Ecuador grants Assange asylum: hilarity ensues

I think it's probably important to note that seeking asylum before going to Sweden doesn't necessarily mean Assange thinks there's some conspiracy theory involving the Swedish charges. It's just that, if he is extradited and then imprisoned, he would no longer have any chance to seek asylum. If he believes the US government is going to come after him once he's in Sweden, the only way to protect himself would be to seek asylum before going to Sweden.

Whether the US government would actually be successful in coming after him in Sweden is, of course, another matter.
 
Camikaze said:
I think it's probably important to note that seeking asylum before going to Sweden doesn't necessarily mean Assange thinks there's some conspiracy theory involving the Swedish charges. It's just that, if he is extradited and then imprisoned, he would no longer have any chance to seek asylum. If he believes the US government is going to come after him once he's in Sweden, the only way to protect himself would be to seek asylum before going to Sweden.

Whether the US government would actually be successful in coming after him in Sweden is, of course, another matter.
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There seems to be no doubt whatsoever that Assange is seriously concerned about the US. Sweden isn't in itself very "dangerous" in that respect. The sticking point is really what can and should be expected from US-Swedish interaction. And it's here that it's being suggested that somehow Sweden would be particularly pliable to US wishes and preassures. How realistic is that then, really? We might yet find out...:scan:
 
Spoiled,because of the Conspirationist element:
Spoiler :
PlutonianEmpire said:
Would his role in being the founder of WikiLeaks be a factor in any of this?

WikiLeaks HAS leaked US secrets, after all. If the leaked documents contained crucial evidence of something important, then wouldn't Assange feel justified in his fears?
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Most of the documents that were leaked have never seen the daylight . But this may change if anything happens to Mr. Assange . Because of that,I suspect this is the only reason why he hadn't been extracted directly to USA yet,nor "dissapear" mysteriously .
 
Verbose said:
There seems to be no doubt whatsoever that Assange is seriously concerned about the US. Sweden isn't in itself very "dangerous" in that respect. The sticking point is really what can and should be expected from US-Swedish interaction. And it's here that it's being suggested that somehow Sweden would be particularly pliable to US wishes and preassures. How realistic is that then, really? We might yet find out...:scan:
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This is the bit of the story that doesn't make any sense to me. Why would he be more at risk from the US in Sweden, than he was all the time he was in the UK fighting his extradition through the courts (before he hid in the Ecuadorian embassy)?

Or to put it another way, if the CIA didn't make him disappear in London, why would they in Sweden?
 
Verbose said:
How realistic is that then, really? We might yet find out...:scan:
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I'm generally inclined to agree with everything that comes out of Geoffrey Robertson's mouth, and he has this to say on the matter:
[H]is real anxiety is that the grand jury sitting in Virginia will produce a sealed indictment and the Justice Department will pounce once he gets to Sweden. Sweden has a government that bends to America’s will and has been found guilty of handing out special rendition at the request of the CIA: the Swedish justice system is amenable to government pressure, and he is much more vulnerable in Sweden than he is in the United Kingdom or Australia. He is asking the Australian government to obtain an undertaking from the Swedish government that when its legal system is finished with him, he will be allowed to return to Australia, where he is confident that the courts will deal fairly with any American extradition requests.
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I don't know how accurate he is in this case, but the problem very much seems to be the danger posed by Sweden specifically, rather than an attempt to dodge the rape charges.
 
Graffito said:
due process ... is that where Sweden applies to Ecuador to extradite Assange to Sweden
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Nope.

You might not be impressed by the Majesty of the Swedish Law, but it's highly doubtful the officers of said law give a damn. There is a procedure to follow. They are following it. It just happens the EU has meant this procedure has been given a surprisingly powrful extension, in this instance into the British legal system, which is also upholding it.

Ball is in the British court. The Swedish courts are simply processing this as per usual. What Ecuador is doing is pretty much anybody's guess at this point.
 
Let me get this straight.

People believe that Sweden are going to extradite Assange to the USA, despite him being in the UK which has a reputation for bending over backwards to extradite people to the USA.

Something does not make sense.
 
Apparently the Swedes have something called "justifiable grounds" which is weaker than "probable cause", am I right?
 
Verbose said:
Nope.

You might not be impressed by the Majesty of the Swedish Law, but it's highly doubtful the officers of said law give a damn. There is a procedure to follow. They are following it. It just happens the EU has meant this procedure has been given a surprisingly powrful extension, in this instance into the British legal system, which is also upholding it.

Ball is in the British court. The Swedish courts are simply processing this as per usual. What Ecuador is doing is pretty much anybody's guess at this point.
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yes i see your point of view ... BUT as you are saying the ball is in the British court and Assange is technically in Ecuador (as he was technically "detain in absentia")... is the ball now not back in Sweden's court,to get him extradited from Ecuador... if we are talking "due process" it seems odd that you expect the British to abandon it...
Fair enough they should say "oops, sorry" to Sweden, but the Swedish should understand as they already had their "oopps" moment when they let him leave the country after dropping their investigation... I'm sure they will understand...
 
Camikaze said:
I'm generally inclined to agree with everything that comes out of Geoffrey Robertson's mouth, and he has this to say on the matter:

I don't know how accurate he is in this case, but the problem very much seems to be the danger posed by Sweden specifically, rather than an attempt to dodge the rape charges.
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He's accurate in the sense that it has happened once. And that was in the heady days just after 9/11, when it was "unpatriotic" for everyone, everywhere, not to hark to every beck and call by the US.

Two Egyptians, Ahemd Agiza and Muhammad Alzery, were extradited on a secret CIA flight to Egypt from Sweden on 18 December 2011. It became a huge scandal in Sweden in 2004. The UN formally santioned Sweden over it in 2005. The Swedish government overturned all decisions regarding this in 2008, and paid 3 million SEK each in reperations to the two men, of which Alzery was aquitted by an Egyptian military court and set free in 2002, while Agiza was sentenced to 25 years. The latter has since applied for, and been granted, permanent residence in Sweden, again...

The sticking point is whether this one case can hold on to all the metonymic power that gets rhetorically pumped into it by those who want to intimate that Sweden is reeeeally unsafe due to US meddling in its internal affairs? Is this incident — and it is this one occasion that keeps being obliquely referred to — the shape of how things generally work in Sweden, or was it an exception?

Considering these kinds of extraditions to the CIA has since been discontinued all over the EU — since it was an awful idea anyway — and that the first flush of bending-over-backwards-to-the-US-post-9/11 is long since over, it's unclear why anyone would think Sweden particularly risky in this respect? Apparently it's suggested that Sweden never, ever stopped handing people over to the US on loose grounds when everyone else did? I hope the US is paying us royally if so...:rolleyes:

Or maybe it's just about unfamiliarity with a small place of no consequence rather far away that it's safe to project whatever the hell onto, since no one really knows anything about it, and no one cares enough to find stuff out?:scan:
 
Graffito said:
yes i see your point of view ... BUT as you are saying the ball is in the British court and Assange is technically in Ecuador (as he was technically "detain in absentia")... is the ball now not back in Sweden's court,to get him extradited from Ecuador... if we are talking "due process" it seems odd that you expect the British to abandon it...
Fair enough they should say "oops, sorry" to Sweden, but the Swedish should understand as they already had their "oopps" moment when they let him leave the country after dropping their investigation... I'm sure they will understand...
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That's the line now taken of Assanges Swedish counsel, yes.

The Swedish judiciary system does not strictly speaking extend beyond Swedish borders. Due to the EU however, there are these interesting new resources.

Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden. The UK agrees to comply with common EU treatises, and under those agrees to make Assange available. Neither Sweden, the UK, or the EU extend to Ecuador.

The massive diplomatic wrangle now ensuing is entirely between Ecuador and Britian however. What can be done, how, when and why in this rather odd situation is apparently up for grabs, but Sweden is entiely unilvolved in that. Sweden simply wants Assange extradited from another EU country. It isn't required to ask for extradition from Ecuador. Especially since, even if Assange is technically "in Ecuador" for the moment, all Sweden is asking here is that as and when Assange ends up on British soil, the British might be so kind as to pick him up for processing to Sweden, thank you very much.

When Assange is not in the UK, Sweden can't well be asking the British to go into Ecuador to find him for it. But when Assange is in the UK, he's avilable. The British get to work out the finicky bits about when he's supposed to be where.

Sweden has no extradition treaty with Ecuador, and thus there is no either legal or diplomatic resource for talking to Ecuador about an extradition.

As far as seems possible to tell right now, the Swedish prosecutors are simply sticking to procedure, being relatively comfortable that as the British judicial system has been exhausted by Assange, the British will eventually pick him up, and dispatch him to Sweden for interviewing. And that's the British sticking to their version of due process. Assange has been through their system. By the British official count, it's now time for him to got to Sweden. So right now the Swedish prosecutors' hopes seem pretty realistic. It's also formally 100% what they should be doing according to how the system is set up. Inadvisable tomfoolery going on at the very beginning of this matter isn't really an argument for continuing to behave stupid. It might have been for entirely disallowing the charges back then, but what wasn't the decisoon. So now they're being absolute sticklers for running things according to their book.
 
GoodGame said:
Apparently the Swedes have something called "justifiable grounds" which is weaker than "probable cause", am I right?
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When, if, Assange is formally charged with something by a prosecutor, the wording is highly significant since there are several degress of suspicion of wrongdoing. It depends on how strong a case the prosecutor thinks he/she has got.
 
Verbose said:
The sticking point is whether this one case can hold on to all the metonymic power that gets rhetorically pumped into it by those who want to intimate that Sweden is reeeeally unsafe due to US meddling in its internal affairs? Is this incident — and it is this one occasion that keeps being obliquely referred to — the shape of how things generally work in Sweden, or was it an exception?
Click to expand...

Indeed, it would seem highly unintuitive to suggest that Sweden would have any sort of motive to make a dodgy deal with the US. However, Assange's is an exceptional case, so it's understandable from his perspective to not rely simply on what is most likely the case (that Sweden would not cooperate with the US in the manner feared), when the record speaks to the opposite. Perhaps it's worth considering how any potentiality of an expedited extradition from Sweden has been effected by how much of a big deal Assange has made of this. By making a big deal of it, and by talking up the danger, he's ensured that there's so much scrutiny and attention that, should he be extradited to Sweden, they wouldn't dream of handing him over to the US.
 
Verbose said:
That's the line now taken of Assanges Swedish counsel, yes.

The Swedish judiciary system does not strictly speaking extend beyond Swedish borders. Due to the EU however, there are these interesting new resources.

Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden. The UK agrees to comply with common EU treatises, and under those agrees to make Assange available. Neither Sweden, the UK, or the EU extend to Ecuador.

The massive diplomatic wrangle now ensuing is entirely between Ecuador and Britian however. What can be done, how, when and why in this rather odd situation is apparently up for grabs, but Sweden is entiely unilvolved in that. Sweden simply wants Assange extradited from another EU country. It isn't required to ask for extradition from Ecuador. Especially since, even if Assange is technically "in Ecuador" for the moment, all Sweden is asking here is that as and when Assange ends up on British soil, the British might be so kind as to pick him up for processing to Sweden, thank you very much.
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well i agree there... that would be due process
When Assange is not in the UK, Sweden can't well be asking the British to go into Ecuador to find him for it. But when Assange is in the UK, he's avilable. The British get to work out the finicky bits about when he's supposed to be where.

Sweden has no extradition treaty with Ecuador, and thus there is no either legal or diplomatic resource for talking to Ecuador about an extradition.
Click to expand...
well maybe they could set the process in motion....
As far as seems possible to tell right now, the Swedish prosecutors are simply sticking to procedure, being relatively comfortable that as the British judicial system has been exhausted by Assange, the British will eventually pick him up, and dispatch him to Sweden for interviewing. And that's the British sticking to their version of due process. Assange has been through their system. By the British official count, it's now time for him to got to Sweden. So right now the Swedish prosecutors' hopes seem pretty realistic. It's also formally 100% what they should be doing according to how the system is set up.
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yes they should do the same as they did with their "most" wanted criminal...Ronnie Biggs... should follow due process to get a violent convicted thug who escaped Police custody and fled to foreign soil... its very clear how they handle this
Inadvisable tomfoolery going on at the very beginning of this matter isn't really an argument for continuing to behave stupid. It might have been for entirely disallowing the charges back then, but what wasn't the decisoon. So now they're being absolute sticklers for running things according to their book.
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fine , no problem with that... they can sit outside for 36 years... or untill Assange gets bored with the circus he is running.... he has drawn Sweden, the UK, Australia, the US and Ecuador into this... and will no doubt draw the EU into it too... unless the british do not follow due process and abduct some one from foriegn soil.... which would kind of prove Assange correct in his concerns
 
Verbose, I unfortunately know next to nothing about EU procedural law. So, could the Swedish proescutors do this 'interview' in an Ecuadorean embassy/consulate in Sweden?
 
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