Do you expect me to talk ?
No mister Assange... I expect you to die !
Scotland Yard have quit sending cops to monitor Julian Assange around the clock – at least in person, anyway. The WikiLeaker-in-Chief has been holed up in London's Ecuadorian Embassy since the summer of 2012, where he sought political asylum from authorities who wanted to question him over rape, coercion and two counts of …
Not that funny...
But if I were Ass-n-hat err I mean Assange, I would have to wonder if this was a trap.
Think about it... the plods are pulled back.
No sign of any new surveillance cameras so it looks to be safe for him to make his escape... You know a quick drive to the coast to an awaiting boat to take him off shore and on to some other country ...
Only that its a trap where the Ecuadorian Embassy staff are in part behind it as a way to get him to leave. Once out the door, they lock it behind him. Or the boat gets stopped in the harbor or something like that.
No Mister Assange, I expect you to think this a trap so that while I reduce the cost of securing you in the Embassy, you're too frightened to run away!
Aw, poowa Juliette; no more balcony scenes? No one to play Romeo to his Julietta?
Having said he wanted to become a Swedish citizen he changed that, saying they had banana republic standards of justice (whilst ironically hiding up in the diplomatic presence of one such country, one whose treatment of journalists and despatch of an individual to Belarus indicate him to be a grade I hypocrite), he claims that everyone in the world want to ship him back to the US, even though the EAW forbids that, what will he do now? How can he attract more money trees to the gravity trap? Will this end in tears, or will Julie roool the wurlde? Watch next year's balcony scene (there will be one, coppers or no) for more on this story. (Currently drinking a pint of real ale.)
Only that its a trap where the Ecuadorian Embassy staff are in part behind it as a way to get him to leave. Once out the door, they lock it behind him. Or the boat gets stopped in the harbor or something like that.
No Mister Assange, I expect you to think this a trap so that while I reduce the cost of securing you in the Embassy, you're too frightened to run away!
All of that would only make sense if we could get some freakin sharks with freakin laser beams on their heads!
Bullshit to both of you. Asshat for these offences at least is just a common criminal - a corwardly egomaniac who has delusions of grandeur.
He has to face charges in both the UK and Sweden neither of which involve the Americans who can get in line after he's served his time or is acquitted.
Since its blatantly obvious he won't get a fair trial the chance of an extradition succeeding is nil.
Since it appears at the very least he's guilty of the bail jumping charge.
Astroturfers like you 2 should consider how he treats his friends:
Did Bradley Manning ever get that defence fund?
Let's see what the Swedish courts decide how he treated his sex partners.
And what about the poor schmucks who lost £100k's of bail money they put up?
Julian Assange - by the way he treats his friends and allies you will know him.
It's time he faced British and Swedish justice.
The Australian judge who let him off so lightly should have sent him down for the 17 counts on which this criminal was found guilty, including one of hacking the Australian police body investigating him and the Pentagon USAF machines also. There is so much more to this man's profile, and I am certain that he will not disappoint us; he will reoffend, he will be caught, he will claim he is innocent and the CIA dunnit.
Plonker, coward that he is.
That if he walks out and hands himself in, the US will come up with some excuse for him to be sent over there...
High profile extraditions like this are brought to the President's desk because of the diplomatic implications. At this point only President Obama can make the decision whether or not to extradite. Based on past experience Obama will extradite only if he has both Britain's and Sweden's buy-in.
By international law, Britain won't agree until the bail-jumping claim is settled, and Sweden won't agree until the rape charge is settled and it must be done in this order.
Only when both European charges are settled can AssangeTM be extradited to the U.S. - assuming Obama wants him. At this point it would be highly impractical for Obama to even request extradition to the USA. Julie is no fool and must know this.
The loser in all of this is Ecuador. Julie is a diplomatic thorn in their side in any relationship between Ecuador and both GB and the USA, especially with Ecuador's present trade negotiations with China. Now that the cops are gone (and I'll bet they are really gone, no covert surveillance), Julie is likely to be shoved out the embassy's back door without so much as a "Good-bye". Maybe he will be picked up, but I suspect that all three countries are sick and tired of him. The smartest strategy then is to just ignore AssangeTM, which would really make him look like a fool for hiding in the Ecuador's embassy in the first place.
They are just feeding him some bait to lure him out of his den, then they will pounce on him like a bunch of power hungry politicians.
Alternatively, they are just bored shitless standing around all day doing absolutely nothing, even with their exceptional bonuses they just can't stand it anymore..
How do you know that the Brits really did pull their police because they knew Assange would think this to be a trap since as you say the Brits are rather transparent?
So that because Assange suspects that it is a trap the Brits can pull the police coverage back and save some money while Assange stays in the embasssy?
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I think that several of the charges are no longer viable because of the statutes of limitations on those charges and then the Swedish Government may be rethinking if they want to continue to pursue Assange on the remaining charge(s).
So if he escapes... he leaves the country, to never return, and will probably leave Europe all together since there's still the EAW and then a second one from the Brits once he 'leaves' since he jumped bail there....
So Assange goes on the run, because he's too much a prat to face the music for raping those two girls.
@ Ian Michael Gumby: "... for raping those two girls."
Where I come from, the assumption is that a person is innocent unless proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. What is it where you come from?
Assange is wanted to face trial on an *allegation* of rape that needs to be proved by the prosecution.
What has suddenly changed?
I don't know, but as a taxpayer I'm f***ing delighted that they've finally stopped wasting so much money on this sideshow when, so they tell us, budget constraints mean that even some basic policing functions are unaffordable.
I'm sure it's not just the poor plods salary that needs covering. No doubt there is a certain amount of overhead that sucks up the large bulk of this.
Plod doing a mindlessly tedious job of looking at the face of everyone that exits that building may well fall into the category of job that requires frequent breaks to stave off inattentiveness - therefore a multi-plod solution is required, or frequent transporting in/out of replacement plods.
Plods are probably required to fill out (in triplicate, by hand) contact reports for each and every sighting of someone that comes out, presumably graded against a "risk assessment" that it might be JA.
Those reports are presumably filed, laboriously transcribed into some archaic system by plod at the end of each shift.
Then there's probably a weekly 1st line management review of all such reports. And a monthly 2nd line management review, etc.... (not sure how many layers of management there are).
On top of all that, there's the inconvenience to the shift planners in shuffling everyone else around to maintain adequate staffing levels (for some value of "adequate") while a number of staff are assigned to this useless duty, which probably means hiring more staff (with commensurate training costs attached), or other staff doing more shifts (at various overtime rates).
Overall, it probably would have been easier to just ignore him, possibly putting a few grand up as a reward for information leading to his capture.
If he did slip out of the embassy unseen, he can't use any form of scheduled flight to leave the UK. Ditto ports, Chunnel. A light plane or small fishing vessel/private yacht to the continent...probably an offence for the owner to aid and abet his escape. So they would have to be either a bit dim, or not citizens of somewhere within reach of PC Plod.
He could do a 39 Steps Dannay and hide out in the Highlands. Or Rogue Male it in the south west.
"A light plane or small fishing vessel/private yacht to the continent...probably an offence for the owner to aid and abet his escape."
Given the number of them that are smuggling drugs and people, one more offence probably wouldn't make any difference.
How many RIBs are there around the coast nowadays? How many people available to police them?
A light plane or small fishing vessel/private yacht to the continent...probably an offence for the owner to aid and abet his escape.
Not that hard. He would simply have to do a reverse illegal immigrant :).
I think it's a brilliant ploy. If they pull back surveillance, it will basically increase the pressure from the Ecuadorian embassy to get the hell out. He's been a major pain in the neck for years, so any opportunity to boot him out without appearing to do so will be grasped with both hands.
The problem I see for Assange is that he is congenitally incapable of staying out of trouble (possibly because that gets him the attention he so craves), so it doesn't matter where he escapes too, he will manage to piss off local authorities again.
Swim to France? Walk out through the channel tunnel?
Of course with the uniforms not there everyone in the street could be suspicious. That street sweeper. The kid on the skateboard. The postman. That newspaper vendor. The pizza delivery for sure. It's enough to make a man twitchy. Very twitchy.
He could do a 39 Steps Dannay and hide out in the Highlands. Or Rogue Male it in the south west.
Hiding isn’t really the problem. He has enough supporters to ferry in cash and other things he’d need. His real issue will be publicity. Aside from posting rants on youtube, he simply won’t have any coverage while on the lamb.
Now that he’s ducked the rape charges, the true test of why he suddenly found that couch so damn comfortable begins – how long will he continue to hide in there to manufacture a pretence that his fleeing had anything to do with America?
There’s zero chance we’ll forget about the bail jumping – a sex offender running up a £12M policing bill isn’t in a position to negotiate. Either he comes out and gets nicked, in which case absent a EAW from Sweden, the States are free to claim him, if they want. So he really has no choice now – stay on the couch until his death, or come out and prove once and for all that he was really just ducking the rape charges.
He’s never spared a moment of thought about the impact his continual media seeking has on his victims. It must be sickening for the women to see his smug smirk on tv, knowing that he has denied them the most basic justice of having their day in court. Quite how his wife explains his behavior to his children is utterly beyond me. “Mammy, why do the other kids at school say daddy is a coward and a rapist?” “Oh honey, just ignore them, they’re only jealous of all the Ferrero Roche the ambassador gives daddy” ??!!
"while on the lamb."
Now there is a phrase that I have never heard before, is it rhyming slang, if so, what is the rhyme ?
However, as much as I do not like the man he has not been found guilty of rape and where we live "Innocent until found guilty" is still in da rigour ( or at least I think so).
"while on the lamb."
Now there is a phrase that I have never heard before, is it rhyming slang, if so, what is the rhyme ?
It's actually "on the lam", but I suspect Assange's bleating may have contributed here :). It's a normal, if somewhat lesser used English expression meaning "on the run".
Unless, of course, the author has come across an escape plan involving Assange using a sheep as getaway transport. I've seen enough weird ideas for that to fit right in..
"It's actually "on the lam", but I suspect Assange's bleating may have contributed here :). It's a normal, if somewhat lesser used English expression meaning "on the run"."
I wonder if it is actually a twist of the French expression sur la lame du rasoir", on the edge of a razor. ie "On a knifes edge"... ie In a very difficult position.
He is antipodean so it might therefore be possible that he will hide in a food truck as a piece of New Zealand Lamb...
I've really stopped caring, to be honest.
I'm sure a media show will turn up again when we've forgotten about this episode (just to keep him in the news) and I'm sure there's still plod in one form or another sitting on the doorstep - just maybe not visibly.
Until he's either arrested or otherwise newsworthy (e.g. dead, escaped, pardoned *cough*yeah,right*cough*, ...), please stop bothering to report on him.
Come out, get arrested, do your time for the UK crime (skipping bail), then see the complete APATHY with which all the other countries treat you. You're not that special mate. And even if you were, nobody really cares by now.
I have no experience in the matter, but I would bet that as prison time goes, prison time in Sweden is probably pretty soft. Probably no worse than being locked in the Ecuadorian embassy. Of course that assumes that going to prison in Sweden was of a higher probability than the US showing up and sending him on a one way flight to Gitmo.
One possibility is that GCHC have dveloped a "reliable enough" automated technology for monitoring who leaves the embassy building, and that this automated technology is cheaper to deploy than round-the-clock police guards. For example, the technology might involve a video camera and face recognition software.
Another, complementary possibility is that GCHQ might have found a way to install monitoring devices (e.g., microphones, cameras, motion detectors, and so on) in the rooms within the embassy where Assange is living. When those devices indicate he has left those rooms, a silent alarm goes off that notifies the police to be on the lookout for a bail dodger.
You can be a murderous paedophile and the police and security services will move heaven and earth to protect you and keep you in parliament (especially if you have royal friends).
But publish "secret" information that embarrasses them and their rage and vindictiveness knows no bounds, as poor Julian will eventually find out.
I think you'll find that the £12M spent on policing there is dwarfed by the cost of putting up rather a lot of cameras in Laaahndon Taahn and staffing them plus the automated stuff. Said cameras justified by this sort of nonsense.
I also suspect that all BT Open Reach green boxes (those are the extant symbol of reasonable intertube access in the UK) in the area have a tap back to more than just a few ISPs. Funnily enough there is one on the corner of Hans Crescent.
I'd also imagine that any IT system in the immediate area with wifi access has more admins than the installer suspects (unless they wear a lot of tin foil).
OTOH: it is a bit of an expensive thing to run and we live on a bloody island. You don't need half a dozen tooled up plod to watch him 24x7.
<crackle/>
... to be released from his self-imposed exile and completely ignored by authorities for the term of his natural life.
The man craves relevance and finds it in his real or perceived relationship with others. Cutting off one half of that relationship will force him to conjure his own demons and those guys don't ever get bored (or broke) enough to stop watching him.
The CIA will be pursuing him for the rest of his life, listening to him in every corner he tries to hide in, infiltrating every one of his relationships and weaving complex fabrics of lies around him - and all they need to do is do nothing...
"One possibility is that GCHC have dveloped a "reliable enough" automated technology for monitoring who leaves the embassy building,"
That's a possibility. Last I heard, with the kind of facial recognition available... it was like 99% accurate (that was looking straight at a camera), which sounds OK but does mean in a 50,000 seat stadium you'd have like 500 false positives; it's not really practical to look for a bunch of faces (or even once face) over a bunch of cameras.
But looking for a single person leaving a building is a much narrower problem, it would be practical (if there's a camera in the area) to have an alert sent to the police station if he steps out.
I imagine the embassies have some police presence already. How much did keeping all the extra around rather then a minimal presence cost?
Also what is the situation with embassy cars? Could they not load Assange into one, straight to an embassy plane and fly off (if flight plans approved etc)?
Folks, whoever sent in the "rape" groupies and the incredible exploding condom managed to derail Wikileaks for the last 3-4 years - the US doesn't care anymore. Certainly drone strikes can continue unabated, the Halliburton hit squads have successfully rebranded, and there's no more talk about "Arab Spring" outside of bath soap.
I just wish Sweden could have proffered at least one fish charge like the famous red snapper from the Vanilla Fudge.
Ask embassy if they would mind having an additional sign on the embassy door "H.M. Prison Belmarsh outpost".
Then everybody can claim he served his time.
Assange might consider to sue for inhumane treatment in his new "prison".
This would come much cheaper.