Sweden rejects Assange appeal to drop arrest warrant

Probably the same one that permitted US lobby organizations to order an unconstitutional raid on tpb.

As for what US law, I don't know. Mind you, I also don't know what US laws the Guantanamo Bay detainees were taken under. Or what laws the US does it's cough "extraordinary rendition" or cough "enhanced interrogation techniques" under. Doesn't mean the US doesn't do those things, simply because I can't cite those laws.

Hell, here in Australia we're about to be screwed over by the Trans-Pacific Partnership - and even people who are really interested in that treaty can't get access to it. It's being made in secret with the US calling the tune, yet we're all going to have to live by it. So what if I can't name a law? There are laws, and then there are what countries manage to get away with. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes not. In the case in the link above, Sweden quite happily ignored it's own legal processes for extradition.

The UK has extradited multiple people to the US. Your narrative is incorrect.

Speaking of incorrect narrative, how about you report on how many of those were political in nature (yes, some were), rather than simply assuming all extraditions are innately unjust? Extradition in itself isn't immoral - people do still commit crimes, and you shouldn't get away with literal murder just by hopping a border.

Remember that there was little/no international support for the US starting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the US did so anyhow and since nobody has invaded the US for doing so, it seems that the US has "gotten away with it" at least so far as international law is concerned.

Finally it doesn't have to be that the Swedes desperately want Assange to be extradited, but merely that someone from the US is pressuring them to keep reminding the world that "Assange isn't a good guy" from time to time.

I'm not saying Assange is innocent, either. I honestly don't know. But to think that the US has an interest in hindering him, well, that's not unreasonable at all.

Would Ecuador go to war over such an act ? No way.

E.g. some years back, Swedish police black bagged two political asylum seekers from Egypt and illegally handed them over to the CIA, knowing the CIA would fly them to Egypt and hand them over to Mubarak. Sweden asked for a "promise" they'd not be tortured, which they promptly were of course. The entire operation violated by Swedish law and international law, was condemned by the UN and Sweden has been ordered to pay restitution over it.

Yet a few years later, Swedish military police uncovered that the CIA were still conducting illegal rendition flights via Sweden, with the cooperation of Swedish ground staff. We know about the latter only because Wikileaks years later reported on how the US ambassador to Sweden was called in to the Swedish foreign ministry over the matter. We don't know whether there have been further "issues" because it has never been investigated thoroughly by anyone that we know of, and certainly not publicly.

Clearly some Swedes - including police officers - were ok with blatantly ignoring Swedish law in the first matter, and some were willing to continue cooperating with the CIA illegally even after the massive uproar of the first revelations, and after it was clear political authorities at least in public opposed it, and at the same time as other parts of the Swedish government were prepared to take action against it.

Source?

Second, you can have consensual sex one time and then rape the second.

Also keep in mind that a UK judge too agreed that assuming that the allegations are as described by the Swedish prosecutor, and that these allegations are true it would be a crime in the UK too.

So what the prosecutors allege certainly goes beyond regret and second thought. Whether or not the prosecutors can substantiate those allegations in any way, is another matter.

In the sixties/seventies Sweden had a far more radical/left wing government most of the period than it has ever had since. First under Tage Erlander (social democrat; "founder" of large parts of the Swedish welfare system) and his successor, Olof Palme, which was even more left wing.

Olof Palme's harsh criticism of the Vietnam war was indeed a watershed moment in making criticism of the US involvement in Vietnam politically acceptable in Europe and in particular in the Scandinavian countries.

But Sweden has never been as left wing again as it was up until Palme was assassinated.

But that does not mean that I can't at the same time think the prosecution is acting in bizarre manners in this case and that something does not add up, though I don't think it's necessarily down to US involvement.

My guess is that yes, there was a dispute, or at least the women had regrets, and that Ny saw an opportunity to further her own political agenda and grabbed it. No prior conspiracy required - just two badly treated women coupled with a prosecutor who saw an opportunity to score some political points.

At the same time I think Assange genuinely fears that there is US involvement, and that this fear has in part been fuelled by the way Ny has acted in this case.

Of course this is total speculation.

And of course, the lack of a conspiracy does not rule out that US authorities might take advantage if they get the opportunity, but in the meantime having Assange holed up in his embassy would seem like it'd also likely suit them just fine. They know where he is, and his reputation has taken a serious hit.

You'd be surprised. In Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America (that I know of) there are tons of examples (that were later exposed in court and press) of governments doing it (framing people or lying) in exactly a vague and convoluted manner, and with extreme crudeness and arrogance.

Only if it plans on handing him over. So, no. If anything it's a wonderful gesture from Ecuador that puts the country in WORSE bargaining position with the US.

>Ecuador isn't some bastion of liberty

It never helped establish dictatorships in other countries, so it has that going for it.

Regardless whether or not the motivation is a one-way ticket to the USA, the answer to why they let him walk around freely and leave the country is simple:

It was not the same people.

The current prosecutor intervened in highly unusual manner after the previous prosecutor had indicated there clearly was no crime.

Whether or not that is because of US involvement or, say, her own personal political point-scoring is another matter, but to present it as if it was the "same people" driving the decision to free him initially and the decision to pursue him afterwards is misleading at best.

So in order to dictate "how and when" one can be questioned by the police, as a fugitive you first have to get political asylum in a other nations embassy, sit there for 3 years, and then have the statue of limitation reaching into the last 3 months, and the total cost of the police operation should be around $10 millions.

The risk that this "precedent" should impact even a single fugitive interview in the next 100 years is likely to be small, or actually very small.

Their speculation is relevant, yours is not.