back to article Greens Senator champions Assange cause

The Australian Prime Minister and Attorney General may have shunned Julian Assange in his bid for justice, but Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has emerged as one of the Wikileaks founder’s core supporters. Ludlam has returned from a mission to Europe where he sought to secure some surety over Assange's human rights, if he is …

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  1. mhenriday
    Thumb Up

    Good on Mr Ludlam !

    The chances that our Swedish government will hand Mr Assange over to their masters in the US are not negligible - ever since 1943 and Stalingrad, when the wartime coalition government realised that Germany had lost the war, subservience to the US Empire has been the name of the game. Mr Assange needs all the diplomatic help he can get....

    Henri

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: Good on Mr Ludlam !

      "The chances that our Swedish government will hand Mr Assange over to their masters in the US are not negligible...." As has been pointed out by many legal commentators, if the US was intent on extradition it would have been easier to do it from the UK rather than let A$$nut go first to Sweden. Indeed, please do supply details of any arrest warrent or even charges that the US authorities have filed against A$$nut - you can't, because they haven't filed any. Only last year, around this time, A$$nut's legal team were assuring anyone that would listen that the UK-to-Sweden case should be dismissed because the US authorities were "going to file an arrest warrant" for A$$nut "any day now" - what complete cobblers that turned out to be! A year has passed and no arrest warrant, exposing A$$nut's legal team for the "stretchers-of-the-truth" they are.

      But, don't let simple facts stop you from you bleating, it is quite entertaining.

      1. mhenriday
        FAIL

        Mr Bryant seems to be having

        keyboard problems again. Perhaps we should all chip in to buy him a new one - id est, if we what we see on these Reg threads is not rather a flagrant case of PEBCAK....

        Henri

        1. Scorchio!!
          FAIL

          Re: Mr Bryant seems to be having

          Sweden cannot extradite Assange to any other country without the permission of the first country from whom he is extradited. Stop fantasising.

        2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          Happy

          RE: Mr Bryant seems to be having

          As usual, when his bile-packed postings are shown up for the bleating they are, henri has nothing to offer other than childish insults. I suggest his parents get him outdoors and into the real World a bit more often.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @Matt

            I agree with most of your points, but you devalue your posts by calling Assange names.

            In my personal opinion he makes a good enough job of showing himself for what he is without anyone else calling him names.

  2. Big-nosed Pengie
    Facepalm

    I'm thoroughly ashamed of my (Australian) grubbyment's role in this sordid business. Assange has committed no crime in Australia nor has he been charged with one. Their job is to protect Australian citizens, not call for their handover to foreign powers.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Stop

      RE: Big-nosed Pengie

      Don't worry, I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

      A$$nut is accused of breaking Swedish laws, it has nothing to do with Australia. His possible guilt under the US Espionage Act is also not yet in question as the US have not charged him with anything or issued an arrest warrant. I assume your "concern" is that, should A$$nut do a runner back to Oz, you think the "grubbyment" will hand him over to the US? Don't be silly, they'll just hand him back to the Swedes (http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Extraditionandmutualassistance_Relationshipwithothercountries_Australianbilateralextraditionagreements).

      1. Scorchio!!

        Re: RE: Big-nosed Pengie

        As I've already observed, Assange was convicted on 25 counts for busting into, among other things, a Pentagon computer from which he stole passwords. For that offence alone a gaol sentence is indicated, and quite a long one too.

    2. AnotherBird
      FAIL

      If committed in Australia they would be crimes, but they weren't.

      The senator when to Sweden to get assurances about Assange's human rights ahead of his extradition to that country. The circumstance that surround the accusations against Assange would be consider crimes in Australia. On the issue of consent Australia recognizes rape after the withdraw of consent, rape on a sleeping individual, and rape in marriage as serious crimes.

      This repeat of "Assange has committed no crime ... nor has he been charged with one," is a distortion of how the law, legal system, and law enforcement system works. Yes, Assange has not be "convicted" of committing any crime, but he has been accused of committing several crimes while he was in Sweden.

      If Senator Scott Ludlam took the time to read about Sexual assault laws in Australia he wouldn't have ventured to Sweden. It is doubtful that he even read the European Extradition Warrant laws while he was in Europe.

      Assange should stop this "gong show" and got the Sweden to face his accusers.

  3. paleoflatus

    What else would you expect from cheap and misguided sound-bite politicians?

    I'm a small-L liberal by nature, but the Union-based "Labour" Party repels me at present. At last there's a reason to vote for the Leprechauns!

  4. John Angelico
    Big Brother

    The Australian Greens Party...

    ...are on the loony left extremity of Australian politics.

    The only problem at the moment is that the ALP (Labour/Democrat equivalent, being so-called "progressives" - mainly closet socialists) is a minority government hanging onto power (whatever it takes) by forming a coalition with the Greens Party and three independents.

    Consequently, the Greens tail tends to wag the ALP dog, and we have a PM largely hostage to a deal signed under some duress, aided and abetted by her socialist past which was redder than her hair.

    Personally, I would put the Greens on a level somewhat lower than Screaming Lord Sutch and the party he established (Official Monster Raving Loonies). The Greens take themselves far too seriously, and we don't do eccentricity anywhere near as well as our colonial masters.

    This Senator had the hide to harangue Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas, at an enquiry into the lockout of three unions back in October, when he didn't even know what the legislation said about company options in a dispute. Mr Joyce ate him up and spat him out.

    Sen Ludlam was one of three such Senators who attacked Alan Joyce as being duplicitous etc etc., and who tried to tell him how to run his airline, when none of them have had any (repeat ANY) business experience in their entire working lives.

    And now he says "he did meet with Swedish justice officials to discuss the extradition process." Lemme see, that means he could have merely met with a clerk of a court, and been given a printout explaining court/extradition procedures. He may have had one of his staff point out that it was in Swedish, and he could have gone back to ask for the English translation.

    I have no time for such blind incompetence.

    1. Robert Masters

      And yet...

      Senator Ludlum undertook this trip *using his own money*, not dipping into the public purse.

      Either of the major parties undertaking a similar trip for a different case (with, no doubt similar results and actions - were they minded to) would (and have) utilised public monies and taken an extensive entourage.

      So go ahead and call them names, but at least they show more financial restraint than the alternatives.

      As an aside, I miss Screaming Lord Such. The world needs people like that to show off how shallow politics is.

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