Hacker News Reader

Comment by SilkRoadie | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't it set an unwanted precedence if the British Government just let this go?

There is an arrest warrant against Assange and the British Government has a duty to carry it out. If they do not carry it out then theoretically anyone on the run could seek asylum in a foreign embassy knowing that if successful it was just a matter of time before they could make their escape.

I also wonder what would happen when the UK wanted to extradite a person from a foreign country after letting Assange walk. Would their position be weakened?

It is a bad situation but it seems like Assange would rather wither and rot stuck in an embassy rather than deal with the charges against him. The reason he will not come out is because he is locked in a prison of his own paranoia.

It is certainly money wasted but it seems that due to the chain of events it is money which has to be wasted.

View on HN

Law is littered with unwanted precedents. They are not, generally, compelling reasons to act in a sane and thoughtful way, and rarely (especially with such obvious edge cases as this) inform future decisions.

Is there actually an arrest warrant in Sweden for Assange? It's a highly convoluted arrangement between the UK (ostensibly keen to arrest, to satisfy their Swedish colleagues) and Sweden (who wish to question).

UK's position to extradite a person from another country into Sweden would not be weakened by any actions in this particular case. There's no precedent for that kind of prevarication.

Finally, you seem to imply that Assange would rather metaphorically 'wither and rot' (asserting facts not in evidence) in an embassy, rather than wither and rot (almost definitely guaranteed to be in the near-literal interpretation in a much more restrictive US-funded establishment), with the rather ambiguous phrase of 'deal with charges against him'. The charges, which haven't technically been made by the Swedes, and, on the face of it, are a smidge dubious, aren't what he's avoiding - it's the non-made charges that would occur once Sweden shipped him off to NOT 'deal with the charges against him' likely to be levelled by the US.

Do you think Snowden, Manning, et al are 'paranoid' (quotes to reflect implied inappropriate concern for self-wellbeing).

Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual assault. Assange is a powerful and connected person, with strong support from a considerable percentage of the population. I am glad that that does not affect the legal process, and I would never want to live in a society where it did.

EDIT: The article says "He has been in a cell, under house arrest, or effectively detained at the Ecuadorian Embassy since December 2010."

This is patently a lie. He chooses to stay in the embassay of his own volition. How can anyone take this article seriously?

> Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual assault.

These questions can evidently not be asked within the embassy. (Ignoring the various, and I concede very loaded, discussions around the validity of the allegations.)

> Assange is a powerful and connected person, with strong support from a considerable percentage of the population.

Substitute 'American intelligence agencies' for 'Assange' in that sentence, and perhaps stick a 'tacit' in front of the word support, while you're at it.

To be clear, my point here is that Assange is nowhere near as powerful as any or all of the Swedish, UK, or US governments (or any of their agencies). However, world+dog understands that it's a bit more complicated than 'come and talk to us in our country about these dubious claims, oh and we can't guarantee that we haven't already arranged for you to be flown into Central America to not face charges for the rest of your life'.

> I am glad that that does not affect the legal process, and I would never want to live in a society where it did.

I am genuinely concerned about your understanding of the society/ies that you believe you're living in now.

I am genuinely baffled by your reply. Assange is wanted for questioning for allegations of sexual assault, and you say he shouldn't have to follow due process and answer them because... because what? Because his political ideals are aligned with your own? Because of an absurd conspiracy that he will be secretly abducted to Central America?

Don't be baffled.

There are, at the very least, some very dubious aspects surrounding the original claims: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-...

I guess I am suggesting that due process, in this case, should be avoided - but only because this is clearly an exceptional situation, with some profound risks for Assange and other whistle-blowers.

The idea that any change to due process should be avoided because it 'sets precedent' I think is a misdirection. There appears to be not substantial reason for Swedish prosecutors to attend London and talk to Assange directly before making their (next) decision.

To be candid I don't really understand what his political ideals are - but I am informed enough to understand that it's more complicated than the way one might explain it to a 5yo.

I'm still baffled by your arguments. We live in a modern democratic society. Professionals in the law system examined the Assange case and decided that there was a case to answer. Just because someone on the Internet is "dubious about it" doesn't change that, and I would never want to live in a society where it did.

guys, i found the uk government

Obviously the Equatorian government and Assange don't feel that if he were to submit, he would get a fair trial.

I think the argument that they are making -- not that I agree -- is that the UK and Sweden are bad governments, just like when governments protect Chinese journalists and such.

Assange is only wanted for questioning and has repeatedly offered to answer their questions. They stated that he must be questioned in Sweden and only in Sweden without adequately explaining why.

They don't need to explain why because they already have a legally obtained arrest warrant. But in any case, it's obvious why: the investigation has reached a stage where they will almost certainly want to file charges, but they cannot do that while Assange is in the UK. The Swedish prosecutor explained this very clearly:

"Subject to any matters said by him [in the second interview] which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be lodged with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."

The kind of objection you're making also assumes Schizophrenia on the part of the Swedish authorities. On the one hand, Assange is "only wanted for questioning", but on the other hand, there's a secret plot to charge him with a crime he didn't commit and have him extradited to the US. Well, which is it?

It seems to be this entire argument can be solved by looking into the number of people who have allegedly committed sexual assault in Sweden, are currently residing in the UK, and have been arrested and deported back to Sweden for questioning. If the answer is zero (or near zero), then there's obviously more to this than what the Swedes are admitting.

The charge is rape, and it is not particularly unusual for EAWs to be issued for rape charges. See here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/c...

"Since 2009 alone, the arrest warrant has been used to extradite from the UK 57 suspects for child sex offences, 86 for rape and 105 for murder."

> Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual assault.

If this was the only neccessity, why not do said questioning over video link? This is possible – at least, in England, there is even a company that specializes in it (http://www.eyenetwork.com/specialist-expertise/video-confere...)

It's technologically possible, but not legally.

Shall we rehash all the facts again?

Don't understand the patronizing tone here. For a start, the BBC Q&A I've read on this says that it's basically the Swedish prosecutors saying, "No, because of circumstances, we want him here", not "It is legally forbidden". The prosecutor saying "We want him here, and we aren't going to tell you why" doesn't exactly radiate fairness and transparency.[1]

Maybe I'm wholly mistaken, but it stands to reason that should be a legal possibility that an individual can be questioned over video link. For example, consider a Swedish invalid who is in delicate condition in a London hospital and is medically forbidden to travel.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19426382

"Karin Rosander of the Swedish Prosecution Authority told the BBC on 21 August 2010 that "because of circumstances in the investigation, [the prosecutor's] opinion is that it is necessary that he is present in Sweden".

Ms Rosander said the prosecutor had not made clear exactly what those circumstances were. "At this stage of the investigation, [the prosecutor] does not want to specify," she said."

If he's medically unable to travel for questioning, he cannot travel for his trial, either.

The trial which by law has to begin two weeks later, at the latest.

Really, we've had that dozens of times on HN now.

https://storify.com/anyapalmer/why-doesn-t-sweden-interview-...

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-mythol...

http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-...

Why would Sweden make an exception to their legal processes just for Assange? He's just another person wanted for questioning over allegations over sexual assault. He's not the messiah.

Anyway, as another poster said, these facts were pointed out years ago. But I understand that facts and logic are of no interest to the Messiah's disciples.

>Why would Sweden make an exception to their legal processes just for Assange?

Because a sovereign nation has granted him asylum because they (correctly) identified the charges against him as being politically motivated.

If Sweden cannot make a very minor accomodation in response that only gives more weight to the argument that the charges were politically motivated.

Yes, there is an arrest warrant for Assange in Sweden.

Assange is mechanically harder to extradite to the US from Sweden. Extradition from the UK requires only the approval of the UK. Extradition from Sweden would at this point require the approval of both Sweden and the UK. Both Sweden and the UK are bound by the ECHR.

>There is an arrest warrant against Assange and the British Government has a duty to carry it out.

I wonder why the same law enforcement rigor wasn't applied in these cases, which are undoubtedly so much worse?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Guest_House_child_abuse_sc...

Because the UK government is acting as proxy for the USA government!

(As if you didn't know that already :-P )

[OT] Corruption and blackmail.

Not even remotely the same thing. Those are cases of the police failing to investigate and file charges.

The Assange case is about the enforcement of valid judicial warrants. The police don't have the same discretion.

Your thinking is double-plus good, citizen.

While we are on the topic of crimes involving sexuality, "... of the nine undercover police identified by the Guardian over the past two years, eight are believed to have slept with the people they were spying on. In other words, it was the norm."[0]

Now, pick up that can.

[0]http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/17/spies-sexual-relat...

Any policing priorities set a precendent of expectation.

For example, because of the way car and property crime are (not) investigated, a petty car criminal can reasonably expect to get away with their crime.

There are plenty of other crimes where a police authority would choose not to take dramatic action and save a £10m cost of policing.

The suggestion isn't Assange be allowed to walk. If he were able to be affordably apprehended, then that is reasonable. The problem is that this spending is on policing theatre, aimed at making clear (primarily to the US) that the UK takes Assange seriously as a threat to security.

This kind of performance wouldn't be put on, at this expense, if a random alleged-rapist took shelter in an embassy. The police would leave them to it, and act when they had intelligence that they'd slipped out.

What evidence do you have that car and property crime aren't investigated, and in which country are you talking about?

Sorry that phrasing was overly terse. In many regions of the UK the police won't come out to petty car or property crime, let alone conduct an investigation. They will issue a crime number by telephone.

If the stolen goods are identifiable and turn up in some way, you may get some progress. Or similarly if the pattern of crime suggests it is worth their time trying to catch a prolific offender. Or if the crime is more severe than quotidian offences. But typically the crime number allows you to make your insurance claim, it gets logged in the police crime database, and that's all that happens.

My evidence is the experience of myself, friends and family.

I was surprised when they started an actual investigation when some idiot slashed my and my neighbors tires.

Apparently my neighbor heard the guy shouting "Fucking foreigner" (we both had foreign registration plates at the time) or something similar and reported it. Apparently, that moves the crime into the hate crime category and warrant extra police work. So even though I didn't report the slashing, the police came to my place to gather my version.

Overall same result though and I wasn't really expecting any result to be fair.

Yes, as I understand it, police authorities allocate resources for categories of crime based on national and local policing priorities.

If your low-priority crime (like criminal damage) can somehow be placed in a higher priority category (like hate-crime), the police will find it much easier to allocate resources to it, and you will see a more spirited investigation.

My original point was merely to say that there are such things as low-priorities for which the police don't put much effort, and by doing so they set a precedence for what crimes one could reasonably expect to get away with.

I can say from my experience that in the UK property and car crime is seldom investigated. Police just issue a crime number for insurance.

And I can counter it by saying that, in the UK, I'm aware of cases in which property theft has been followed up by an investigation in which the perpetrators were caught. The original comment insinuated that we're living in some kind of free-for-all anarchy where you can get away with petty theft without any consequences, which is certainly not the case. (You can get away with non-petty theft without any consequences, but that's a whole other issue ...)

If the original comment refers to me, then that wasn't my intent to insinuate that at all.

The published data shows that only a tiny minority of petty crimes end in conviction, however. In my experience (5 times, including family and close friends), the police chose not to send an officer to the scene.

I'm sure some petty crimes get solved, and some serious crimes don't. But if you thought I was making either point, may I respectfully suggest you reread my comment.

Fair enough, the investigation rate is obviously at neither extreme, and I'd still argue that "reasonably expect to get away with" is pretty loaded, but if you mean there's a greater > 50% chance then, sure, I can believe that!

According to the official Ministry of Justice figures, there were 745,000 reported burglaries in the UK in 2013 (last figures I could find), and there were 26,300 convictions for burglary. Although the rates fluctuate, they don't change by orders of magnitude, so a steady state assumption isn't accurate, but is near enough for ballpark figures.

So on that basis, the likelihood is > 95% that you'll get away with it.

And note that those statistics are for all burglary, including aggravated burglary. I can't tell from the data, but I'd suggest it is reasonable to assume that petty burglary has a lower conviction rate still.

I'm not saying it never gets investigated... Just all four times I have reported a crime, nothing happened after getting the crime number.

From the article: UK police watchdog: burglary and car crime "on verge of being decriminalised."

I've had two motorcycles stolen in the UK. The police gave me a crime reference number and sent out a victim support letter; that was the sum total of their apparent effort.

Well, presumably they'll also have placed the VIN (or equivalent) on their watchlist. But aside from that – what do you expect to happen in the case of a crime like that?

Something tells me that if it were the chief of Police's motorcycle stolen, the bobbies might be a bit more energetic in recovering it. Probably what the GP expects is some subset of what they would do for the chief.

Come and look for evidence? Finger or shoe prints? Check if there are CCTV cameras that might have been covering the area? Interview neighbours and see if they saw anything? Confirm if you did actually have these motorcycles and that this isn't an insurance scam? Advise you on how to better secure them in the future?

Same thing happens in the US. Called in a smash and grab on my car and was told that it happens all the time and that they don't come out or even take a report over the phone unless something was left in the car (rock or brick or tool used to smash the windows). Go fill out a form on the website. The crimes are on their radar, but investigating them individually would be hopeless.

Minor car and property crime may not be investigated, but rape and sexual assault are taken seriously.

I've no idea what impact you think that makes on my point.

Rape may be 'taken seriously' incidentally (though actually you probably mean certain stereotypes of rape), but its conviction rate is still so low that, unfortunately, a rapist in the UK has a very high probability of getting away with their crime. The police certainly have improved in the professionalism with which they address rape, but rape prevention and womens charities in the UK still maintain that insufficient resources and effort is put into prosecuting rape cases to a conviction.

The conviction rate for rape is 58%, higher than that for other crimes at 57%, so rapists have less chance of getting away with their crime.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7442785/Rape-co...

My apologies, I thought the context of discussing whether someone would get away with a crime they had committed or not (in the context of a conversation about whether crimes are even investigated) would make it clear I wasn't talking about conviction rate at trial.

You're right, if a rape case gets to court, the conviction rate is high. Using "conviction rate" in my comment was unnecessarily ambiguous, I apologise. But I wasn't referring to conviction rate at trial.

As you point out, conviction rate at trial is roughly the same over a broad range of offences. Which is mostly a consequence of the British system of Crown Prosecution. It bears little relationship to the ratio of reported crimes to convictions, nor the likelihood of a particular criminal getting away with an offence. Elsewhere I show Ministry of Justice figures for this broader sense of 'conviction rate' for burglary, which is under 5%.

Your last clause does not follow from the statistics you cite, obviously. And you still haven't addressed the issue of what impact your contention has on the point you responded to originally.

> This kind of performance wouldn't be put on, at this expense, if a random alleged-rapist took shelter in an embassy. The police would leave them to it, and act when they had intelligence that they'd slipped out.

An embassy would never shelter a non-citizen unless the case was politically sensitive. Sheltering someone free on bail is particularly insulting to the UK's judicial system.

The UK would never just leave them to it and accept that kind of insult.

There are ways of effectively letting it go without having to admit it. I mean, the UK is the origin of Yes, Minister, which provides plenty of lessons in the area of pretending to do stuff without actually doing it (and vice-versa).

That show is classic.

The Thick of It is another favorite.

Are we saying here that having a cap on 10,000,000£ for on-going spending in criminal cases that carries a maximum of 4 years in prison, would result in an unwanted precedence?

I would be happy to read a historical list of such cases. It would not surprise me if the case of Julian Assange is the single most expensive criminal case ever conducted where the maximum punishment is 4 years or less. Instead of asking how many teachers could get paid from that, maybe we should ask how many criminals got away scotch free because there was no money left to investigate.

How many violent rapes (i.e. not those of lesser degree) has been overlooked because a lack of funds? Police funding, which this 10,000,000£ is drawn from, has a real impact on peoples lives. Any unwanted precedence should be balanced to that cost, and those in charge should be ready to defend how they chose to spend it.

>precedence

precedent

> scotch free

scot free

Governments have the means to escalate situations to Moby Dick levels of megalomania, especially when it's other people's money funding it. Until we have the power to withdraw funding from crap like this -- much more powerful than voting -- the insanity will continue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com