
Julian Assange case: Sweden offers to question him in UK - joosters
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31867829
======
kzrdude
Not mentioned, the supreme court is right now starting their review of the
case, and mentions the principle of proportionality (size of investigation in
relation to size of the crime). Link: [http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Mer-om-
Hogsta-domstolen/Nyhete...](http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Mer-om-Hogsta-
domstolen/Nyheter-fran-Hogsta-domstolen/The-Supreme-Court-requests-an-opinion-
from-the-Prosecutor-General-concerning-the-pre-trial-detention-of-Julian-
Assange/)

~~~
peteretep

        > the principle of proportionality
    

Sets a pretty bad precedent to not pursue someone because they've managed to
evade the law...

~~~
netcan
I disagree. Proportionality is a very important principle. Precedents and laws
are appropriate. I'm not sure how important precedents are in Swedish law
though.

First, we need limits against abuse of the law and legal system. I imagine
Assange's representatives will be arguing that this is what is going on here.
Being free of all proportionality restrictions allows bodies and individuals
within the legal system the ability to pursue other agendas (say, strategic or
diplomatic relations with the US) by abusing the legal system. If you put
enough resources into investigation you can probably put anyone in jail. At
the very least, you can disrupt their life dramatically with lengthy
processes.

Second, there's the practical issue of resources. Indictments are abandoned
regularly because court systems are backlogged, expensive and limited in
resources. Prosecuting 100 minor indictments per year needs to be weighed
against timely prosecution of more serious crimes. This is triage,
prioritizing resources (court days) in the face of limited resources.

This is a strange case. Assange is accused of _" non-consensual behaviour
within consensual sexual encounters."_ This crime/law unique to Sweden. Very
few people have been prosecuted under for it. Swedish authorities did not
treat the case very seriously when they first investigated it and didn't make
much effort to keep him in the country, apparently happy to let him leave the
country.

That aside, resources are always limited. Say you have a serious sexual
harassment case. It takes place in a University. Prosecuting it require,
extradition and millions in resources. Is the public better served by
prosecuting the crime or staffing an entire police unit dealing specifically
with sexual harassment cases in Universities? The costs are comparable, and
the latter will result in tens or hundreds of convictions, far more deterrence
and far more justice. I think it's entirely appropriate to refer to
proportionality in cases like this.

For certain crimes like large scale racketeering, corruption, murder, rape,
and others proportionality is irrelevant. There are few limits that make sense
for prosecuting a serial killer or a corrupt government minister.

~~~
saosebastiao
I'm not anywhere informed enough to disagree, but all I can think about is Al
Capone. He was ultimately taken down for tax evasion, but his crimes were
widely known to be much worse. He merely took great care to have enough
plausible deniability that he couldn't be charged for his worse crimes.

~~~
netcan
I consider that an argument in favor of proportionality, not against. It
illustrates how legal systems _can_ be abused.

The Al Capone case is ultimately a failure in rule of law, of sorts. If he was
indeed the gangster that Al Capone the pop character was, the police failed to
catch and prosecute him for those crimes. In light of that failure, they
basically abused laws (and maximum sentences) to convict him for a different
crime.

We are open to that sort of abuse so long as prosecutors and police have big
discretionary powers. If the average jail term for crime X is 1 year on
parole, but the maximum sentence is 10 years in prison and the prosecutor
plays a big role in determining which one it will be… that's open to abuse. If
a prosecutor really wants you but can't prove your guilt, she can get you for
something small and push for an oversized sentence. This basically bypasses
the rule of law.

In any case, I don't think the Al Capone investigation would have violated the
proportionality principle. He was being investigated (I assume) for murder,
racketeering and the like. That merits a big investigation. It failed, but it
wasn't disproportionate. The only thing that was disproportionate was the
sentence relative to the (proven) crime. Maybe the scale of the prosecution
itself too. Police were investigating a major criminal. That investigation
should be (and will be) well resourced.

~~~
saosebastiao
Thanks for the response, I hadn't thought of it that way.

------
raverbashing
"Now that time is of the essence, I have viewed it therefore necessary to
accept such deficiencies in the investigation and likewise take the risk that
the interview does not move the case forward."

Or maybe his lawyer should drop the offer and just let the statute run out
now, since the prosecutor couldn't be bothered when it wasn't to her
advantage.

~~~
SloopJon
> Or maybe his lawyer should drop the offer and just let the statute run out
> now

Would the statute of limitations be tolled for the duration of Assange's stay
at the embassy?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
This is an interesting question. If someone purposely hid out somewhere with
no extradition treaty and the whole time was saying, "Nah, nah you can't catch
me," to the authorities, should statutes be respected by the courts? I would
think not.

~~~
vidarh
While the conventional justification for statutes of limitations is to protect
the defendant from late claims - something that I would agree would not make
sense here -, in some countries - this certainly applies in Norway, for
example - part of the argument for statutes of limitations is to give society
a chance at closure by increasing the chance that a perpetrator that has been
able to evade justice will be willing to confess in some form or other.

------
raldi
Interesting that under Swedish law, the statute of limitations keeps ticking
even while the suspect is a fugitive. That's not the way it works in the US:

 _" If the criminal is a fugitive, out of the state in which the crime was
committed or otherwise living in hiding, this tolls, or suspends, the statute.
(Once the criminal reenters the state the statute resumes running.)"_

[http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/time-
limits-...](http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/time-limits-for-
charges-state-criminal-statutes-of-limitations.html)

------
ChikkaChiChi

      "My view has always been that to perform an interview with him at the Ecuadorean embassy in London would lower the quality of the interview," Marianne Ny said in a statement.
    

Can anyone explain to me why they couldn't simply question him over a
teleconferencing connection? Are they seriously claiming that this has gone on
as long as it has simply because they couldn't figure out a way to talk to
him?

This seems ludicrous.

~~~
xorcist
Because it is during this interview that the prosecutor makes it official what
you are or are not accused of. If this was made over telephone to a foreign
country, odds are that what is now a suspect would not come to the
questioning. That's why you are required to be present in person.

A better question would be why the prosecutor didn't conduct this interview
during the week the stayed in Sweden after the accusations were officially in
the media?

The anwer to that is probably that the justice system can be inflexible and
slow moving at times. (I hesitate to take stronger words in my mouth, but
those may be true as well.)

Ludicrous or not, all justice systems have their reasons why they work in a
certain way.

~~~
im3w1l
For those without showdead, lepidoptera[noobtor] wrote:

> A better question would be why the prosecutor didn't conduct this interview
> during the week the stayed in Sweden after the accusations were officially
> in the media?

He was interviewed during this period, and the transcript of the police
interview was leaked onto the internet:
[http://pastebin.com/HAc6HjVn](http://pastebin.com/HAc6HjVn)

After the interview the allegations were dropped, but then the prosecutor
reopened them. And he didn't stay there just for a week after that. He stayed
there over a month, and only left after having been given permission to leave
by the prosecutor.

It's all in this court document: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/80912442/Agreed-
Facts-Assange-Case](http://www.scribd.com/doc/80912442/Agreed-Facts-Assange-
Case)

------
madaxe_again
This seems like a remarkably sane resolution to the current situation, and I'm
surprised it hasn't previously been proffered.

~~~
onli
It is only not surprising if one believes that all of this is a plot to get
him extradited to the US. Which always seems far fetched, till the behaviour
of the prosecution made it clear that is the only sane explication - apart
from complete incompetence combined with arrogance, a "he has to come crawling
to us if we say so" attitude.

~~~
rmc
I've never understood the "US extradition" theory. He went to the UK, which is
a co-founder of NATO (which Sweden isn't even in), and has a "special
relationship" with the USA. Why go to a country that's _more_ friendly to the
USA if you're actually worried about being sent to the USA?

~~~
tinfoilman
I dont get why people keep thinking the UK has a special relationship with the
US anymore

“There’s nothing special about Britain,” the US state department official
said. “You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You
shouldn't expect special treatment.”

Obama "We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy,
and the French people."

England and the US nothing special anymore.

~~~
ptaipale
> Obama "We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas
> Sarkozy, and the French people."

That is the kind of thing presidents say in speeches. It just means "I want to
be polite to you". It's diplomacy, don't take it literally.

~~~
logfromblammo
France and the U.S. also have a special relationship.

France was technically the first ally of the U.S. That alliance has been
pretty stable, except under the following circumstances:

    
    
      - France or the U.S. is having a civil war.
      - France and Britain are at war.
      - France is under foreign occupation.
    

That's not just diplomacy. France and the U.S. are very consistently on the
same side of international issues, and when exceptions occur, it is usually
when the U.S. has a conservative government while France has a liberal one,
and there is little more than pro forma dissent, as one side or the other
remains neutral rather than truly oppose.

If NATO did not exist, France would be one of the few non-Commonwealth nations
for whom the U.S. would declare an actual, full-engagement war to defend,
without even much argument from the voting public--unless it was the UK
attacking it, obviously.

The full "special" list is probably Canada, UK, France, Australia, New
Zealand, and Israel.

~~~
dragonwriter
The Suez Crisis indicates that you have omitted at least one circumstance that
should be mentioned...

------
downandout
It's pretty clear, given the resources being put into serving this warrant,
that Sweden is going to charge him with at least some of these crimes
regardless of what he says (or doesn't say) during the interview. That's
probably why they are conceding here. After all, even if he were successfully
arrested and brought to Sweden, he could refuse to answer any questions during
the interview.

Once charges are filed, Ecuador will have to face the question of whether or
not they want to be viewed by the world as shielding an accused rapist from
justice. I'm just guessing here, but I see no scenario in which he doesn't
_eventually_ wind up in Sweden to face these charges (and if he did it, then
he should IMO).

~~~
spiralpolitik
The purpose of the European Arrest Warrant is to "arrest and transfer" a
suspect for criminal prosecution. It shouldn't be issued just for "an
investigation".

So yes unless the Swedish prosecutor wants to open herself up to charges of
abuse of power then at this point she will have to prosecute Assange.

------
Kiro
So I haven't been following this case for a very long time. What are the
current theories regarding whether he did it or not?

~~~
gillianseed
I made a swedish to english translation of the actual allegation (as in the
actual case file), the original can be found here, naturally it's in swedish:
[http://www.magasinetparagraf.se/bilden/forundersokningen-
avs...](http://www.magasinetparagraf.se/bilden/forundersokningen-avseende-
assange?file=files/content/bilden/forundersokningen-avseende-
assange/AssangeSexAllegations.pdf)

Anyway, here's my translation of the accusation (to the best of my ability):

 _Sexual Assault

They were sitting in bed talking and he took off her clothes. They had sex
again and she realised that he had only put the condom over the tip of his
penis, but she let it pass.

They went to sleep and she awoke with the sensation of him entering her. She
immediately asked 'Are you wearing anything?' and he replied 'You'.

She told him 'You better not have HIV' and he replied 'Of course not'. She
felt it was too late, he was already in her so she let him continue, she was
too tired to tell him once more, she had been nagging him about using a condom
all night.

She never had unprotected sex before. He said he wanted to come inside her, he
did not say when he would but he did. A lot leaked out of her afterwards.

She told him 'What if I get pregnant?'. He answered that Sweden is a good
place to have kids. She jokingly told him that if she became pregnant he would
have to pay her student loans.

On the train to Enköping he had told her that he had slept in Anna Ardins bed
after a party. She asked if he had sex with Anna but he said Anna liked girls,
that she was a lesbian.

Now she knows that he did the same thing with Anna. She asked him about how
many he has had sex with, he responded that he didn't keep count. He said that
he had HIV tested himself 3 months earlier and that he had sex with a woman
after that and that she was tested and not positive.

She said sarcastic things to him in a joking tone, she believes that she was
trying to de-dramatize what had happened, he in turn did not seem to care.
When he was told the size of her student loans he said that if he was to pay
her loans then she would have to give birth to a baby.

They joked that the child would be named Afghanistan. He also said that he
ought to keep abortion-pills with him that would in reality be sugar-pills.

His phone rang and he had a meeting with Aftonbladet (swedish newspaper) on
tuesday at 12. She explained that he would not make it to that meeting, so he
pushed his whole schedule ahead by one hour.

After that he rode a bicycle with her on the back down to the train station.
She paid his ticket to Stockholm. Before they separated he told her to keep
her phone on. She asked if he was going to call and he said he would.

She took the bike home, showered and changed sheets. Since she didn't make it
in time for work she called in sick and stayed home. She wanted to clean up
and wash everything. There was semen on the sheets and she thought it was
disgusting. She also went by the drugstore and bought 'dagenefterpiller'
(abortion pills).

After she had discussed with her friends she realized that she had been the
victim of a crime. She went to Danderyd hospital and from there to
Södersjukhuset (another hospital). There she was examined and also tested
using a so called 'rape-kit'._

------
NhanH
Now it would be interesting if he agree to answer. But can Assange leave the
ambassador now? I thought that he would be arrested the moment he left because
he broke the house arrest thing a few years ago.

~~~
draugadrotten
His Swedish lawyer, Thomas Olsson , has stated that Assange will cooperate
fully.

Now what Ecuador will reply is another matter...

Edit: Timeline of case. [http://www.thelocal.se/20141028/timeline-julian-
assange](http://www.thelocal.se/20141028/timeline-julian-assange)

~~~
gsnedders
Note that if he leaves the embassy he can be arrested by the British police
and tried in English courts for failure to comply with conditions of bail. And
I'm not sure anyone can reasonably argue that he didn't do that. He was
bailed, and didn't show up to court upon summons — it's the textbook case.

~~~
Tomte
Yes, I think he would be arrested immediately, but I guess there's no reason
to keep him.

The bail has been forfeited. And if the prime cause for the arrest warrant is
gone, he would (and should) walk free.

At least I think so.

~~~
gsnedders
From the point of view of English law, contempt of court and breach of bail
are entirely unrelated to _why_ you are in the court in the first place. It
doesn't matter if the prosecution withdraws the case (or, in an extradition
hearing, the Home Office stops seeking extradition), you have not followed the
will of the court.

I'd expect him either to be found to have been under effective house arrest
for the period, and let go with a slap on the wrist, or be made an example of
for running away to somewhere where the police could not enter, and sentenced
to at least six months in prison (there's a maximum sentence of twelve).

------
higherpurpose
He doesn't have to actually leave the embassy, though, does he?

~~~
onion2k
Technically I think he would as the inside of the embassy isn't considered
part of the UK.

~~~
Tomte
Of course it's part of the UK. Will the old urban legend about
extraterritoriality never die?

~~~
Kiro
So how come the British police can't just walk in and arrest him?

~~~
Tomte
Why can't the police just enter your house and use your LEGO toys?

Because the laws forbid them to. Not because your house is extraterritorial.

~~~
Kiro
Why the snarky comment? I was just wondering how it works.

------
ddingus
Finally!

Isn't this what he put on the table years ago?

------
coldtea
Julian Assange case: BS allegations that hide their true political
motivations...

------
Svip
I guess it's easier to wait it out when it's not your tax payers footing the
bill.

