Assange loses High Court appeal against extradition to Sweden
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange™ has been ordered by a High Court judge to return to Sweden to face rape and sexual molestation allegations brought against him by two women. Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley handed down the judgment this morning, the AP reports. The court's judgment will appear here shortly. The …
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Sweden not his final stop
If he get extridited to Sweden he'll end up in a US jail.
yeah...
Because having to go through both sweedish and UK courts makes it that much more simple to extradite him than just going through the UK courts.
This *again*?
If he gets extradited to Sweden, he'll face a hearing. It is VERY likely the case will then be dismissed because there are very little in the way of physical evidence. At that point he'll be none-too-politely asked to get his silly self out of Sweden.
IF the US asks for extradition there, Sweden will refer the case to the ... UK! They then have to say yes or no. Since the US doesn't have a crime to charge him with - yet - and as he might risk the death penalty IF they use espionage laws, he CAN'T be extradited anyhow.
IF he goes to court, and is - against ALL probability - sentenced, he'll get less than 4 years. During that time he can't be extradited ANYWHERE.
Yes, yes, YES. I HAVE heard it: "they'll just ignore the law!"
They could also kidnap him from where he is right now. It'd be easier, and no less illegal. Try, TRY to read up on the appropriate laws and regulations BEFORE commenting.
Not that I think people will listen any more this time around. "It's not the listening which is the problem, but the hearing" - Vir Cotto.
Oh, and IANAL. But I CAN read.
Re: Sweden not his final stop
"If he get extridited to Sweden he'll end up in a US jail."
Wrong. The Swedes have said they will not extradite him to the US without prior approval from the UK. The UK not extradite for a capital offence.
Extradition...
"IF the US asks for extradition there, Sweden will refer the case to the ... UK! They then have to say yes or no."
Umm.. isn't he Australian citizen? Surely the US would need to approach Australia for extradition to US.
Not quite...
He goes to Sweden gets interrogated, then charged. Faces trial.
If convicted... Then sentenced. After serving sentence... He gets the boot to Australia.
If the US DoJ finds enoug evidence... They will extradite from Australia.
BTW what's up with El Reg moderators. Seems one of them has a bleeding heart on for ol Assange....
Again with the law.
European Convention on Extradition, Paris, 13.XII.1957, Article 15 – Re-extradition to a third state: "Except as provided for in Article 14, paragraph 1.b, the requesting Party shall not, without the consent of the requested Party, surrender to another Party or to a third State a person surrendered to the requesting Party and sought by the said other Party or third State in respect of offences committed before his surrender"
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/024.htm
AFAIK this still applies for non-EU nationals, and today. So the US would approach Sweden, and Sweden would have to ask the UK.
It'd be a damned sight easier for the US to just go to the UK and use the speedy approach. Again, IANAL.
Umm.. isn't he Australian citizen? Surely the US would need to approach Australia for extradition to US.....
Incorrect, part of the European Arrest Warrant procedure is that permission to extradite to a third country from the country that issued the warrant (Sweden) must be granted by the country that he/she was extradited from (the UK)
I guess that means..
.. that the Swedish government now thinks its firewalls are up to the required standard.
Brown trouser time
I'm sure Uncle Sam is making a place ready for him right now.
From Sweden to USA.
The Yanks will get him, eventually, for exposing their hypocrisy and evil.
@AC puleeez give me a break.
Assange goes to Sweden.
He faces the charges.
Regardless of any jail time, he ends up getting booted back to Australia.
By then, the US has completed their investigation and will be done w Manning.
Then they charge Assange and Austraila sends him off to face charges.
Re: @AC puleeez give me a break.
Exactly. I am relieved that he is going back to the jurisdiction he fled, so conveniently after the Swedish police informed his counsel that he was to be interviewed and arrested. All this BS about the EAW misses the point that on grounds of absconding alone he must go back. So I am going out for a pint tonight. I advise Jules to buy a few bottles of English beer whilst he has the chance. It may be that he only be able to dream of the stuff for a couple for the next couple of years. Unless of course the Swedish CJS gives him a public lathering and expels him, declaring him persona non grata, stripping him of his few remaining assets.
The Swedish charges against Assange are crap.
But they are the sort of crap he supported when it wasn't being flung at him, so my heart doesn't bleed for him.
Good
He appears to think that because he has upset some important people that he can do what he wants and will be protected because of those people he has convinced that anything is just a conspiracy against him.
Jurors
Not sure how they will find impartial jurors. Who doesn't know who Julian Assange™ story and all the accompanying media hysteria that accompanies him?
Also can we have a count of the remaining appeals and appeals against appeals and higher courts left to go before he runs out of legal chances.
Not a problem.
There's no jury for this type of case in Sweden. Lay judges are used alongside professional ones.
They don't need to find jurors, the Swedish legal system is different from the English one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_legal_system#Lay_judges_and_juries
In my view...
It'd be in his interests to face trial in Sweden.
Firstly, looking at what I've read, I think (IMHO) he'd be found innocent.
Secondly, I reckon that would scupper the US prostituted protestations.
But, of course, I am obviously not a lawyer, as I only have €35 in my bank account. (Twenty cans of tramp-juice till dole-day next week)
"Swedish prosecutors have repeatedly requested that Assange make himself available for questioning. They issued a warrant for the WikiLeaker's arrest, but haven't filed charges in the case."
Um, he did so and then asked the prosecutors if he could leave Sweden, which they agreed to. This is a farce, likely orchestrated by the US as Assange is claiming. I guess we will have to see how this will pan out.
Yes, sure, that't why his solicitor had to answer questions about why he'd quickly disappeared. Are you paid for this or just easy to deceive?
Nope
The story about having made himself available before leaving Sweden turned out not to be true, as revealed in his last hearing.
I believe his lawyer had to fess up to telling a porky in court as well - not behaviour calculated to win approval from judges...
re
He did not ask. He absconded. His lawyer was told that the police wanted to question him and he magically disappeared. Later, at one of his appearances in court, his Swedish advocate claimed he'd not heard anything from the police, only to later confess in court that he had just found a text from them dating back to the crucial period, saying they wanted him to report.
Assange absconded.
As to the US, the Swedes have made it abundantly clear that the UK would have to agree on any putative extradition to the US from Sweden, and the UK does not allow extradition for capital offences. These data have been mulled over many times, and I am surprised that people are bringing up old, withered and burned chestnuts in the face of public iterations by Swedish and UK officials.
The man must attend court.
And then he will appeal, and then the appeal will be rejected, and then he will be extradited, and then he will be judged... Geez.
What I am most curious about is, what is the maximum sentence he risks in Sweden? Very soon, the whole shebang will have lasted longer than if he had started his sentence right after the crime.
@ratfox
Maybe, but he hasn't been charged.
Personally I don't give a rats tail about him as a person. My concern is the process.
For a moment, forget it's Assange: Think instead of it as being some bloke you've never heard of.
He's been accused. That's all. They question him and decide there is no case so let him go. Now they want him back so they can question him a second time. So they got an arrest warrant issued to question him? Not through the Swedish courts: The prosecutors went to the EU courts for it instead.
As I said in previous posts: They should ask the UK to hold him while they come over to question him. Dragging him back to Sweden is just being lazy on their part. What if he's innocent? What if they drop the case again? What happens to him? Is he left stranded in Sweden? Does he have to pay to leave the country yet again? And what then? What if the prosecutors decide they want to question him a third time? They go to the EU get another warrant and drag him back once more? Where does it end?
If they charge him then fine: Arrest his arse and drag him back to Sweden to face his accusers. Otherwise this is wasting time and money and if Sweden drop the charges again I do hope he sues them into the stone age for harassment.
And I still don't give a rats tail about Assange.
@PatientOne....
Slight problem...
Already pointed out in the first extradition hearing...
Assanage returns for questioning. At which time at the end of the interview, he will be formally charged. Why else do you think he absconded. Surely his lawyer told him the procedure.
You know the lawyer who under oath in the UK admitted to having received texts from the prosecution?
This point had been raised and answered in the past by many of us...
Re: @ratfox
For the nth time, Assange's counsel was advised they wanted him for questioning and to charge him. Assange very soon after disappeared and resurfaced in the UK; that is absconding. The Swedish CJS simply want justice to take its course, as it would have had Assange not fled the jurisdiction. As it is he has made himself the villain of the piece, even though he may claim otherwise. He lacks credibility, as do all absconders. He ought to be fined for evading justice, not suing. Absolutely not.
More room to appeal???? Which will no doubt drag the whole thing out further still!
Just hurry up and get him extradited so the fun can begin. It will be entertaining watching the arrogant and highly deluded buffoon go for a spin around the plug hole before he disappears into it.
Somewhere I hope Bradley Manning is reading about it and feeling just a little bit less hard done by...
If he has nothing to hide...
why wouldn't he want to go back to Sweden and clear his name? Transparency in all things, Julie.
I sincerely hope the Americans stay out of this, but I'm not hopeful that they will.
Justice?
Reading the judgement it looks like a text book example of how to cherry pick case law to come to a conclusion already decided, but full disclosure -
1) IANAL
2) I am a cynic
3) I have no vested interested in seeing Assange punished
4) I could be wrong
Re: Justice?
WTH? Case law? You certainly are not a lawyer; this has nothing to do with case law. Rather it has to do with the case of a man who fled the jurisdiction shortly after his Swedish counsel was advised that the Swedish police wanted to interview Assange preparatory to charging him. The only question here is not case law, but have they prepared their case properly, and has the man fled jurisdiction. Case law is nothing to do with the matter, and your cynicism would appear to have blinded your intellect to the facts, but that seems to be a common phenomenon where the convict [1], Assange, is concerned.
[1] Convicted in or around 1991 for 25 counts, including; 1) stealing passwords from US Air force 7th Command Group in the Pentagon; 2) for hacking computers at two universities; 3) hacking computers at two telecommunications companies; 4) hacking computers to monitor the Australian Federal Police investigation into *his* criminal activities.
After sentencing he said to the judge "Your honour, I feel a great misjustice [sic] has been done and I would like to record the fact that you have been misled by the prosecution".
I expect much more to become public property, including the curious case of the 16 year old mother of his son.
Occam's Razor
Wow, you conspiracy theorists are out in force today.
Which is more likely, the US wanted him extradited from the UK (with it's notoriously lax extradition treaty with the US), or Julian "Media Whore (tm)" Assage got called back by the Swedes about the matter and decided to inflate his ego by getting as much camera time as he could out of it?
Occam's Razor says....
He should be jailed indefinitely. Not for offences already mentioned, but for being so bloody annoying.
Surely the Americans aren't stupid enough to execute Julian Assange for his "heinous" crime of telling the world what they needed to hear.
If they did I'm sure a lot of people (Anonymous, regular joes like ourselves, etc.) would end up rebelling against the system and attacking gov't buildings.
"Surely the Americans aren't stupid enough..." that's just too funny.
Another amazing quote from Assange
Assange denies the accusations, saying they are an attempt to smear him, and he says it would be unfair to send him to a country where the language and legal system are alien to him. His attorneys have fought his extradition on procedural and human-rights grounds.
-=-
Note these quotes are from the article on CNN...
Here's the irony.
Assange claims that it would be unfair to send him to Sweden because the 'language and legal system' are alien to him. Yet this was the same country where he was seeking citizenship.
Go figure.
Re: Another amazing quote from Assange
Thank you for putting into words something that has been plaguing me for months. In a word, this man has demonstrated beyond all doubt that he is a duplicitous hypocrite. Time for that beer I think.
He'll just appeal
SOS, DD.
If he's guilty I hope he gets serious prison time.
Just go already...
If he's not done anything wrong then why not head over to face the police and the courts? Stop wasting our courts time and Wikileaks money on ego...
I noticed in another article that the running costs for Wikileaks were huge. Wonder how much of that was taken in any fees/PR/court costs for Assange and not running some anonymous TOR servers somewhere.
To be honest, I'm done with him - and am more concerned about Bradley Manning - as that seems to have gone really quiet. Bradley didn't get bail time in a nice manor house....
So why does the UK have a say..?
...as to whether Sweden would consider a US extradition request? Once his sorry arse has left our sunny shores, why would we have any say? As noted here, he's an Aussie citizen, right?
Eh. That's how the rules on extradition work in the EU. If the UK hand him over to Sweden, Sweden cannot hand him over to the US without asking the UK first. His nationality doesn't matter; it's a safeguard against, well, bouncing people all over the place.
IANAL. And so forth.
Deja vu all over again
These are irrefutable facts.
That he was allowed to depart Sweden and to enter the UK, it is a not unreasonable assumption that the Swedish police were not sufficiently interested to flag him, and similarly, that the UK authorities were equally uninterested in this matter.
This whole case is a crock, as anyone who can be bothered to read would know. Ploughing through this http://rixstep.com/1/20110201,00.shtml will reveal a disinterested 3rd party view from very close range. JA attracts his own brand of "groupie", and like famous people of all types, he takes the opportunity to bonk a few of them. No news there. That these two women have subsequently decided to amend their story after the fact is pretty much irrefutable, and combined with evidence from others that "immediately after" the alleged events, they were not at all enraged (or whatever they have since become), suggests that this case has no legs beyong the fact that some politicians in the US want to "hang him high"
Hmmm.
That's funny... Irrefutable facts...
How about the fact that his lawyer, under oath, admitted to lying about the fact that the prosecution was not in communication with him? ( the lawyer ).
The fact was that the lawyer had been receiving phone texts asking for Assange to appear.
The fact is that Assange skipped the country before he could be brought in for questioning and subsequently charged. Also detailed in court documents during the first extradition hearing.
This facts are actually in the court's record as well as in the press reports.
Reality sucks, don't it?
Realit check
Had the Swedish police wanted to detain him, they could have done so at the border. There is passport control leaving Schengen. Similarly the UK could have detained him on entry had they been so requested to by the Swedes.
Since he was detained at neither point (the irrefutable fact), I therefore conclude that the Swedish authorities were uninterested AT THAT TIME (or not sufficiently competent) which amounts to the same thing.
Who wrote anything about his lawyer, and what has that got to do with my post?
Information and actions post Assange's departure from SE, are not at all relevant to the fact that no authority could be bothered to intercept him upon departure.
d
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