweden after asking permission to do so from the Swedish Prosecutor.

Saying this is all about avoid accusations of sexual assault seems to contradict the actual facts.

And now they would like him back to ask some more questions.

Assange cannot have his cake and eat it. It is somewhat hypocritical for Assange to seek asylum on the grounds of human rights whilst denying the women who are accusing him of obtaining due process through the law (most countries agree that due process is in itself a fundamental right).

If the prosecution is politically motivated then seeking asylum is appropriate. How do we resolve this question? There are some circumstantial reasons to believe that it is politically motivated. However, we just don't know.

>"We just don't know"

And when faced with insufficient evidence of extraordinary affairs we resort to the status quo: due process in light of a sexual assault charge. The conspiracy theory being invoked is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence that has yet to be forthcoming.

Assange hasn't denied Sweden the right to question him, for example, over the phone - they have refused to do so. Why must he be on Swedish soil to answer some questions?

Everything about these allegations are clumsy. While we may never know what has transpired, it should be a wake up call to the legal system - you can't just push the regular processes aside and treat a case exceptionally because the suspect is somewhat of a celebrity. The Swedish legal system has also failed these women, if indeed, they are victims.

When you know that the due process (which involves making sure he doesn't have the ability to later claim that due process wasn't followed) requires an in-person interview, then throwing up platitudes (that you know won't, can't be accepted, but which make you look entirely reasonable) is duplicitous at best.

Point me to any country in the world where a telephone interview of a suspect or person of interest in a crime is an acceptable totality of due process or investigation.

5 weeks is at least 5 times longer than all the time they reasonably needed to ask questions in person. They could still ask questions by phone or email or video.

> Assange cannot have his cake and eat it. It is somewhat hypocritical for Assange to seek asylum on the grounds of human rights whilst denying the women who are accusing him of obtaining due process through the law (most countries agree that due process is in itself a fundamental right).

Not if the law which he is accused of breaking is fucked up (to say the least).

For an individual to be unwilling to face the law in a country they are not a citizen sounds completely rational to me. Even in the US, with a pretty "fair and balanced" legal system by international standards, innocent people still end up in prison for decades, are executed, etc.

Then again, Julian Assange could very well be safe in a Swedish prison, relatively impervious to a drone strike.

For an individual to be unwilling to face the law in a country they are not a citizen sounds completely rational to me

Rational, maybe. Ethical? Not so much. I don't like the idea of a world where people are free to rape and sexually assault with impunity provided that they are not at home.

The reason the US is commonly brought into this is because of misunderstanding of the circumstances and general suspicion.

First off, sexual assault and rape laws are very different in Sweden, and the crimes he has allegedly committed wouldn't be translated as assault or rape in most countries. Though that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't do something bad to someone that requires legal recourse; what currently stands are accusations of crime under Sweden's legal code.

More importantly, suspicion arises because the Swedish prosecutor's office initially withdrew the rape charge and warrant for Assange's arrest, and weeks later the charge was brought back. Some time after that, a European arrest warrant was issued. Some are suspicious that this was due to pressure from the US government, as they would like to see Assange in prison, but I'm not going to give my opinion.

Also, Assange has yet to be charged. I'm not sure how this works in Sweden, but it seems in this case that they don't want to charge Assange until after a second round of questioning. That is what the extradition is for.

Furthermore, Assange specifically asked the prosecutors office if we was free to leave the country and they said yes.

Does that mean they're not allowed to decide they require him back, and then go through the "proper channels" to do so, if he refuses voluntarily?

It's not a double jeopardy situation.

Really? You back his politics one hundred percent?

"Julian was very reluctant to delete those names, to redact them." David Leigh of the Guardian newspaper tells FRONTLINE of meetings he attended with Assange in the run-up to publication of the war logs. "And we said: 'Julian, we've got to do something about these redactions. We really have got to.' And he said: 'These people were collaborators, informants. They deserve to die.' And a silence fell around the table."

This is David Leigh, an fairly reputable guy who runs investigative reporting for _The Guardian_, not exactly an institution known for cowtowing to the military industrial complex of the US. Do you think he made this up? I don't.

That quote has been denied by Wikileaks, and apparently also by two Spiegel journalists. [1]

The Guardian and David Leigh in particular do seem to have issues with Assange. Personally I wouldn't automatically believe something to be true just because it was in The Guardian.

[1] "Gives Julian Assange no right to reply libelous statements such as "Afghan informers deserve to die". Nick Davies was not present at the conversation described, and John Goertz and Holger Stark from Der Spiegel can attest that they have no notes or recollection of Julian Assange saying this and would have recalled if he had claimed such a position." http://www.wikileaks.org/Guardian-s-WikiLeaks-Secrets-and.ht...

Sorry, but I think your perspective is less tenable than mine.

"We did talk with others about David Leigh’s allegation. Several people confirmed that you had initially wanted to publish all the Afghan War Logs without redacting names. We also allowed you to deny the charge. As for content sales, you mentioned in your interview that you had explored financial incentives to improve the reception of the Collateral Murder video. There is more about this in the transcript of your interview that is published on Frontline's website."

That's Marcela Gaviria, a veteran PBS FRONTLINE producer. So that's The Guardian and PBS FRONTLINE --- both extraordinarily reputable newsgathering organizations, and both thoroughly on the liberal side of the spectrum with regards to conflict reporting.

Against that, you have Julian Assange's word and the fact that two Der Spiegel reporters apparently didn't add Assange's statement to their notes.

I tried to track down a denial from John Goertz or Holger Stark; maybe you could point me to one? Leigh's made a bombshell claim. If Der Spiegel reporters are calling into question, it shouldn't be hard to find!

I believe The Guardian and PBS FRONTLINE.

I don't have a perspective here. Marcela Gaviria does not confirm the quote attributed to Assange, as she could not because she was not there.

I did also look for a denial from Goertz or Stark, I couldn't find one either. They do have a book, perhaps there is more detail there.

The "they deserve to die" quote is very damaging, and quite frankly probably the kind of thing a journalist would remember, and perhaps even report. You could conversely say that Goertz or Stark should confirm this if it's true. I couldn't find any evidence of this.

Gaviria, by all accounts a reputable journalist, confirmed independently with people other than Leigh that this was in fact Assange's position.

I agree that it's a very damaging quote.

I thought the UK decided to extradite him to Sweden for rape charges?

While Wikileaks is certainly a motivating factor, and I'm sure it's why this story gets as much press as it does, I don't think it's where his legal problems stem from. As far as I know, the US has nothing to do with it.

He has not (yet) been charged. It says this in the article.

Then how in the world has the UK decided to extradite him to Sweden? Don't you have to be charged with something first? I'm a legal idiot, but that doesn't make much sense to me.

EDIT: Nevermind, cousin comment said he is wanted for a second round of questioning in Sweden before they actually charge him. I still don't understand how something as serious as extradition can be used for "questioning", without any charges at all.

Could some random country say they wanted to ask me something and the US would just ship me overseas involuntarily?? That is a terrifying thought.

No, the European Arrest Warrant requires an intent to prosecute. The specifics of the prosecution process (including how and when the prosecuted person is charged and what that means exactly) differ in each member state. As programmers would say, it's an "implementation detail".

He is accused of sexual misconduct, some of which does carry possible jail times similar to, say, shoplifting. His continued refusal to stand trial is unlikely to play well to the court, but had he simply faced trial he would probably be out already even if he had been convicted.

wishful thinking is dangerous in politics. you die without knowing how.

I severely doubt it'd go so far as execution, sudden disappearance into a political black hole never to be heard from again? More likely.

then what exactly are they waiting for. He's not likely to get any lower profile until past the time anybody cares (including the government)

What's your proposition? Fly to Ecquador, kick in the embassy doors and abduct a man seeking asylum?

It'd make for one heck of a news day, but I don't think it's that easy.

The US has a long history of doing things like going to full fledged war over dropping a few bombs or planes on our soil. If I had run Wikileaks, I wouldn't want to be extradited to the US either. However, the statement on the page references the UK and Sweden, not the US. So that may not really be a factor.

The US has nothing to do with this. Sweden is trying to have him extradited from the UK for a sexual assault charge.

Nope, there is no charge, they just want to question him.

My mistake. In any event, this has nothing to do with the US government.

He's not charged with sexual assault (not yet, anyway). The warrant is to return him for questioning.

He's not even charged in Sweden. It's fairly obvious the Swedish angle is being used to get him in a country from which he can be extradicted to the US.

Because the UK never extradites anyone to the USA, especially their own citizens...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon

Every time I hear this argument I don't know if to laugh or to cry.

Assange himself pointed out that it is much easier to be extradited to the US from the UK (which extradites to the US almost anyone for pretty much any reason) than from Sweden (that as far as i know very rarely if ever extradites to the US).

If he was really afraid of being extradited to the US, he would want to be in Sweden rather than in the UK.

But this is more palatable all round.

The UK can send him to Sweden, saying they complied with EU rules. The UK can then relax, and not deal with the wrath of Australia being pissed off - an ex-commonwealth country.

Once he's convicted in Sweden, he can serve the two-months or whatever. Then he can be extradited to the US. Sweden can relax - he's a convicted sex offender now, extradited from the UK. It's harder for him to get legal support in Sweden - he's English-speaking, as are the majority of his supporters.

And the US gets their man. No government wants some renegade out there leaking their secrets.

The UK and US will obviously have discussed his extradition. They've agreed to try the Swedish route first. It doesn't have a political cost for the UK government.

Exactly. This is all about Assange not wanting to be questioned about sexual assault.

All this posturing about how the US wants him is a smoke screen - Ecuador has an extradition treaty with the US. Assange may be completely innocent: trying to desperately avoid being questioned about the alleged offences doesn't paint a great picture.

He presented himself for questioning before he left Sweden. They told him he was free to leave. My understanding is that also Sweden will sometimes conduct such questioning via remote video link, but they have declined to do that in this case. It's been well over a year, it's not like they couldn't charge him without questioning if they wanted to.

I'm not really sure what's going down here, except it seems the least likely possibility is that Sweden wants to give him a fair trial for the sex allegations.

Not only is it pretty suspicious that this rape charge should pop up at exactly the time of Assange's ascendency into persona non Guantanamo status, but it gets even fishier when you consider the nature of the accusation. The allegation is that his condom burst during intercourse and he did not stop - in other words it's one of the few crimes for which he cannot possibly have an alibi or a supporting witness or even physical evidence (ie. lack of physical harm).

Anyone who doesn't think the US government is behind this is living in cloud cuckoo land.

If he were to ever enter US custody, he's not likely to come away from that for a long time. The question is how interested is the US in getting him into custody and how easy is it for them. I imagine it's not terribly difficult but the US also hasn't done much so far.

But if I were him, I'm not sure I'd be willing to take any chances. The consequences are just too great.

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