This seems like a remarkably sane resolution to the current situation, and I'm surprised it hasn't previously been proffered.
Die schwedische Staatsanwaltschaft änderte nun ihre
Meinung, weil einige der Vorwürfe gegen Assange im August
verjähren.[1]
The Swedish prosecutor recently changed his mind because
some of the allegations against Assange will lapse in
August.
[1] http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/julian-assange-sc...
[2] https://www.google.de/?q=+into+Assange+will+lapse+in+August.....
Die Staatsanwaltschaft => The Prosecution
their, her, theirs, hers
I took German long enough ago to trust Google better than my own memory... it was a minor nit before, now it's even minor-er.
Anyway, if it's Die Staatsanwaltschaft which the possessive applies to, that's a feminine noun anyway (in German nouns have either masculine, feminine, or neuter gender), so I think that ihre is used either because the noun is feminine or because the person being talked about is female. IANA grammatician.
Thanks for the correction.
The gender of the person might not change the gender of the noun that refers to it (I'd suppose the noun's gender is actually fixed.) But, possessive pronouns might not care about the gender of the noun in cases where a person is the referent and the person's gender is known. It seems (intuitively, and as a grammarian you should be innately used to discarding your intuition since it's often going to be irrelevant) if the gender of the person is known, it should take the correct gender of personal pronouns. But it might be more important that the word for prosecutor in the sentence actually has an (innate) feminine gender?
That's why you should be confused, same as I am.
If I had to guess, prosecutor is a noun that is either masculine or feminine depending on the gender of the referent, but if I had to second-guess, I'd say that's in fact probably wrong and nouns always have concrete genders of their own. Hopefully someone knows and comes along to tell us both, I'm curious now.
Edit: German Wikipedia agrees:
Ein Staatsanwalt (Kürzel StA, weibliche Form: Staatsanwältin), in manchen Staaten auch Procurator, Procureur bzw. Prosecutor genannt, ist bei Gericht oberster Vertreter der Anklage.
Die Staatsanwaltschaft (StA) in Deutschland ist eine weisungsgebundene Behörde, die für die Strafverfolgung und -vollstreckung zuständig ist und als solche ein Teil der Rechtspflege ist.
Whether it translates "her" or "its" depends entirely on what the rest of the sentence means in English, the fact that nouns in German are gendered and this one is innately feminine does not even enter into the equation.
Thank you for figuring that out.
Not only did they do this (and Sweden was forced to pay restitution), but part of the Wikileaks documents revealed how Sweden objected after Swedish military intelligence years after these renditions had supposedly stopped, caught Swedish airport staff assisting CIA rendition flights.
While one might hope this has now finally stopped, Sweden is pretty high on the list of countries I would not like to be in if I was wanted by the US, given recent history.
Swedens official neutrality has been a joke in Scandinavia for decades. "Everyone" knows that there is a lot of close cooperation with the US behind the scenes.
Source?
They did obtain assurances from Egyptian authorities that the asylum seekers would not be tortured, but didn't do anything to ensure this could be enforced, and of course they ended up getting tortured. (EDIT: But even if one were to believe that Swedish authorities actually believed those assurances, a parliamentary investigator also determined that the treatment in Sweden violated Swedish law - they were arrested and violated and handed over without any required legal procedures, and even if they had been legally extradited, the treatment itself still would be illegal - see below)
Here's an article about Swedish military intelligence interfering after the CIA continued the rendition flights via Sweden for years after they had supposedly stopped:
http://www.swedishwire.com/politics/7497-cia-rendition-fligh...
This article also has more details about the Egyptian incident, including:
> Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery, two Egyptians who had been seeking asylum in Sweden, were arrested by Swedish police in December 2001. They were taken to Bromma airport in Stockholm, had their clothes cut from their bodies, suppositories inserted in their anuses and in diapers, overall, handcuffs and chains put on an executive jet with American registration N379P with a crew of masked men.
> They were flown to Egypt, where they were imprisoned, beaten, and tortured according to reports by Swedish investigative pogramme "Kalla fakta". The Swedish ambassador visited them only six weeks later.
We can hope that was the end of it, given that Swedish military intelligence did act, but the fact of the matter is someone high up authorised it initially, given that it required the cooperation of police, security services and the CIA, and to this date it is not clear who did. Either someone did it under the nose of top levels of government, or the very same people who claimed to have put a stop to it authorised it in the first place.
What we do know is that there's been no proper investigation apart from a finding by a parliamentary investigator that the rendition flights were in violation of Swedish law. In other words there are no guarantees that the arrangement haven't simply been changed.
"The Swedish government must now comply with the Human Rights Committee’s decision in the al-Zari case. The committee has indicated that monetary compensation for the petitioner is one appropriate remedy."
http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-b...
It has been said a million times, but if Assange was extradited to Sweden, in that case in order for him to be extradited to the US they would need approval of Sweden AND of the UK per the extradition treaties
Extraditing Assange to Sweden makes it harder for him to end up on the US.
They've shown a willingness to blatantly violate both Swedish and international law to satisfy US requests in the past. Why should Assange trust they won't do the same in his case?
My conclusion would be that the Swedish investigators are trying to gain some diplomatic points. A "US extradition" might or might not be on that road map, but equally likely (or unlikely) is justice. When a suspected witch hunt is launched, you don't stay and see what kind of punishment the mob is going to do. You think of the worst possible thing they might do, and then hide.
The last man that tried to take a one man stand against the U.S. was shot in his bedroom, the one before that was found in a rat hole...
If Assange wasn't holed up somewhere as politically sensitive as a foreign Embassy on foreign soil, he'd have either ended up in the same boat or would have "disappeared" to a U.S. black site somewhere never to be heard from again until it was politically advantageous for the U.S. to "find" him.
A more rational perspective to the situation can be seen from the point of view of rape statistics. They are an indication of how seriously countries take accusations of sexual molestation. The rate of police-recorded rape offenses is
- US: 27.3
- UK: 28.8
- Sweden: 63.5
Are there really more than twice as many rapes per capita in Sweden than there are in UK or US? Of course not, if you use the same definition for rape. The issue is that Sweden records things differently. I'm quite convinced that if we're looking at what actually happens, Sweden has less rape then UK or US, but Sweden records them with a much lower threshold for what constitutes a "rape" so that the statistics looks different.
Sweden has a history of actively handing asylum seekers to the CIA for illegal rendition without even the knowledge of any courts.
The UK doesn't to my knowledge have a history of handing over people without proper extradition proceedings, some that have dragged out in the court system for years.
The UK has also extradited people under terrorist laws, just like the Swedish case you keep referring to. Sweden also has a history of protecting deserters from the US army, from the Vietnam era onwards.
But neither of this matters, because the whole theory doesn't make sense. If Assange was sent to Sweden for questioning, the very same international agreements that got him sent there would only allow him to be sent back to the UK, nowhere else.
Not only that, but the rendition flights with complicity of Swedish staff continued for years after they were initially uncovered and condemned and the government promised they would end.
Girl gets drunk, wakes up the morning after, looks over and would rather chew her own arm off than wake him up before escaping...
This kind of scenario has played out in countless movies and every university dorm since the beginning of time. Usually it's the guy who gets drunk and tries to escape, but the plot is the same.
So he woke her up with sex... something many millions of partners the world over have done countless times... and enjoyed. She appeared willing, consensual, into it - at least that's how it allegedly looked at the time, and then she cries foul after the fact...
Sounds an awful lot like she had sex with this guy, then she was jealous about him having sex with another girl, they both found out he was double dipping (as it were), were pissed that they weren't the center of his attention and thus decided to have him slapped with a rape charge.
Of course, that's just what one can glean from the various hyperbolic media reports. I'm quite sure it's more nuanced than that. But even with the hyperbole, that doesn't sound like rape, that sounds like a revenge tactic for jealousy. The fact that this could also play favour for a U.S. rendition really just compounds how suspicious this whole situation sounds.
If you were in the shoes of Assange, with 2 girls throwing themselves at you for sex (which is how it comes across in the media) and then in the midst of you leaking the largest trove of politically embarrassing documents that have ever been leaked, having them come forward with allegations of rape, in a country that until you start digging you had no idea they have a history of conspiracy to perform illegal rendition to the U.S...
It seems to me that the worst thing that happened here was poor judgment. If you have sex with two people at the same time and get busted, it's not unusual for them both to be pissed that they're not the only one... and I hate to say it, but people in that situation tend to do irrational things such as you might hear about in songs written by Carrie Underwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSy8yy-mr8 or worse... abuse the legal system for revenge.
> Not that I'm condoning his behaviour, but unless I'm missing a piece of the puzzle that I'm not understanding: Last I checked, anywhere outside of Sweden, having sex with a partner who appeared to be willing (until after the fact) is not rape. If that's the case, how do people not get charged with rape all the time?
That's actually not true at all - there are a number of situations in which a person can be legally incapable of consent. In various jurisdictions this can include someone who is too intoxicated, someone who is under the age of consent, someone who is a ward of the state (e.g. prisoners are legally unable to consent to sex), someone who is emotionally pressured or coerced, etc.
Rape convictions are very hard to secure for a number of reasons (the biggest one being that most victims don't pursue charges[0]), but that shouldn't confuse what is and isn't rape under the law.
> This kind of scenario has played out in countless movies and every university dorm since the beginning of time. Usually it's the guy who gets drunk and tries to escape, but the plot is the same.
Yes, and this is what is often referred to with the statement "rape culture" (which is often misunderstood and dismissed). There are a lot of things that are commonplace in movies that would be considered sexual assault in real life.
[0] Even if you were 100% sure that you could get a conviction, it's an incredibly exhausting, taxing and humiliating process for the victim, so most ultimately choose not to risk their mental health in the process.
This comparison is wrong to the point of being offensive. It's classic victim blaming. You're drunk, get raped? Your fault! "Being raped" and "driving a dangerous piece of equipment" seem very obviously different in terms of who is the victim and who the perpetrator.
What I'm saying is they were drunk and horny and wanted sex - both parties, consensual (from the way the media portrayed it.) Not rape. It wasn't until after the fact that she backtracked and changed her mind and decided that she retroactively didn't want sex after all and cried rape.
That's like me going back to a partner and saying, yeah, I know we had sex last night, but I'm regretting it now because I heard you had sex with my room mate, so I'm going to report you for rape. Which is exactly how it was portrayed.
Making a shitty decision to have sex with someone while under the influence of alcohol is entirely different than getting shit-face drunk (or drugged) and getting raped. These are two entirely different scenarios. The first is what I'm getting at - bad decision to have (consensual) sex, regretting it after the fact; the second is what you're getting at - getting too drunk to be in charge of your own destiny and unable to fend yourself off from someone you don't want sex with - this is rape and is inexcusable. In the scenario you're presenting, I'm entirely in agreement with you, but that's not the scenario as I perceived it, nor as I presented it. As the media presented it, I didn't see any real victim. I saw someone that played the victim card only as a result of coercion. The way her testimony was portrayed, I'm not even convinced that she felt she was a victim, she was a willing participant and only seemed to be going along with the rape allegation as part of some outside coercion or pressure. I genuinely read it like she had some affection for him and that she was sexually into him.
My point regarding the getting drunk and driving a dangerous piece of equipment is about legal culpability with regards to the ability to make decisions while under the influence of alcohol - not victim blaming. It's not about the indirect consequences of her decisions. It's about making a decision to participate in sex while under the influence of alcohol. In the legal sense this is no different than making a decision to drive a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. If you're legally considered to have the mental capacity to make decisions in one scenario, you're legally considered to have the mental capacity to make decisions in the other.
If someone decides to have sex with someone while under the influence of alcohol, they can't use the legal excuse they were drunk. In exactly the same way as you can't get into a car accident and claim legal immunity because you were were drunk. In other words, you cannot be deemed legally able to make a decision in one scenario but not the other because you're drunk.
If it was rape and indeed it was non-consensual on her part, then her being drunk is irrelevant, just as it would be irrelevant what she was wearing. Rape is rape. But this was not portrayed as rape.
One of the 4 things he's wanted for is sex with someone who's asleep. That's rape in the UK. In fact "It's only a crime in the Sweden" would have been a perfect way to legally defeat the extradition request. His lawyers tried it. It didn't work.
I will admit that without going back and digging through the all original news stories again that my memory could be misleading me here... but I recall at the time that everything about this charge seemed sketchy to the point of suspicious.
Maybe he did, but neither you nor I know what actually happened. Unless you're Assange or one of the women.
“There’s nothing special about Britain,” the US state department official said. “You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment.”
Obama "We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people."
England and the US nothing special anymore.
That is the kind of thing presidents say in speeches. It just means "I want to be polite to you". It's diplomacy, don't take it literally.
France was technically the first ally of the U.S. That alliance has been pretty stable, except under the following circumstances:
- France or the U.S. is having a civil war.
- France and Britain are at war.
- France is under foreign occupation.
If NATO did not exist, France would be one of the few non-Commonwealth nations for whom the U.S. would declare an actual, full-engagement war to defend, without even much argument from the voting public--unless it was the UK attacking it, obviously.
The full "special" list is probably Canada, UK, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel.
Probably because fucking Henry Kissinger insisted it exists (Diplomacy, chapters for post WWII). And he is a guy that knows something about US foreign policy.
I can't say I am a fan of the "special relationship" (I'm in the UK) - but worth noting that I don't think the US sells Trident missile technology to anyone else? UK warhead designs are probably US based as well although we do manufacture them ourselves.
The US even allowed the UK to test some of their bombs on American soil, in Nevada. (The UK also tested nuclear bombs in Australia. They don't have much wide-open desert of their own).
But the point stands, which is all the discussion of "why he picked the UK" as a place to avoid extradition seems to be missing the point. If he were comfortable with the government of the UK he'd be relaxing in a pub or reading in the park rather than holed up inside an embassy somewhat out of the reach of UK law for two years.
> U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, as well as foreign embassies and consulates in the United States, have a special status. While diplomatic spaces remain the territory of the host state, an embassy or consulate represents a sovereign state.
[0] http://diplomacy.state.gov/discoverdiplomacy/diplomacy101/pl...
Even Russia (who is in the CoE) doesn't extradite for death penalty.
We also have evidence that the UK courts resist US extradition requests via the McKinnon proceedings.
Finally, the US obviously wants to prosecute Assange and the publicly acknowledge existence of a grand jury investigation proves it.
Edit: if you're inclined to disagree, please point out any factual inaccuracies or weaknesses in my reasoning rather than reflexively reaching for the down vote button. Assange entered the UK in late September 2010 and the arrest warrant became valid in the UK in December. That's a lot of time to book a flight elsewhere. The Ecuadorean embassy was a last-ditch move when his appeals failed.
More generally, the "weakness in [your] reasoning" is partly the arrogance to imagine that you understand Assange's legal options better than his lawyers did. But it is also partly the logical fallacy of ad hominem rhetoric, since you accuse him of hypocrisy and then use that accusation to try to discredit concerns of his that very clearly have nothing to do with questions of personal character.
As other commenters on this thread have mentioned, and as minimal research will confirm, Sweden has a long history of illegal rendition. Its handling of this case is extremely unorthodox, politically motivated, and shows a fairly clear attempt to maneuver Assange into indefinite detention through a legal process that even the UK High Court commented on as being unreasonable.
In other words, they had no problems carrying out interrogations outside of Sweden at the time. Just not of Assange.
If the Swedish legal system had been "a bit legalistic" and not wanted to make exceptions, a lot of what happened in the Assange case could not have happened. E.g. illegal leaks of lots of information to the press, irregular interview procedures, and this curious stubbornness about interviewing him abroad when Swedish police does not seem to have a problem with that in other cases.
Some people - even those not especially rigid and legalistic in their thinking, which individual prosecutors are perfectly entitled and possibly even encouraged to be - might reasonably think not. Even now they've opted to back down and talk on Assange's terms, I think it's staggeringly unlikely he's going to walk out of the embassy wearing handcuffs if he is unable to satisfy them of his innocence, so I'm not sure it really advances the case further.
Sweden did not interrogate those suspects in order to "charge" them, but in an earlier state of the murder investigation.
In fact, Swedish courts have even convicted a dead man in absentia, after deciding (before knowing he was dead) the trial could go on in absentia:
I'm honestly surprised anybody still thinks this. Particularly after the GCHQ emails confirming it as a 'fit up'.
So not actually at all like what the original poster implied.
Then again, maybe they're just tin foil crazed conspiracy theorists who just happen to be, err, employed by GCHQ.
I'm not saying that Mr Assange is definitely blameless, I wouldn't know. But it does seem that if you go up against the very powerful, any shortcomings will be ruthlessly exploited.
This decision serves thus two purposes. It abides the decision of the court which makes the prosecutor look good, and it serves the case.