I’m more than a little suspicious that Sweden has dropped its rape charges against Julian Assange as part of a coordinated effort to get him out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The official explanation is consistent with this theory:
In explaining why Sweden was dropping the investigation, [Sweden’s director of public prosecution, Marianne] Ny told a news conference in Stockholm that “all possibilities to advance the investigation have now been exhausted” and that the legal proceedings could continue only if Assange were present in Sweden.
But she said that if Assange returns to Sweden before the statute of limitations lapses in 2020, then an investigation could be reopened.
What’s the point of keeping the investigation going if all it does is provide a pretext for Assange to ask the Ecuadorians for asylum? The authorities in Ecuador are clearly tired of the arrangement and even briefly cut off Assange’s internet connection last year out of concern that he was meddling in the American election. But they weren’t going to kick him out so long as he was clearly vulnerable to extradition.
Whether he is still vulnerable to extradition isn’t known because the British won’t confirm or deny that the Americans have registered such a request, but at least we know now that there’s no certainty of extradition. Instead, there’s a much less significant risk of about a year of jail time for jumping bail.
British police said that Assange still faces arrest for jumping bail if he walks out of diplomatic protection, which Assange claims is still needed to keep him from being extradited to the United States to face charges of disclosing confidential military and diplomatic documents…
…The maximum penalty for breaching bail is up to a year in prison or a fine.
The police also recognized that Assange is now “wanted for a much less serious offense” and said they would “provide a level of resourcing which is proportionate to that offense.”
Will the Ecuadorians continue to provide him sanctuary to avoid a mere bail-jumping charge? Will this provide them the pretext they need to end their interminable relationship with Assange?
One thing should be clear, and that’s that the Americans want Assange more than ever, although that desire probably doesn’t go to the top.
President Trump was highly supportive of WikiLeaks during his 2016 campaign for office, when the website released hacked emails from the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta. Trump once told a rally: “We love WikiLeaks. They revealed a lot.”
In the short term, Assange is doing his best version of a victory lap, claiming a vindication that doesn’t exist, and promising more “war” against the West.
The silver-haired activist made a rare appearance on the balcony of the embassy late Friday afternoon with a clenched fist in the air.
“Today is an important victory,” he told the throng of journalists camped outside the embassy, a stone’s throw from the Harrods department store.
He said that a “legal conflict” with the United States and the United Kingdom was continuing and that a “proper war was just commencing.”
The usual useful idiots will buy what Assange is selling. In truth, this could be a prelude to his arrest.
I just assumed this was the first step in erasing any reason for Ecuador to allow him continued haven.
More politics over principles. The application of the US rule of law isn’t perfect, but there are principles to guide thinking, rational people that choose not to roll around in the gutter with the unenlightened.
Almost seven freaking years over a misdemeanor with the suspect detained and he and all the alleged victims and witnesses were always available and the Swedish prosecutor couldn’t even make a case for filing criminal charges.
the 6th amendment applies once he’s facing a U.S. court.
choosing to hide to avoid prosecution isn’t the same thing as being detained.
Yeah, I agree with the remark about politics taking precedence over principles. The thing is, I would ascribe that attitude to Julian Assange…not whom you had in mind, I’m pretty sure.
Swedish law would be worthwhile discussing here. (I believe it’s one of many strongly influenced by the French Civil Code tradition, and thus not in the English common-law tradition.) So would English law. But the 6th Amendment to the US Constitution?
It what way exactly was “the suspect [Assange] detained” and “always available” to Swedish courts? Are you suggesting that the Swedish prosecutor should have interviewed Assange in his hidey-hole at the Ecuadoran embassy in London? Hey, sure, why not just interview him by telephone? By post cards? If you want to talk about high principles, how about the idea that accused and accuser both recognize the legitimacy of the courts? Sweden is a democracy, for chrissakes. The Swedish courts are not some sort of star chamber.
Oh, and I’m sure that everyone who disagrees with your rhetorical stance appreciates being characterized as “roll[ing] around in the gutter with the unenlightened.” And we richly deserve it, because we’re all a bunch of ignorant fools who’ve never heard of the Bill of Rights.
Glad you admit it!
Needs more Clinton outrage.
The United States had nothing to do with the Swedish case. I fail to understand why the U.S. is held responsible for that here.
By his very intentional use of extremely selective and targeted propaganda to get Donald Trump elected President, his current attempts to undermine the investigation of Trump’s campaign, and his very intentional campaign support of right wing extremist leaders in other countries, we know that Julian Assange is explicitly opposed to open government and a moral legal system.
Assange is also showing himself to be fine with state-sponsored violence, as long as the violence is in support of the political movement he favors.
Marie3, Assange is showing himself to be an international enemy of the governing principles you so aggressively claim to value. What are you doing here?
Foreigners don’t have agency.
The world is run out of the basements of a couple buildings in northern Virginia.
Woke people know this.
Hint (since you obviously haven’t noticed): lots of quite well-informed folks frequent these precincts. Insulting us with the implication that you’re the only one who grasps the situation (à la ag . . . how proud THAT must make you!) is most assuredly the way to win converts to your point of view. Carry on.
But, hey, voice liked it! (How proud THAT must make you, too!)
Interestingly, there is one report that makes a general complaint that Swedish Prosecutors are pretty bad at abiding by the requirement for a speedy trial..
It was filed by a number of human rights organizations. Some are odd (The national trial lawyers of the Philippines?). The National Lawyers Guild signed it – and they are a serious organization – if a pretty left wing. I am pretty suspicious, but it at least offers some background as to the relevant law.
The report notes:
https://uprdoc.ohchr.org/uprweb/downloadfile.aspx?filename=1392&file=EnglishTranslation
The 6th Amendment is irrelevant. But Swedish Law has the same guarantee:
The 6th Amendment would not apply where the defendant is evading law enforcement. I would think Swedish prosecutors would make the same argument.
The same document states:
I am pretty agnostic about Assange. Honestly he really doesn’t interest me very much.
I’ve always assumed that Assange and Wikileaks was a Russian deep ops thing. The election just seemed to have confirmed it. Have the Wikileaks people ever done an op against Russia? (And not that everything they did was bad mind you in terms of accountability.) But, on balance, a lot of damage that has just enabled American conservatives, ironically.
This is wikileaks credibility on fire.
. . . that twitter thread (re: “context”).
In context, the tweet you linked looks highly misleading (and most likely deliberately so, i.e., dishonest propaganda).
Dishonest propaganda for who? Unless I missed something, that is the official Wikileaks twitter account. So I’m honestly confused who is doing the misleading and how?
linked directly to the full context of the highlighted excerpt, hosted on the official wikileaks site, right there in the same tweet.
Is what I’m pointing out.
(Note: not saying the tweet wasn’t misleading — and most likely deliberately so — since the full context makes clear that the highlighted fragment describes something completely innocuous. But wikileaks did not withhold or conceal the context, as some people seem to be assuming/suggesting. Think Don’s “clickbait” suggestion is probably onto something.)
Ah! That makes some sense now.
And while I believe it’s slightly worse than click-bait, especially as it’s almost assuredly meant to deceive at least partially, but the full blown destruction of all of Wikileaks credibility does not seem to be within the power of this particular message.
Thank you very much for explaining your position in more detail Oaguabonita! It was most helpful in clearing up my confusion.
I noticed one of the people replying did provide the context that Wikileaks failed to do with its posting of part of the text, highlighted in yellow. So Wikileaks is in the habit of creating clickbait, which at this point is hardly a surprise. And yes, it hurts what little credibility Wikileaks has left.
tweet.
It’s a link to the full document, hosted on wikileaks’ site.
Presumably, the same source the tweeter who posted the context down-twitter-thread got that context from; i.e., s/he clicked the link in the tweet. What a concept!
So, no, it’s not true that “one of the people replying did provide the context that Wikileaks failed to do“. Wikileaks linked to the very same context within the tweet people are taking offense at (not without reason; but that’s not a valid one).
Fair enough. That said, the difference this go around is that Wikileaks is conveniently highlighting one piece of the document at the expense of the surrounding context. I’m cool with whatever nomenclature one might use to characterize that practice, but at best, if we cut to the chase, it comes across to me as deceptive.
LOL!! I bet you could have discovered that previously to last week. All they did is search their available files for mentions of Mueller.
Assange tweeted it in response to Mueller’s appointment. It’s profoundly embarrassing for wikileaks.
Just because your pants are around your ankles doesn’t mean you can’t be smashing the hegemon at the same time.
Wikileaks used to be made up of a number of people who had various motivations and levels of integrity. The only person of note who remains is Assange, who might not be literally employed by Putin but is clearly working for the benefit of the international fascist right.
This Case of Alleged Rape Is a Reminder Why Many Don’t Come Forward
As one of our other commenters would say.
Yeah. I’ll never understand this.
If a person says you can have sex with them under certain conditions and only certain conditions, and you have sex with them not in accordance with those conditions, the figurative you in question has committed rape.
It’s not fucking hard to understand this.
If as is claimed in this case, a woman says “I’ll have sex with you so long as you use a condom.” and the man said woman said that too has sex with her at any point without a condom, that’s rape.
But fuck all if I can understand anyone who tries to tell me otherwise.
Stealthing
.
Yeah. I know about this kind of BS. I’ve literally punched a guy over it. Almost got arrested too. But then the officer reminded all of those involved that why I punched him would become part of the official record and that they would have to testify to that in open court if they wanted to press charges.
Not surprisingly they didn’t want to press charges after that and I was let go.
Not exactly the kind of justice I want, but as it’s the best I’ll get for now, I’ll take it and try and come back for more later.
The concept of consent is simple and should be simple. Unfortunately, when the alleged rapist is someone famous or who is a political actor of one stripe or another, apologists for said alleged rapist will come out of the woodwork to defend them. If only those whose consent was violated were given such consideration. Apparently that is too much to ask.
I’ve very aware that actually convicting someone of rape or even sexual assault is ridiculously hard as most occasions occur when it very really boils down to ‘He-said<>She-said’ situations. Especially in a situation such as this.
Worse, there have in point of fact been very real high profile cases of certain individuals making a declaration of rape for fraudulent reasons. And given the human predisposition to create ‘sacred cows’ and the societal predisposition to give males of the appropriate groups a ‘boys will be boys’ pass, those few cases have given the actual rapists a very large shield to block legitimate charges of rape.
Proving rape happened is hard and unwieldy process.
But that does not remove our moral, ethical, and legal obligation to investigate.
Typically though, when one party, no matter how famous, refuses to even be questioned by the authorities lawfully appointed to investigate such things, it is a prudent action to assume the party refusing to be questioned is full of shit.
one of many reasons I can’t stand either one of those 2
Those who who in any way support the efforts of the intelligence systems of any major world power are guilty of collaboration with one or another faction of an ongoing set of criminal enterprises, and that includes many people on this site.
And those who try to uncover their dirty little secrets? They either get their asses kicked by whatever gang they hacked or they are forced to run to the protection of a rival gang.
So it goes in this PostFactual world.
Telling the truth is now a crime.
How far we’ve come!!!
AG
Choosing the “lesser of two evils?”
Maybe.
But not lesser enough.
AG