
UN panel 'rules in Assange's favour' - p01926
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35490910
======
ryanlol
There seems to be some ridiculously large misconceptions here regarding these
two things:

1\. Assange is not violating any Swedish laws or policies by staying in the
embassy and avoiding extradition, he has no obligation to return to Sweden and
every right not to.

2\. Assanges presence in Sweden is not required by Swedish policies or laws,
Swedish courts already called out the prosecutor for not accepting his
statements from the embassy.

The duty of the prosecutor also seems to need clarifying, some people here
seem to think that the prosecutor has no obligation to agree to interview
Assange in the embassy. This is absolutely not true.

Do you not think that the victims(although not entirely applicable here) are
OK with the prosecutor indefinitely delaying the case until the crimes expire
just because she is too arrogant to pick up the phone and ring up Assange or
buy a 30 euro plane ticket to London?

Another thing worth noting is that many people seem to think UK is a
particularly easy country to extradite people from, this isn't exactly true.
See Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love.

Sweden has a history of just handing people over to the CIA.

~~~
Ntrails
He is, however, violating the conditions of his bail in the UK and I don't
really see why we should offer any special dispensation just because he's been
"hiding out" for a long time[1].

Anyone violating bail should expect to spend the rest of their life under
threat of arrest and not assume they can make it go away by hiding out for a
few years.

[1] it'd be nice if we put some political pressure on Sweden to resolve the
issue remotely but that's neither here nor there.

~~~
proactivesvcs
And be on the receiving end of any fees incurred as a result of their bail
violation.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Nonsense. A gov't can foolishly decide to waste inordinate resources as a
punitive measure.

------
agd
I think the key issue is that the Swedish prosecutor (until recently) made no
effort to question him in the embassy.

Given how badly the US wants Assange, and how we know they treat people like
him, it is completely understandable that he wouldn't want to leave the
embassy. Therefore it is hard to understand why the Swedish prosecutor was
content to sit on her backside when it's in everyone's (not least the alleged
victims) interest to move the case forward.

~~~
rtpg
Pretty much every "why don't they do this" argument in this case usually
forgets the Swedish law aspect.

For example , I think here the questioning was more of a "placing under
arrest" (there was something about how the questioning is mandatory before
officially declaring someone a suspect). And the questioning needed to happen
in Sweden for some constitutional thing?

So I don't remember the Swedish law stuff too sell either but there were legal
barriers to questioning in the embassy

Not to mention that the whole "This is to bring him to the US" thing ignores
that:

\- extradition from the UK to the US requires going through UK courts

-Extradition from the UK to the US through Sweden requires goig through Swedish AND UK courts. Its strictly harder

"But they'll kidnap him or something": is Sweden easier to be kidnapped him
from?

The whole Swedish side of the story is bizarre but any argument about US
influence in the prosecution seems to not make any sense except if to commit
character attacks. Because it made US extradition harder, not easier

~~~
vidarh
> "But they'll kidnap him or something": is Sweden easier to be kidnapped him
> from?

It's not that many years ago that Swedish police cooperated in illegally
black-bagging two asylum seekers and illegally handed them over to the CIA who
shipped them off to Egypt - the regime they'd fleed - where they were promptly
tortured by Mubaraks secret police.

If Swedish police was willing to effectively kidnap political asylum seekers
and hand them off to a foreign government, in violation of Swedish law and
international treaties, and not punish anyone for it, why should Assange trust
them?

We know that CIA rendition flights continued for years after the above became
publicly known and the Swedish government promised rendition flights would
end. We know this because of Wikileaks documents. So why should Assange trust
the Swedish and US governments not to conspire?

Whether or not there actually is some conspiracy (I don't believe there is),
Assange has plenty of reasons to be paranoid about it.

~~~
JackFr
Why would the CIA want Assange? It's unlikely that he has any information they
want -- certainly he has no information about ongoing terrorist operations --
and at this point it's unlikely that he has any information they don't want
exposed.

(The Justice Department might want to prosecute him though, but now even that
has very limited upside.)

~~~
trevelyan
There is a Grand Jury investigation. "might" is not the right word to use.

------
ptha
I'm just flabbergasted at how much the UK has spent on the operation: _Last
October, Scotland Yard said it would no longer station officers outside the
Ecuador embassy following an operation which it said had cost £12.6m. But it
said "a number of overt and covert tactics to arrest him" would still be
deployed._

~~~
jgrahamc
Why?

He's a high-profile fugitive who is evading arrest for alleged sexual offences
against women in a member state in Europe.

~~~
chippy
One would expect that £12.6m would be spent for similar fugitives who are
evading arrest for alleged sexual offences against women. Right?

Oh, - it's because he is "high-profile" that makes him special. So it's not
about the alleged crime at all? It's due to wikileaks after all!

There is something illogical here, I think.

~~~
mattmanser
To be fair it's high profile because it's known where he is and that he's
attempting to avoid capture. Not because he's from wikileaks and he might get
extradited, those merely gave him the celebrity clout to pull the stunt in the
first place.

If they actually gave up and he popped up in Ecuador and he's suddenly like
'haha, the british police, usually bunch of pricks', it would be embarrassing
for the whole of the UK.

So it's a bit of a catch-22 position.

EDIT: Whoops, wrote wikipedia instead of wikileaks

~~~
nullc
FWIW, that ignorant bit of Wikipedia vs Wikileaks confusion has resulted in
causing harm to people affiliated with Wikipedia when US customs officers have
suffered from it.

~~~
chippy
My elderly father the other day told me that he thought the work I was doing
with Wikimedia was related to "that wikileaks fella". Of course I corrected
him, but I'm a little bit more accepting of the mistake!

------
tptacek
For those wondering: the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is a panel
currently consisting of one individual each from South Korea, Australia,
Mexico, Benin, and Ukraine.

Its charter gives it no legal power; it is like a version of Amnesty
International housed in the UN.

~~~
kafkaesq
_It is like a version of Amnesty International housed in the UN._

As comparisons go, this is quite specious.

To wit: it is quite misleading to suggest that an entity specifically
chartered by the UN (to present its findings to the UN) is somehow comparable
to an independent NGO that happens to share office space in the same building.

~~~
tptacek
Well then, we disagree.

------
jamesk_au
There is something curious about the conclusion that surrounding a person for
the purpose of lawfully detaining them amounts to unlawful detention.

Hasn't that been a traditional method of catching a suspect? "Come out with
your hands up, we have you surrounded!"

Perhaps there is something significant in the fact that Assange is in the
Ecuadorian Embassy. We'll have to wait for the reasons to be published.

~~~
junto

      Perhaps there is something significant in the fact that    
      Assange is in the Ecuadorian Embassy
    

There is no secret in that. It's an embassy and sovereign territory of the
Ecuadorians. No government in their right mind would trespass.

~~~
jnbiche
> No government in their right mind would trespass.

What about forcing down a presidential plane (of a nearby country)? Would a
government in their right mind do that?

Once a hegemonic country's closest-held secrets are involved, all bets seem to
be off.

I'm actually a bit surprised that Britain _didn 't_ stage some kind of covert
snatch from the Ecuadorian embassy after all these years (at the behest of the
US).

~~~
Kristine1975
_I 'm actually a bit surprised that Britain didn't raid the Ecuadorian embassy
after all these years (at the behest of the US)._

While we're speculating: Could this mean that the US doesn't want Assange
anymore?

~~~
lmm
It's not a binary thing. The US will put a certain value on getting Assange
and that will determine the extent to which they'd be willing to expend
resources (including diplomatic capital) on doing so.

I think the value of catching Assange probably dropped a lot post-Snowden
though. He's probably more famous, and more importantly he proves that Assange
isn't a one-off.

------
mrmondo
Imagine how many people could be educated with the money that governments
spend on activities like this, I doubt it will ever happen but until we stop
the mostly needless wastage of throwing money at bureaucratic political games
we'll never get off this rock. You know who's being punished when that money
is being spent? The public, not Assange, not Wikileaks, not any governments -
it's the public.

Politics aside, there is no human reason why informed, intelligent people
could not speak and asses him within the embassy, then give the same treatment
to those making claims and present their findings accordingly, it's only the
totalitarian inhuman systems of political practise that have prevented sound,
logical reasoning to take place.

If the evidence clearly states that he directly hurt other human beings then
he should face punishment for that in the country that he is a citizen of, if
it is unclear he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty but still
investigated transparently and humanely.

With regards to assisting parts of Wikileaks - he was part of a large
community of people (remember, we're humans and we want to get along for the
most part) that exposed corruption and wrongdoing by people and governments in
positions of power. If you have to break a law to prove that laws have been
broken both parties must be treated with the same scrutiny - end of story.

Edit: I'd like to add that if the sexual assault claims were true he should be
treated as a mental patient that committed a crime rather than a criminal with
malicious intent of direct wrong doing. You can't heal, or change people with
punishment - humans are adaptive, complex organisms that need quality
education, therapy, social training and reflection and then they need to play
a part in the community to help prevent such things from happening again. If
you think about the money that's been spent with regards to the alleged sexual
crimes alone - with those millions of dollars just think about how many people
that could help, not just with education but also improving mental health,
support networks and so forth that can make a difference not just to 1-3
people but thousands of people. The value of where our money has been spent on
this is clearly very poor.

------
runarb
I do feel for Assange. Hi is in a bad situation, but personally so do I not
see how his voluntary attempt to evade a legal arrest order is detention. Hi
is accused of a serious crime and the Swedish authorities must investigate it.

~~~
lmilcin
From what I understand he is accused of having sex without a condom. Girl
objected to not using condom but not to having sex. Still, she went with it
without being forced physically.

The argument is that it is a pretense to have him detained by US-controlled
country to get him sent to US without proper judicial procedure.

Basically, both UK and Sweden said it can't rule out that he is sent over to
US if he's detained for this unrelated "crime".

~~~
alkonaut
It was a bit more complicated than that. The allegations were of what would
definitely be considered statutory rape under swedish law (and probably the
laws of most similar countries including the US).

~~~
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-avs..).

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'._

edit: the old link s no longer working, here is a working one (again it's in
swedish):

[http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/docs/memoria.pdf](http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/docs/memoria.pdf)

~~~
belorn
Abortion pills is not the correct translation of "dagenefterpiller". A
literally translation from Swedish to English would be the day-after-pill, but
the correct English term would be the morning-after pill, which has the
technical name _emergency postcoital contraception_.

Abortion pills is used to trigger an abortion, or to use the other common
term, induced miscarriage.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_contraception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_contraception)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_abortion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_abortion)

~~~
gillianseed
Thanks for the correction, I'm not really well-versed in that area (should
have asked the missus!)

Tack!

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I thought this comment in the other thread was insightful:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11033115](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11033115)

Why did he go to the UN? Probably because they're not a court and have no
actual power here.

------
Kristine1975
_But it doesn 't mean that he'll walk free. It's not legally binding. And
British officials have made clear that the European arrest warrant against him
remains in place._

 _The panel 's ruling will not have any formal influence over the British and
Swedish authorities and the UK Foreign Office said it still had an obligation
to extradite Mr Assange._

I don't quite understand: Why appeal to the UN in the first place, if their
ruling is not legally binding?

~~~
jgrahamc
It's a political move. He wants to use the UN to put pressure on the UK and
Sweden.

Why hasn't Assange appealed to the European Court of Human Rights? Both Sweden
and the UK are members and he's subject to a European arrest warrant.

~~~
cmdkeen
Probably because at every stage where a court has looked into the issue they
have crushed him. The UK Supreme Court's ruling was very clear on the matter
and did him no favours in terms of public opinion. Taking to the ECHR and
losing would be another serious blow.

~~~
jgrahamc
I think that's the correct answer. So, rather than going up the legal
hierarchy in Europe, Assange is attempting a political end-run by going to the
UN.

~~~
ars
The bigger question is why is the UN going along with it.

They already have basically no credibility - why make it worse?

The UN should stop trying to tell countries what to do, no one listens to them
anyway. Focus on helping when asked, and brokering voluntary treaties, when
asked.

------
chippy
The UK police have said they will still arrest him if he leaves, and the UN
ruling is not legally binding.

~~~
igl
Ha. Organisations like the UN or EU are pointless if countries can just choose
not to ratify decisions. Sad.

~~~
mootothemax
>Ha. Organisations like the UN or EU are pointless if countries can just
choose not to ratify decisions. Sad.

I thought the point was to get people round the negotiating table in a safe
environment, rather than breeding resentment by forcing people to sign things
at gunpoint?

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's no point in getting people to negotiate if there's no way to ensure
they'll follow what has been agreed upon after leaving the table.

~~~
orting
Forcing a nation is what war is about, and it rarely works out very well.

Negotiation is about finding a solution to a problem that leaves all parties
better off if they follow the solution than if they don't. It is not always
easy and sometimes coercion, in the form of sactions within EU and UN, is used
to make one party realize what is best for them - but this also tends to work
out not very well.

Not forcing people to do what you want is often a more succesful way of
getting what you need.

------
jccc
AP: "Sweden's foreign ministry says U.N. panel concluded that WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange's detention is 'arbitrary'"

[https://twitter.com/AP/status/695260597533962241](https://twitter.com/AP/status/695260597533962241)

 _A U.N. official says Sweden was informed last month of a U.N. panel 's
decision on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

While the panel hasn't officially released its decision, Sweden's foreign
ministry said Thursday that the advisory group had concluded that Assange has
been a victim of "arbitrary" detention at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London
where he sought refuge in 2012._

[http://bigstory.ap.org/7bb5647f6042478ab3d56d4bbe73b90b](http://bigstory.ap.org/7bb5647f6042478ab3d56d4bbe73b90b)

------
masteryupa_
As mentioned by some people in the comments, Assange may still be arrested due
to the lack of jurisdiction of UN panel's such as this.

If that is the case, what is there that we (as supporters of Assange's plight)
can do to add pressure to the UK government and forward the effort towards
securing his freedom?

~~~
PlzSnow
Why would "we" want Assange to go free? He's wanted for questioning on
allegations of sexual assault.

~~~
1stop
Why did we want Aaron Swartz to go free? He was actually charged with a felony
crime.

Or maybe some times things aren't what they seem and their are political
motivations, and they require politics to fight them, not just blindly
following false justice

~~~
diyorgasms
These allegations of sexual assault really should be investigated in good
faith. The time is coincidental, I'll grant that, with the allegations being
levied against Assange shortly after WikiLeaks published something so
prominent, but non-consensual sexual activity is a horrible thing to do to a
person, and the impact of such should not be mitigated.

------
qrendel
Considering what a brief and skewed description of the Julian Assange story is
reported by the article, this is probably a good time to repost John Pilger's
more thorough reporting on the events, for anyone who wasn't following it or
doesn't remember clearly:

[http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-siege-of-julian-
assange-i...](http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-siege-of-julian-assange-is-a-
farce-a-special-investigation)

~~~
youngtaff
Which is also a biased article!

------
chippy
For some frequently asked questions, from Assange's side of things, as it
seems as if a few people here haven't heard about Assange before on Hacker
News, take a look at the FAQ section halfway down this page (you can skip the
top bit if you are somewhat familiar)

[https://justice4assange.com/](https://justice4assange.com/)

It's also worth a look at some of the arguments here:
[https://justice4assange.com/extraditing-
assange.html](https://justice4assange.com/extraditing-assange.html)

(edits: made the above clearer that the FAQs were from Assange's side)

~~~
ascorbic
I'm not sure Assange's own site is the best source for unbiased facts on the
case. Here's the other side:

[http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-
mythol...](http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-mythology-
extradition-julian-assange)

[Edit: tone]

~~~
robhu
Thank you for that link - I haven't come across a well researched analysis of
all of the entire legal history up to this point. I'd say this was required
reading before commenting here.

------
rubberstamp
If USA didn't do anything
illegal/scandalous/unethical/violate_their_own_constitution, then there
wouldn't be incentive for anyone to leak anything if at least there was proper
channels to go through to point errors and correct the system.

Instead of correcting the system, those in power are trying to going after
whistle blowers. The system is no longer a democracy.

------
dsp1234
Note that the article says the panel will rule on Friday, not that he has
already won.

If there is an updated article showing more recent developments, then a link
to that would be awesome

------
contingencies
Shame on the UK. Shame on Sweden. Shame on the US.

We're with you Julian.

------
laveur
This title is misleading... he has not won anything yet... he is still waiting
for their ruling... The ruling I believe from the article suppose to come out
tomorrow. So please make sure you read the article. He has also said that if
he looses which might still he will freely give himself up for arrest tomorrow
at noon.

~~~
tptacek
Everyone is reacting to the leaked prediction of the panel's decision; what
makes you think Assange's statement isn't also a reaction to that? If he knows
how the panel is going to decide, it's not particularly courageous of him to
suggest he'd turn himself over if they voted against him.

~~~
jccc
The statement was made Wednesday night, U.S. time:

[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/695084493825273856](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/695084493825273856)

Do we have reason to believe Assange knew about the decision beforehand?

Moreover, do we have reason to be less interested in the larger context of the
UN panel's decision than in the ways in which we can paint the motives of
Assange's statement?

~~~
tptacek
I'm not invested in this situation either way.

I think the charges against Assange are weak, but that he should face them. I
don't believe he ever will, though.

I do not believe in the conspiracy theory that the US wants to spirit him out
of Sweden; in fact, my personal belief is that if he himself flew to JFK
Airport tomorrow, his only problem would be that we would take 8 hours of
waiting in a room at customs before informing him that we wouldn't let him in
the country at all. A lot of the hypothesizing about the US kidnapping or
assassinating Assange makes sense only on a message board. In reality, just
about the worst thing that could happen for the US is for Assange to suddenly
disappear.

Meanwhile, I think things are playing out in the embassy exactly how everyone
watching it figured it would, and exactly as Assange hoped: he's waiting out
the charges, which grow staler and less immediate to the victim and harder to
prosecute by the day. Eventually, Sweden will stop caring enough to force
extradition. He'll never be able to go back to Sweden again without risking
prosecution, so he just won't, and that will be the end of the story.

The comparison to Polanski is apt.

Let me just say this in advance: _I am a person on the Internet who probably
does not agree with you about this stuff_. You need to be ok with that. I'm
certainly ok with you, a total stranger, not agreeing with me!

~~~
Tomte
My hunch is that someday Assange will be extradited to Sweden (or go on his
own volition), the Swedish prosecutor will interrogate him, and shortly
afterwards (hours or days) he will be set free. And nobody will kidnap him.

And then he can wonder if his self-imposed imprisonment was worth it.

~~~
ryanlol
Why does he have to go to Sweden when there is no real need for him to do so?
Swedish courts already confirmed that they don't need him present there, they
could've easily have tried him already if the prosecutor did their job.

~~~
tptacek
That is something you could ask about everyone who has ever been accused of
anything and later acquitted. Unfortunately, it's also the same thing everyone
accused and later convicted would like to say, so that logic can't control.

~~~
ryanlol
Having someone else represent you at trial is very common.

Swedish courts have already confirmed that there is no need for Assange to be
extradited. Had he been given a fair trial and sentenced, then it would be a
whole different situation.

For years the prosecution has been preventing him from having his day in court
by illegally refusing to interview him in the Ecuadorian embassy, which is
what this whole UN thing is about.

------
acqq
If somebody wants to try to guess what the arguments of the UN Working Group
can be, the starting point should be:

[http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet26en.pd...](http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet26en.pdf)

"according to the Group, deprivation of liberty is arbitrary if a case falls
into one of the following three categories:

A) When it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the
deprivation of liberty (as when a person is kept in detention after the
completion of his sentence or despite an amnesty law applicable to
him)(Category I);

B) When the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of the rights or
freedoms guaranteed by articles 7, 13, 14, 18, 19, 10 and 21 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and, insofar as States parties are concerned, by
articles 12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (Category II);

C) When the total or partial non-observance of the international norms
relating to the right to a fair trial, spelled out in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and in the relevant international instruments
accepted by the States concerned, is of such gravity as to give the
deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character (Category III)."

It's about the "arbitrary deprivation of liberty" against his human rights.

~~~
ryanlol
Most likely cause is the fact that (despite Swedish law) the Swedish
prosecutor has forced him to stay in the embassy by refusing to interview him
there, if she had done so the EAW could be cancelled and the whole extradition
mess would be over.

Assange doesn't want to go to Sweden and there's no need for him to do so, so
forcing him to stay in the embassy just because the prosecutor wants it is
undoubtedly "arbitrary".

------
realityking
Could the title be changed to the original? ("WikiLeaks' Assange 'unlawfully
detained' in Ecuador embassy, U.N. panel to rule, BBC says")

As the article correctly points out, this is currently a rumor, the panel has
not yet ruled.

------
dhoe
It may be worth pointing out that this is not a court. It's some working
group.

------
hahainternet
It's extremely hard to understand how this could be the case. He has evaded
prosecution for rape for years and still has people defending him. It was
entirely his own choice to seek refuge inside the embassy and he did so to
avoid prosecution. This makes him a gigantic hypocrite in addition to the
sexual offences.

Reading the complaint against him, it's very hard to see how anyone could
justify his actions. I'm sure there'll be much posted in this thread shortly
though calling him a hero.

~~~
pizzapill
I'm one of those who would defend his actions.

Lets assume Sweden drops the rape case against him. Then he would certainly be
extradited to the USA. A country where the harshest penalty is the death
sentence, a country that imprisons people for life without a due process and a
country that tortures its prisoners.

Afaik the rape accusations in Sweden boil down to "he had sex with a woman w/o
using a condom", but that could be wrong.

EDIT: Read up on the issue and the accusation is that he had unprotected sex
with a woman while she was asleep.

~~~
Kristine1975
_Lets assume Sweden drops the rape case against him. Then he would certainly
be extradited to the USA._

He spent weeks in UK before going to the Ecuadorian Embassy. Why didn't the UK
extradit him to the US?

 _Afaik the rape accusations in Sweden boil down to "he had sex with a woman
w/o using a condom",_

...while said woman was sleeping, and when the evening before she had
categorically refused to have sex without a condom, AFAIK.

~~~
Cyph0n
Great, but it's still just an accusation. If the UK is willing to spend
millions to get Assange back to Sweden so he can be questioned about an
accusation... I mean, come on, isn't that a bit too much? There's surely
something else going on here the way I see it.

~~~
ascorbic
That's how the criminal justice system works. How would you prefer it were
done? He was tried in absentia, and only arrested in convicted?

------
rogeryu
I'm still appalled by the fact that Sweden, which seems to be one of the best
countries to live in, cannot handle this situation better.

~~~
elchief
They're America's bitch. Like the UK. That's the problem.

------
sarciszewski
[https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/](https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/)

[http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/02/25/snowden-training-
guide...](http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/02/25/snowden-training-guide-for-
gchq-nsa-agents-infiltrating-and-disrupting-alternative-media-online/)

[https://theintercept.com/2015/04/02/gchq-argentina-
falklands...](https://theintercept.com/2015/04/02/gchq-argentina-falklands/)

Remember: JTRIG (NSA+GCHQ) is very interested in online propaganda and
controlling public opinion through shills.

Note: Both serve their governments, which have decided to treat Assange as an
enemy rather than a journalist.

I don't think this is okay. I encourage everyone to be on guard for this sort
of behavior on news stories related to Assange.

------
vilhelm_s
Truly courageous of Assange to to write that "Should the U.N. announce
tomorrow that I have lost my case against the United Kingdom and Sweden, I
shall exit the embassy at noon on Friday to accept arrest by British police as
there is no meaningful prospect of further appeal," at the same time as the
BBC is reporting that they ruled for him.

~~~
ryanlol
Assange made his statement at 3 AM GMT, when did BBC leak this?

~~~
vilhelm_s
Did they leak it to the BBC or to Assange first?

~~~
ryanlol
AFAIK only the state parties and members of the panel had access to the info,
so most likely source of the leak is UK govt.

Leaking it to the BBC (UK state media) sort of discredits the whole process
and Assanges statement, so that might be motivation enough for someone.

------
ck2
Is it still costing UK taxpayers a million per month?

Vaguely remember something like that.

Think of what good all that money could have done instead.

Why don't UK folks do a petition for THAT so your parliment has to argue it,
instead of something useless (but impressive) like banning Trump from the UK

~~~
wmil
Because at this point he's wanted by the police for skipping bail.

The courts can't just ignore that because he's been hiding out for too long.
The justice system has an obligation to bring him in.

~~~
ryanlol
>The justice system has an obligation to bring him in.

Generally there's an expectation of reasonable effort, 24/7 police guard isn't
going to magically stop him from leaving.

------
notahacker
For better or worse I suspect the UN panel ruling would be the same if,
instead of being a noted whistleblowing journalist hiding from equivalent
allegations in the Ecuadorean embassy it was, say, a former senior diplomat
for Gadaffi's Libya, or a prominent US cult leader, or another non-"hero" type
that could claim the same fears of extradition and arbitrary detention with
the same degree of plausibility.

On the other hand, I suspect that if he had that sort of background there
wouldn't be many people here willing to advance the argument that the original
prosecution must be politically motivated, or it wasn't a real crime...

Justice is supposed to be blind.

~~~
ryanlol
I don't think there is any argument against the prosecutions behaviour being
politically motivated, the Swedish courts have confirmed that the prosecutor
acted in breach of her duty by not agreeing to interview Assange in the
embassy.

------
zekevermillion
Not an expert on EU or UK law, but it seems odd to me that a ruling by a UN
panel would have any effect on Assange's legal status. Perhaps it is just
cover for him to live in a non-EU country and fight extradition?

------
Ma8ee
Who exactly is he detained by?

~~~
Cthulhu_
Nobody yet, but the UK police / government already indicated they'd arrest him
if he stepped out of the embassy (which is why they had a 24/7 watch on the
embassy for two years), so that effectively is detainment.

~~~
Kristine1975
Couldn't he have used a diplomatic bag to leave the embassy?

~~~
Ao7bei3s
They considered that. The UK police had orders to detain him anyway.

[http://www.wired.com/2015/09/ecuador-considered-smuggling-
ju...](http://www.wired.com/2015/09/ecuador-considered-smuggling-julian-
assange-freedom-bag)

------
rogerthis
If "UN ruling" were binding then it would turn the notion of political asylum
irrelevant. Political asylum only makes sense if laws have some sort of limit.
And I am not looking into Assange's case specifics, but in a more abstract
way, in which a bad "UN ruling" should be considered.

------
ascorbic
Can this be merged into the other post? This article is just quoting the BBC
one.

------
acqq
The article that Reuters refers to:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35490910](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35490910)

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention:

[http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Detention/Pages/WGADIndex.asp...](http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Detention/Pages/WGADIndex.aspx)

Apparently their report is to be published tomorrow.

I personally don't see how is he "detained" when he himself decided to sit in
the Embassy. Maybe because the UK by waiting on him to exit the embassy
doesn't recognize his status of having political asylum granted by Ecuador?
I'd like to read the (as the article says, legally directly _non-binding_ for
the UK) report of the UN Working Group myself to adjust my opinion.

Up to then it's just media making noise, still no new information, except that
the report is expected to be published.

I believe he's with reasonable probability in danger of being extradited to
the US and there having the fate similar to Manning's. As far as I understand
there is also some kind of "working group" formed in the US that specially
works on his case, and the US really successfully does such things as
demanding the extradition of people they want to prosecute and then getting
them.

Edit:

If somebody wants to try to guess what the arguments of the Working Group can
be, the starting point should be:

[http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet26en.pd...](http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet26en.pdf)

"according to the Group, deprivation of liberty is arbitrary if a case falls
into one of the following three categories:

A) When it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the
deprivation of liberty (as when a person is kept in detention after the
completion of his sentence or despite an amnesty law applicable to
him)(Category I);

B) When the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of the rights or
freedoms guaranteed by articles 7, 13, 14, 18, 19, 10 and 21 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and, insofar as States parties are concerned, by
articles 12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (Category II);

C) When the total or partial non-observance of the international norms
relating to the right to a fair trial, spelled out in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and in the relevant international instruments
accepted by the States concerned, is of such gravity as to give the
deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character (Category III)."

It's not about the "detention" but about the "deprivation of liberty." That
has more sense.

~~~
fungos
> I don't see how UK is doing something illegal

Threats of storming into an embassy is not illegal?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-wikileaks-assange-
ecuador-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-wikileaks-assange-ecuador-
idUSBRE87E16N20120816)

Or threats to arrest him inside an diplomatic transport? Or even threats to
ignore any diplomatic immunity at all?

Nothing illegal here it seems.

~~~
peteretep
You seem to misunderstand diplomatic immunity. Host countries are well within
their rights to evict diplomats.

~~~
fungos
Evict is not arrest though.

~~~
peteretep
Conveniently Assange doesn't have diplomatic immunity, and you can't be
retroactively granted it against the host's wishes.

------
jccc
AP confirms:
[https://twitter.com/AP/status/695258621454741505](https://twitter.com/AP/status/695258621454741505)

------
timwaagh
i cannot figure out for the life of me why so many support him given what the
women went through.

~~~
mike_hearn
Because if you remember the details of when this case started it's not at all
clear the women involved went through anything at all. The initial
investigation was dropped by the prosecutor on the grounds that there was no
chance of ever getting a conviction (e.g. one of the women tweeted about how
she'd slept with Assange afterwards, not something you typically do if you've
been raped). Assange hung around in Sweden for about a month, iirc, in case
the police wanted to keep talking to him, but they said they were done and he
could go.

Then later on the stories started changing and the charges were mysteriously
resurrected by a different prosecutor as political pressure on Wikileaks
intensified. Suddenly they want to question him again, but by this time he's
left Sweden (as they said he could). So not surprisingly he is now suspicious
as hell.

~~~
timwaagh
I read a pdf with the details once. can't find it now but i think it mentioned
quite a bit of violence as well as um... inserting during one's sleep. I'm
aware it's not a clear cut case because the victims don't hate him. but i'm
sure the judges can determine his culpability better than I. I do however find
his behavior disgusting.

~~~
mike_hearn
What's alleged is irrelevant. The case was dropped because the standard for
criminal law is "beyond all reasonable doubt", at least in any rational or
sane justice system.

There is absolutely no way a case with this many holes in will ever - EVER -
reach that standard of evidence unless they have something really unusual,
like video evidence of what happened.

The chance of getting a conviction in this case given the weaknesses of the
claims, the he said/she said nature, and the contradictory behaviour of the
alleged victims afterwards (which included attempting to remove evidence that
contradicted their story by deleting tweets etc), all point towards a failed
prosecution. Hence, why Assange is suspicious.

