That's not what's stopping anyone from investigating the war crimes though. Even if Assange never would have com to Sweden and never would have been accused (guilty or not) of rape, those war crimes wouldn't have been any more investigated that they are now. Look at Khashoggi, nothing happened. Look at Russia's annexation of Crimea, there's some sanctions but the current US administration is against them. Look at China, they have concentration camps for Uighurs. And so on.
I don't have any problem believing that Assange did have sex with a sleeping woman without a condom, it fits what I've perceived as his personality. And him locking himself in the embassy after having exhausted his legal means in the UK was his own doing. But that's all about one person, the war crimes are part of a system that doesn't care about him.
I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts.
But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would lead to an international manhunt through Interpol. It makes me angry when the newspapers keep parroting that "Assange is wanted in Sweden for rape". Obviously this isn't the heart of the issue. Assange is wanted by the most powerful country in the world for revealing military secrets. This is what is really going on, but not many newspapers are as willing to spell this out explicitly.
This is what the "Assange supporters" in this case are saying. Assange is completely justified in fearing extradition to the US, especially since such a small criminal allegation (I'm sorry, but the word "rape" in this case doesn't imply a grave violent offence) has turned into an international manhunt against Assange. I have huge problems believing that the rape charges are anything but a pretext. In the interest of gauging people's opinions, does anyone disagree with this particular point?
Additionally, regardless of what lawyers are saying about the specifics of this case, extraditions are largely politically motivated. There is no central international body or law system governing cases like these, so the choices are usually left to politicians. And really, Sweden has a pretty bad track record with regards to looking after US interests. The case against The Pirate Bay is another good contemporary example of this. The Swedish government could guarantee that Assange wouldn't be extradited, but it would make them look bad in the eyes of the US and others. So clearly they won't.
Assange has never been found guilty of a crime or even charged with one. The British legal ruling was not over guilt or innocence but simply over the bureaucratic definition of a crime. If the Swedish government reprinted the exact same request with your name on it, you would also face extradition without the ability to challenge the request on the grounds that its allegations are not factual.
This is the key point that apologists for Sweden miss. The prosecution could have charged Assange and got an extradition warrant that way. They didn't because doing so would have required a court filing and granted Assange rights to a speedy trial and freedom from indefinite detention. Interviewing Assange in London was equally impossible -- once it was done the Swedish prosecutor would have been legally required to either charge Assange or close the case. And charging the case would have required a court filing, etc. etc.....
Arguing that Assange would have been found guilty of rape also shows a lack of knowledge of the case. Despite what you seem to believe (who told you this?) the woman in question was not asleep and has in fact made statements contradicting your claims and accusing the authorities of railroading her. I do not personally know what happened that evening, but her description is striking in showing Assange complying with every request she made. The only possible breach of consent lies in the possibility that Assange broke a condom deliberately, but this is apparently contradicted by forensic evidence which shows the breakage was due to wear and tear. Add on the woman's affectionate treatment of Assange both before and after the night in question, and the way her change in behavior followed her realization that he was sleeping with someone else, and it seems rather obvious that while Assange may have been a cad the rape allegations simply don't hold water.
The accusations against Assange could very well be a conspiracy involving the US, Sweden and the UK to silence wikileaks because they leaked videos of civilians being killed by American military.
Or it could just be him raping or sexually assaulting two women in Sweden and the police and prosecution wanting to follow their rules and interview him about it.
Who's politicized the rape charges other than Assange himself continuously calling them a government conspiracy against him?
The Swedish government doesn't discuss them (which is what's allowed Assange's version of events to get so popular). The US hasn't mentioned it. The UK gave him a fair trial based on them.
Do you realize that Assange had nonviolent, consensual sex with those two women and it's only a quirk of the Swedish legal system that the word "rape" being used in relation to the charges against him?
Assange's actions would not be a crime under US law, and would by no means be described by anything close to the word rape.
Let's not kid ourselves. It is terribly naïve to believe that this whole situation has been about rape allegations. The only reason Assange was charged in the first place was political pressure from the United States, which would provide the opportunity for an extradition (on some suitable pretext) even in the absence of a conviction.
This is a textbook example of a large, public extrajudicial process. The political situation will not change even if this case falls apart - so Assange would still be a refugee or a fugitive, depending on who you ask. British authorities would certainly find some pretext to arrest him and extradite him even if the Swedish government publicly verifies his safety and innocence.
I would love to be proved wrong if someone is better informed about this than I, but this just seems completely obvious.
Without the rape allegations, what crime would have led to the UK arresting Assange, enabling him to be extradited? Even with the allegations, the process of extraditing him to Sweden took ages.
I have plenty of criticism of Assange. I mean, I had a very favourable view of him before the leaks, I feel the Collateral Murder video is very important, and I think it's important that governments can be held accountable for their crimes, so in those areas I'm on his side.
But I'm not so happy with his grand-standing, with the way he handled some of the data, with his attempts to work with Russia and Trump to influence US elections, or with how he handled those Swedish rape allegations.
There is plenty of criticism for everybody here. But the biggest issue is still the core issue: does the US have the right to commit war crimes, and does it have the right to persecute anyone who tries to publicise those crimes?
I'm surprised no-one's pointed out the irony of a man locked up in a building in order to stop him from being locked up in a building.
Seriously though, lets try to look at this objectively.
We have a man who is wanted for questioning relating to sexual offences and is actively trying to escape the charges. In any normal situation, we would all say that he should go and face the courts and if guilty do the time. Pro-Assange people claim that he should not face the courts on the grounds that this will be used to extradite him to the US. These same people are saying that someone who may be guilty of a crime in Sweden are saying that the law shouldn't apply to him.
Additionally, this same man has done an awful lot of work to expose corruption and wrongdoing at a high level. In the process of this however and through an exchange with a journalist, the raw cable information, all unredacted has been compromised, in the process potentially jeopardizing the lives of many people named in the unredacted cables. The US is understandably livid and take the disclosure of classified material seriously. Again, pro-Assange people claim that the law should not apply to him, that he was doing a good thing by exposing the redacted information, but are strangely silent on the fact that he posted the whole thing online and put these lives in potential danger.
Additionally we have the unprecedented act of the British government threatening the integrity of the Ecuadorian embassy (thanks for pointing this out Daishiman). This is indeed strange and unique. It's worth bearing in mind that the threat was made against the advice of legal counsel. It may be possible that the person responsible didn't understand the Vienna convention. The UK now has a legal obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden, as per their treaty with Sweden.
I find it interesting that people can suspend their views of justice based on the allegations of political meddling. The fact is that he is wanted by the Swedish government, and he's admitted that he had sex with the two ladies in question, yet the arguments against him facing the Swedish judicial system fail to offer up any reasons why he should be exempt from the law beyond claims of a conspiracy (which may or may not be real, we don't know for sure and probably never will).
And now you are distorting the facts, what shows the weakness of your previous argument. The man spent 9 years in prison. Have some decency. The UK wont even jail real convicted sex criminals....
Do not worry about his broken condom, worry about the instrumentation of the Swedish and UK legal system, at the ends of US Political conveniences...
"UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer investigated the rape accusations against Assange and said he had never before seen a comparable case where a person was subjected to nine years of a preliminary investigation for rape without charges being filed. He said Assange's lawyers made over 30 offers to arrange for Assange to visit Sweden in exchange for a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the U.S. over unknown charges, and described such diplomatic assurances as routine international practice." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...
I know I'm going to get downvoted like hell for this, but..
In short, because Sweden is a feminist-dominated country which would love nothing more to lock up Assange for life and throw away the key because a couple of women regretted sleeping with him afterwards.
So it appears that both the UK government and the Swedish government have lost moral authority due to their behavior on this issue. And if they violate the Ecuadoran embassy that could be considered an act of war. At the least a cause to cease diplomatic and trade relations.
If Sweden truly just wanted to question Assange, they could do it via mail, email, phone, video chat or of course an in person meeting in the UK. All of which I believe Assange has already offered to do. But they've declined. Which means that Sweden/UK/USA's actual goal is something other than simply questioning him. It's a fact that he's neither been convicted or even charged with any crime (IIRC), especially not with respect to the supposed sexual "assault" incidents, which look like he-said/she-said instances at best, and a frame-up at worst.
Hmm? This just goes to show that the USA didn't need to manufacture rape allegations in Sweden just in order to get Assange extradited, since their best chance of doing so was to extradite him from the UK.
I don't even think that question matters. The question is, can Sweden objectively and fairly litigate a rape charge involving Julian Assange? If they can, the UK must honor its extradition treaty. If they can't, the UK shouldn't. The suggestion that Sweden is so corrupt that it can't handle basic criminal law is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. No evidence has been presented to support it, at all.
The rest of the argument is to my ears just fever talk. Some US muckity muck said Assange should be killed? Ok. I won't vote for that moron. There are also US politicians who believe we should have nuked Iraq. There was never any real risk that we we going to fire nuclear weapons at a 3rd world country. Random politicians say all sorts of idiotic things. Thankfully, they cannot suspend criminal law as a result.
Does anyone actually think that the "rape allegations" against him weren't made by a CIA asset? I mean, for 40 years the man had no issues with women. Within months of starting to publish info that makes the US government feel a little uncomfortable, boom, he's now a "rapist", convicted in the court of public opinion with no evidence whatsoever. There was, in fact, so little evidence that the prosecutor in Sweden initially refused to pursue rape charges. I suspect screws were then put to the Swedish judicial system, and they decided it'd be more politically expedient to comply. And I think it was quite clear to Assange where this wind was blowing from, so he chose not to face charges, which if the system wasn't rigged against him would likely not result in a conviction owing to the lack of evidence. But once you consider who's really pulling the strings, facing the charges becomes a very dangerous thing: spending 7 years locked in the embassy is vastly perferable to e.g. Guantanamo.
It depresses me that people are trying to make comparisons between a copyright infringement case and a rape accusation. Copyright infringement and rape are rather different. This should be obvious. I really don't know where to begin there - I know this community is male dominated, but rape is a incredibly serious crime. Piracy may well be a 'victimless crime'. Rape is not.
Two women have accused Assange of rape. They have a fundamental right under law to due process. Assange is attempting to deny them this due process by evading the Swedish courts.
Sweden's justice system really isn't corrupt. Assange knows this. His lawyers know this. If Assange thought he wouldn't get a fair trial he would have argued this point in the English courts. Many people have avoided extradition from the UK to various unpleasant places on the basis they wouldn't get a fair trial.
His legal argument was flimsy at best. Assange tried to argue Sweden lacked the authority to issue the arrest warrant in the first place, an argument that was basically laughed out of court. However, the English courts have had a lot of patience for Assange, and have offered him several avenues of appeal on the basis it's an important and high profile case. The Supreme Court even allowed an additional submission after their judgement (this is very unusual).
This is a criminal case involving two parties. Both parties have guaranteed rights. Think about the women involved for a second. They have accused Assange of rape. Perhaps they are lying: Assange is after all innocent until proven guilty. But is it out of the question they are telling the truth? No, it's not.
And that is why Assange should really willingly return to Sweden to face his accusers. He isn't willing, and his arguments about fearing the US really aren't that convincing given the UK is more than happy to extradite people to the states.
You can believe that Assange had sex with someone without a condom, in violation of their expressed wishes, without believing that 1. sufficient evidence exists for a case to be brought 2. that he is safer in Sweden from onward extradition to the US for what arguably amounts to political persecution.
My view on the rape thing is mostly in line with what I believe to be the facts of the case and I strongly believe Assange should stand trial and if found guilty should be serve time. However, I find a lot of the machinations around the whole rape case to be extremely suspect but if the facts are what they are and there was no weight given to who committed the alleged crime rather than what the alleged crime was when the case was re-opened then I think he should be able to get a fair trial with proper discovery and with the women that made the allegations in the first place as the witnesses, even a semblance of a show or sham trial will cause a real problem in the longer term and any extradition to the USA afterwards would prove Assange was right all along and will cause serious diplomatic damage as well as cost the UK, USA and Sweden significant goodwill.
If convicted he should not get time off for time spent in the embassy, that's not the same as time spent in a Swedish jail. He should however get the guarantee that he's not going to be extradited to the US no matter what, that seems like a 'free' thing for Sweden and would do a lot of good in terms of moving this case forward, which especially for the women would seem to me to be of prime importance.
Finally, Assange will likely also end up having to stand trial for skipping bail in the UK.
But all that has absolutely nothing to do - I hope, at least - with Wikileaks and what it has done for us all and I for one am quite grateful to Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange and whoever else had a hand in removing some of the veil around all that is ugly and that makes our world into the relatively bad place that it continues to be.
If it takes 'flawed' people to get us there, then so be it.
As for Strauss-Kahn or Julian Assange, when it comes to their public and their private affairs (and crimes) there should be no difference in how they are treated, fame should not be a free pass for misbehavior.
There are lots of things that don't sit right with me about how the Swedes handled this case, for instance in other cases they actually have gone abroad to interview suspects, higher priority crimes never made it to the same level of international police activity, it is relatively unheard of that someone at that level of responsibility would personally get involved to re-open a case, the fact that the womens actions totally contradict their public statements at the time and so on so I have no way of knowing what is the truth but I do know there is some truth to the allegations and I feel that guys that are jerks to women at this level should definitely not be given a free pass.
Personally I have no idea what could drive a man like Assange to do stuff like this, maybe that's what fame will do to you. See also: Bill Cosby and a bunch of British TV characters, Roman Polanski and so on. It seems as if at some point in time something in their psyche switched and they thought they could get away with anything (and some of them actually did get away, sadly).
You do know the circumstances around the "accusation" right? I mean, it seems to me some people here are willfully ignorant. I despise willful ignorance. Assange hasn't been charged with any crime. If you looked at the actual circumstances, you would find the comparison to Polanski who indeed raped a 13 year old girl, is highly unfair, if not for a lack of word, stupid. Oh, and the sex was consensual according to the women... though because of Swedish legal definitions, it can still technically be called rape.
The tweets of the two women in question expressed ulterior motives for going to the police. They also made tweets that contradict the "rape". Not only that, but the Swedish prosecutor named Assange publicly before having stood trial (and if you're not aware of it, the accused of rape cases is to be anonymous until he has been found guilty... if not, defamation becomes all too easy).
It all smells so fishy, and I have no idea why people on HN don't think highly of him. That they would fall for such an obvious smear campaign, well.. I'm disappointed. WikiLeaks is probably one of the very few journalistic entities that fulfill the important role journalism was intended to have in a democracy. The majority of other news are regurgitated and preprocessed opinions on unimportant events. The bread an circus for the masses, if you will.
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Now that said, the thing I don't understand is why he doesn't willingly go to Sweden to get rid of the bullshit trials (note that it was already called such by the Swedish prosecutor who threw away the case). Perhaps it is based on principle? That the whole extradition is based on no real reason? That the reason provided for the extradition (questioning regarding the case), does not engender confidence, since alternative ways of doing an interview (webcam, etc) were suggested and rejected by the Swedish authorities.
I don't have any problem believing that Assange did have sex with a sleeping woman without a condom, it fits what I've perceived as his personality. And him locking himself in the embassy after having exhausted his legal means in the UK was his own doing. But that's all about one person, the war crimes are part of a system that doesn't care about him.
This whole mess is candy for conspiracy theorists. Remember that Wikileaks fanned the flames in the middle of Pizza gate: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...
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