Hacker News Reader

Comment by olifante | Hacker News Reader

The author of that comment summarized it himself:

  - Assange is not charged (yet) and the High Court is wrong 
    on that point

  - Assange has a fundamental right clearly recognized by 
    the ECHR not to surrender to Swedish police before 
    appearing in front of the Swedish prosecutor

  - The Swedish Prosecution Service has consistently refused 
    to promise that Assange wouldn't be extradited to the US 
    once in Swedish custody; this type of promise is common 
    in extradition cases and within the power of the Swedish 
    prosecution service

  - The Swedish Prosecution Service has refused the 
    opportunity to question Assange through videoconference, 
    while insisting on Assange's surrender to Swedish 
    custody; this is a clear and known violation of the ECHR 
    that the Swedish prosecutors can't ignore.

  There's only one possible conclusion:
  the Swedish prosecutors are acting in bad faith here.

View on HN

" - Assange has a fundamental right clearly recognized by the ECHR not to surrender to Swedish police before appearing in front of the Swedish prosecutor"

I don't know about the rest, but of what I know of ECHR (which is not nothing, being a student in law in an european country), this is false. The ECHR actually rendered a decision about this in an affair concerning France (a very important affair that is changing a lot in procedural French law so it's troughtfully studied here in France). It's the case Medvedyev v. France (29 mars 2010 (yes it's that recent)). In this case a group of men were arrested in High Sea, by police, and they were then under arrest for days before appearing in front of a prosecutor. They contested this as contrary to their human rights to not be held under arrest without presentation in front of a judge. And they lost... (they lost on this point, they won other ones in the case) because the police did everything they could to actually be as fast as possible, so the article 5.3 of the ECHR was respected.

So Assange has a fundamental right to be presented to a judge/prosecutor before any arrest. BUT, he can be forced to appear in front of the judge. And he has no right to resist being arrested if this arrest has the sole purpose of putting him in front of a Swedish prosecutor.

So well... You know.. if this guy is wrong about one of the most important decisions by the ECHR in the last 10 years, then I tend to think that he may be wrong about other things he says with such "confidence".

I think this is incorrect in a number of ways:

* The Swedish High Court held specifically that Assange cannot be charged at this stage of the process; under Swedish law, with a domestic arrest warrant issued, he must first be arrested and face his prosecutor.

* The Swedish High Court specifically considered the videoconference option, which is not required under the ECHR, and, at the level of the High Court and consistant with the demands of the prosecution, rejected it: he needs to be questioned in person, and, depending on his responses to questioning, the Swedish may need to employ physical forensic science (as they would in any rape case).

* Swedish law requires the Prosecutor General to evaluate extradition requests on a case-by-case basis; under Swedish law, the government cannot offer Assange a blanket protection from extradition to the US. Incidentally, if this type of promise is common, I'd point out that the examples of it seem to have eluded the press; can you provide any yourself?

Most of these issues are helpfully excerpted by the author of this particular column from the Swedish High Court opinion upholding the EAW. You don't even have to search for it, or read the whole opinion.

Quoting the author again:

  What Assange wants is not a decision from Sweden's 
  government, but a promise from Sweden's prosecutors [...]. 
  The Swedish Prosecution Service has consistently refused 
  to promise that Assange wouldn't be extradited to the US 
  once in Swedish custody; this type of promise is common 
  in extradition cases and within the power of the Swedish 
  prosecution service

You're repeating the same assertion I questioned, verbatim. The author of this blog post quotes an article that itself quotes practically chapter and verse for why this type of promise is not feasible under Swedish law. I then said, if these promises were common, surely there's an example to be found of them somewhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com