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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

I am fascinated to see how they will physically transport him from the embassy to a plane. This has the makings of a top quality chase movie.

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Relevant text from Vienna Convention on Consular Relations:

1. The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.

2. The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.

3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.

The UK has the power to declare an embassy not to be an embassy anymore.

I believe the circumstances have to be consist with international law. I don't think that would be the case here.

Could Ecuador have a boat waiting in international waters and take him via Helicopter to the boat?

Otherwise could they hide him in some kind of cargo? I heard that they can't pull over and search a diplomats car but the transition from car to plane is when they could get him.

Helicopter antics in London are pretty unlikely at the best of times, and right now we're tooled up for the Olympics too.

The police have the power to stop the car, but not search it. Do diplomatic vehicles have toilets?

Could they get a diplomatic charter bus?

They'd have to get across the pavement from the embassy into the bus. The British have every right to arrest him there (either for violating the conditions of bail or on grounds there is an outstanding European warrant for him).

The embassy doesn't have a paved space large enough for the first 5 feet of the bus to fit?

The "embassy" is not a compound, it's just an apartment in a normal building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_bag#Unusual_shipment...

The UK's already "suggested" that they're willing to revoke Ecuador's diplomatic privilege. Discarding the question of if they can legally or politically do so for the moment, what difference would it make to them if Assange is in Ecuador's embassy or a crate with their flag stamped on it?

They should take him with a helicopter. What are they going to do? Shoot it down?

I vote for a swarm of mini coopers carrying Assange look alikes.

Where are they going to get him into the helicopter?

Embassy roof? Or drop a ladder down from the helicopter? I think the bigger question is how to get him out of the helicopter (since it can't fly to Ecuador.)

Not how, where: international waters. London, IIRC, is not very distant from those. (Of course, London being a helicopter no-flight zone - for decades now - complicates things somewhat)

Edit: Helicopters specifically; but with the ground-to-air missile sites installed around the Greater London area (ostensibly for protecting the Sporting-Event-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named; a WTF in and of itself), I'd be very careful in mucking around the British airspace: http://everything2.com/title/crashing+a+helicopter+in+Centra...

Is it just no flight for helicopters? How about blimps? There's really got to be a solution here. It's a technical problem and we're technical people.

In general getting permission from ATC for flights over London is non-trivial (primarily because it is sufficiently densely populated that any emergency, especially at low altitude, is likely going to end badly).

You could tether a blimp. I just saw it done a day before yesterday night here.

London's definitely not a no-helicopter zone - I see police and media helicopters over my house all the time. You can get what's known as SVFR clearance (generally below 1000ft), see http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-68430.html

Getting 12 miles into the North Sea or English Channel without getting intercepted is a non-trivial undertaking.

I think he's going to be in defacto prison. He might as well take it on the chin and do his time for rape.

The problem with that approach is that he expects be extradited to the US as soon as he gets to Sweden. Oh and you might call it nitpicking, but he's not convicted of rape yet, let alone charged with it.

I still don't understand why Sweden is considered more likely to extradite to the US than Britain is...

In the UK an judge may make an independent determination that his 'crimes' are of a political nature and therefore not extraditable. In Sweden, there is a newish form of extradition, temporary surrender, where it is thought the decision can effectively be made by politicians instead of judges. Is he better off with a judge or a politician?

Sweden has recent form for taking legal shortcuts in this area.

I don't think many consider Sweden to be that. Maybe he is just trying to escape his accusations in Sweden?

No, they've offered several times to allow Swedish officials to conduct whatever formalities they need to in the UK. They've refused.

Sweden also has a history of dropping prisoners off at the airport where they get met by people who are DEFINITELY NOT CIA agents and disappeared.

He won't be in jail for rape.

From all evidence it is clear that he will be extradited to the US where he just might face the death penalty.

There's a lot of speculation about this but I haven't seen actual evidence. Our extradition laws with the UK are actually stronger than with Sweden so why wait for him to be in Sweden?

> There's a lot of speculation about this but I haven't seen actual evidence.

Because there is none, it is a matter of legal record that it is MUCH easier for the US to extradite somebody from the UK than from Sweden.

But that simple fact (which Assange himself acknowledged in the past!) is rather inconvenient when you are trying to build some conspiracy theory.

And, on exactly what charges would he receive the death penalty? The death penalty under Federal charges is not exactly something that's handed out like candy. Since 1963 only three people have been given the death penalty at the federal level, and all were murderers.

He doesn't need to get a death penalty, it's enough if they'll give him the same treatment they gave Manning prior to his trial [1]. Enough to make any sane person go mad.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/...

Manning falls under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so by definition Assange could not be treated the same way.

Manning who Wikileaks dropped like a hot potato, let's not forget.

Well they are trying to hit Assange with the Espionage Act, though the exact punishment for that hasn't readily turned up in my searches. If they could nail him with treason, he would certainly be up for the death penalty, however, since Assange is not a US citizen and therefore doesn't owe allegiance to the US, I don't think he would be able to be charged with it (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381)

The US federal government retains the legal right to the death penalty for cases of espionage.

Show me one example, post 1960, of such a punishment being sought.

Further, no such charges have been brought in the US, and more importantly, even several prosecutors have claimed such a charge will be difficult to produce, given the protections we provide the press here.

Finally, this whole "fear of death," is completely manufactured. He will get a much fairer shake than all of the Chinese dissidents whose names he released unredacted.

Yeh, to be honest life imprisonment probably wouldn't be all that more pleasant than a death sentence.

Also the US has, in recent years, demonstrated that its protections are primarily intended for their own citizens. Apparently it's OK to strip foreigners of any such rights, if they are perceived as enemies and this is deemed convenient.

There is no evidence for that.

> From all evidence it is clear that he will be extradited to the US where he just might face the death penalty.

What evidence? So far all I've seen produced is speculation based on quotes from political figures that lack the power to make this happen.

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