Honestly, if anyone thought he would go....

[kierthos]

Julian Assange has 'declined' the invitation of the local constabulary to leave the relative safety of the Ecuador embassy. Considering that if he did accept the invitation, he'd be arrested for violating the terms of his bail, fairly promptly shipped off to Sweden to answer the charges against him there. Said charges (rape and assault accusations) are, according to Assange, merely meant to result in his capture by Swedish authorities so he can be extradited to the U.S. so he can talk to some rather humorless people about that whole Wikileaks thing.

Now, I don't know if Assange did what he's accused of in Sweden. I also don't know if the Swedes would promptly drop the matter if and when Assange got back to Sweden so they could then hand him over to the U.S.

I do know that he's got every reason to be concerned about the latter. The U.S. is fairly well known for it's humorless dickheads roaming the halls of power.

Comments

[herlander_refugee]

Humorless dickheads indeed. I do know, some time back, the women who suddenly decided they had been coerced into sexual relations with Assange had journaled/blogged/twitted.what-the-hell-evered about their "score" with him.

I thought it passing strange that after the Wikileaks adventure unfurled, they suddenly felt coerced.

[matgb]

So why did he run from a country with incredibly strong safeguards against extradition, to a country whose approach to extradition requests from the US is to ask if there's anything else they can do?

He'd be safer there than in the UK. He's running from a potential rape charge and his lawyer as good as admitted he did it, all they originally wanted him to do was answer some questions.

[matgb]

Um, yeah.

Steps needed for the US to get an extradition from the UK:
"Hi, can we have X please, we think he did something bad"

Steps needed for the US to get extradition from Sweden:
"we'd like X, we have this evidence, we have this corroboration" reply: "we'll think about it, can you provide extra evidence, can you provide extra guarantees, can you provide written guarantee that he'll be treated humanely by our standards, can you guarantee he'll not face the death penalty, can you guarantee lots of other stuff, oh, and we have to ask permission from the Brits as well by the terms of our treaty with them, and they can say no on that but they can't say no according to their traty with you".

Seriously, a) his lawyer admitted he carried out actions that're classed as rape under English and Swedish law and b) he'd be fucking safer in Sweden than in the UK.

He's a paranoid lunatic and supporting him further discredits any good he may in the past have done.

Check out Swedish extradition law, check out UK extradition law, and tell me he's not just clucthc at straws to avoid a conviction as a sex offending scumbag who deserves to rot in jail.

Oh yeah, the US hasn't even asked for him, at all. and if you want links for any/all of the above I can provide them, easily, some of them from proper bona fide lawyers who work human rights cases.