> “His attitude is that he is happy to cooperate with Sweden and that he wants to be interviewed and that he wants to clear his name,” Samuelson told Reuters.
He spent how many years on both UK soil and then the Ecuadorean embassy to fight these Swedish allegations and now he's "happy to cooperate". He's imprisoned himself all these years for nothing.
As I understood it, he fled to the embassy because he was afraid the Swedish allegations would be used as an excuse to extradite him to the US. Now that his UK charges can be used for that, that's no longer an objection.
>would be used as an excuse to extradite him to the US
That makes no sense.
Sweeden does not extradite people for political crimes and espionage is considered a political crime in Sweeden. His chance of being extradited to the US for espionage from Sweeden was extremely low from the start ... and going to the UK out of fear of being extradited to the US makes no sense considering UK and US relations.
I think it is more of a question of if he is being honest about the reasons for going to the UK.... "I was avoiding being arrested for rape" doesn't fit his narrative.
So he is accused of a crime and he go to the police station and give his statement. He lets the investigator know he is staying in the country for several week, in the case they have any more questions. The case get closed.
Months later he publish the leaks and travel to the UK, and a European arrest warrant is issued. After which there is a report that US diplomats visited the justice department before the case was reopened, but the department head swears that it did not influence the decision.
Just like Sweden has laws against extraditing people for political crimes and espionage, its justice department has laws that forbids it from being influenced by politics. The official statement is that the chain of events is just a coincident and the leaks, US diplomats and everything else did not effect the decision of the prosecutor when they decided to reopen the case and issue the European arrest warrant.
Some other minor details is that not only is the Assange case the most expensive UK police case in UK history, but this European arrest warrant is also a record in Sweden. No other warrant that Sweden has issued has as low maximal punishment. This is official also just a coincident.
I personally are not that surprised that Assange do not believe it to be coincident. I wonder if not most people would become a bit paranoid if they were under similar circumstances, and not accept the claim that it is just a coincident and that the Sweden and UK legal system are just following standard procedure.
Fleeing to the UK seems like a terrible plan if you're looking to evade the Swedish justice system. Assange might not be a genius, but I don't think he'd be that daft.
Well at this risk of being a mouthpiece for a propaganda machine, the other option is that he took refuge in an embassy for years so that he would appear to be a political martyr as he escaped justice for rape.
Neither the Swedish nor British charges were needed for that purpose, all that was needed was an extradition request from the US.
The other charges are immaterial to extradition to the US except insofar as they might prevent or delay it, though being in jail facing the other charges might make it harder to flee extradition to the US if that request came later.
I never understood why Assange worried more about being extradited from Sweden than from the UK. However, I think it is a good point that now he’s fighting an extradition request in Britain, he would be happy to instead go to Sweden.
Ehm, good question; it's been a while since I read about this. I think, but don't pin me down on this, that his being kept in a single country would give the US enough time to draw up a formal extradition request for that specific country, whereas if a country isn't able to hold him, the request might not come in time.
Hopefully somebody else can chime in with a more reliable explanation.
If he were extradited to Sweden from the UK, under an EAW, to then be further extradited from Sweden to the US, the extradition would need to fulfil the requirements to be extradited from both the UK and Sweden.
Being extradited to Sweden would merely make extradition to the US more complex, not less. He would still be able to challenge the extradition in the (presumably) English courts, but he would further be able to challenge it in the Swedish courts.
He would never leave willingly if there was an existing extradition request for him. So they waited until he was out, however that came about. he was guaranteed to be arrested on exiting if only for the bail breach. At which point he is in custody and you can serve the extradition request.
Similarly the US will not request extradition for some suspects and wait until they set foot in the US and arrest them then. Saving the need for an extradition battle. If they really want you and you are Russian, they wait until you go on holiday outside russian borders and grab you as you step off the plane.
That's not how I remember it at all. Assange left Sweden because the allegations had been dismissed by prosecutors. He didn't run from Swedish justice, quite the opposite, he hung around longer than necessary until he was told there was no further business to be done.
It was only once he was in the UK that Sweden decided, for no obvious reason at all, that the allegations maybe weren't bogus after all.
On 21 August 2010 the case was looked at by a prosecutor.
On 25 August 2010 the case was dismissed, a decision which the lawyer representing the women objected and requested a review.
On 30 August, Assange was questioned by the Stockholm police.
On 1 September, the case was reopened.
On 27 September, Assange left the country. Assange's London lawyer Mark Stephens said that Assange had asked to be interviewed by prosecutors before leaving Sweden but was told he could leave the country without being interviewed. Swedish prosecutors said that on the day Assange left Sweden they had informed Assange's Swedish lawyer Björn Hurtig that an arrest warrant would be issued for Assange. Assange is arrested in his absence.
> In cross-examination the Swedish lawyer confirmed that paragraph 13 of his proof of evidence is wrong... He then confirmed that on 22nd September 2010 at 16.46 he has a message from Ms Ny saying: “Hello – it is possible to have an interview Tuesday”. Next there was a message saying: “Thanks for letting me know. We will pursue Tuesday 28th at 1700”. He then accepted that there must have been a text from him.
"The lawyer gave live evidence covering in some detail the attempts made to secure an interview with his client.
On 15th September Ms Ny told him there were no “force measures” preventing Julian leaving the country, i.e. he
was allowed to leave. ... He phoned his client to say he was free to leave the country to continue his work."
"He conceded that it is possible that Ms Ny told him on the 21st that she wanted to interview his client... Then he was then cross-examined about his attempts to contact his client. To have the full flavour it may be necessary to consider the transcript in full. In summary the lawyer was unable to tell me what attempts he made to contact his client... He said “I don’t think I left a message warning him”"
"In re-examination he confirmed that he did not know Mr Assange was leaving Sweden on 27th September and
first learned he was abroad on 29th."
What I doubt is whether what he flew was "justice" and not the usual staged character assassination attempt, in a country caving in from diplomatic pressure (all too common to lesser states when pressured from superpowers).
A doubt is legit, but everything he's done and said says a different story in my opinion.
You don't say “Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism” or
“I fell into a hornets’ nest of revolutionary feminism” if there's nothing wrong with you.
If there were doubts at first, now that both USA and Sweden are asking for extradiction, I'm even more convinced that Sweden wanted just to process him for what he allegedly did.
He spent how many years on both UK soil and then the Ecuadorean embassy to fight these Swedish allegations and now he's "happy to cooperate". He's imprisoned himself all these years for nothing.