Julian Assange to be extradited, says UK court

[AiA in Atlanta]

Storm the embassy? Is the UK a tin-pot dictatorship now?

[Super Nova]

Storm the embassy? Is the UK a tin-pot dictatorship now?

They will not storm it. There is a little know law that allows them to if a crime is/has been committed. This is not the case here so the imformed opinion is they will do nothing except capture him if he tries to leave the country and to do that he has to leave the embassy.

They need to dress him up and spirit him away. The UK police are waiting for that I recon so they can catch him.

[Super Nova]

There you go. He has a real and valid concern about being extradited to the US. Poor bastard. I would not like to be in his position. When the US wants someone, they usually get them dead or alive.

AUSTRALIAN diplomats have no doubt the United States is still gunning for Julian Assange, according to Foreign Affairs Department documents obtained by The Saturday Age.

The Australian embassy in Washington has been tracking a US espionage investigation targeting the WikiLeaks publisher for more than 18 months.

The declassified diplomatic cables, released under freedom of information laws, show Australia's diplomatic service takes seriously the likelihood that Assange will eventually be extradited to the US on charges arising from WikiLeaks obtaining leaked US military and diplomatic documents.

This view is at odds with Foreign Minister Bob Carr's repeated dismissal of such a prospect

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/us-in ... z23pWZtGTg

[The Artist formerly known as Sappho]

So which law gets precedence... Asylum or Extradition?

[Rorschach]

Unlike Ecuador, Britain does not recognise the old concept of political or diplomatic asylum, which is different from modern ''refugee'' status. Political asylum is probably no longer part of international law, because not enough countries agree to it.

Britain may be technically within its legal rights not to recognise Ecuador's grant of asylum, to refuse Assange safe passage out of Britain, and to arrest him once he leaves the embassy. Short of being smuggled out in a diplomatic bag, Assange has no way out.

Even if diplomatic asylum remains part of the law, there is some doubt whether Assange faces the risks Ecuador claims. Assessing asylum claims requires imprecise probability judgments about what might happen, all the harder in this unpredictable case where Assange is a public enemy of America, and where America may wish to disguise its intentions.

Yet, against Assange is the fact the US has not yet charged him, nor sought his extradition, so there is no immediate risk.

Swedish law would not permit him to be extradited for political offences such as espionage or treason. Swedish law would never extradite him to the death penalty, and probably not to a military trial.

Australia should also not do anything that would thwart justice for the alleged victims of sex crimes by Assange, who have been denigrated by some of his more fanatical supporters. Concern for human rights only extends so far in Wiki-world.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politi ... z23qwJE7IX" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Look the guy is an egotistical, narcissistic, womanising prick.
He got himself into a pickle in Sweden, fled to England, refused to go back and face the charges, tossed in a global conspiracy to get him, fled to "Ecuador" and now finds himself in a bigger pickle, and a diplomatic quandry, the centre of attention, right where he likes to be.

Can't wait for his press conference.

[mantra]

Look the guy is an egotistical, narcissistic, womanising prick.
He got himself into a pickle in Sweden, fled to England, refused to go back and face the charges, tossed in a global conspiracy to get him, fled to "Ecuador" and now finds himself in a bigger pickle, and a diplomatic quandry, the centre of attention, right where he likes to be.

Can't wait for his press conference.

Having sex with two women is hardly womanising. Obviously he was being followed and someone got to the women - possibly the CIA.

[Rorschach]

You watch too many Hollywood conspiracy movies.
You have no proof.
Don't tell me you've been charmed and you are now a fan.
Whereas he's had more than 2 women and has a big rep as a womaniser, otherwise I'd never have mentioned it.

[The Artist formerly known as Sappho]

So which law gets precedence... Asylum or Extradition?

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/asylum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The link is for the idiots on forum who struggle to understand the basics.

Meanwhile, does anyone know why the Swedes refuse to question Assange in the UK? These are only allegations after all... no charges have been laid.

[Rorschach]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11949341" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Rorschach]

From that well known Lefty, David Penberthy.

Asylum is not a safety net for a court-dodging Assange
* by: David Penberthy
* From: The Sunday Telegraph
* August 19, 2012 12:00AM

A couple of years ago, against my better judgment, I broke the habit of a lifetime and signed a wanky public communique in support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

It is something I regret, not just because it violated a long-held conviction that these public statements are a showy exercise in collective egomania.

The nice thing about plumbers and waitresses is that they are free of the excruciating abundance of self-importance that sees eminent jurists, academics or journalists burden the world with their views about everything from border protection and climate change to the indiscriminate release of state secrets.

These views might be valid but they are no more or less valid than anyone else's and the presumptuous nature of their delivery renders them so irritating as to be cringeworthy.

Aside from being pseudo intellectual chest-puffing, the Julian Assange communique was particularly flawed because, obviously enough, it was about Julian Assange. The more we have seen of this man the less impressive a figure he has become.

In hindsight it is puzzling as to why so many of us in the media jumped on his reckless little bandwagon, as there is a fundamental difference between the way information is sought and used by the media, and the way it has been gaily tossed about like confetti by a mob like Wikileaks with no regard for the possible consequences.

In terms of its actions, Wikileaks has taken no care and no responsibility, be it through the release of cables which identify dissidents living under repressive regimes, blowing the cover of people working in intelligence, or jeopardising relations between nations by revealing material which, when not in its proper context, would threaten valuable alliances.

The other problem with Assange involves his alleged behaviour as a human being. I say alleged because there should be no prejudgment of the sexual assault allegations brought against him by the police in Sweden. He is innocent until proven guilty. This simple point of law seems lost on Assange and his blind army of activist supporters who argue not that he is innocent until proven guilty but innocent full stop, and that the whole thing is some evil conspiracy by the military-industrial complex to destroy him.

Over the past month we have seen Assange pervert the concept of asylum in order to dodge scrutiny for his alleged personal conduct. Historically people have sought asylum on the basis of being persecuted for their political views, their activism, their religion. In terms of the charges he is facing, Assange is not being persecuted on political grounds, but prosecuted because he is allegedly a sex offender. A prisoner of conscience he ain't; rather, just another bloke who allegedly cannot grasp the simple concept that when a woman says no, she means no.

Assange's decision to camp out inside the Ecuadorean embassy shows total contempt and disrespect for the process of law in Sweden. Ecuador's decision to grant him asylum makes that nation look like the batty tin-pot South American republic in Woody Allen's film Bananas.

The people who really stretch the bounds of credibility are Assange's mates in groups such as Anonymous and the so-called 99 per centers who can be found lying on the footpath in Martin Place and in Collins Street striking a blow at the black heart of capitalism. These people are of the Left and have deliberately ignored the fact that their pin-up boy may or may not be a sex offender because there is apparently a bigger issue at play here, the persecution of a doe-eyed crusader by Western governments.

Even the normally excellent Four Corners ran an uncharacteristically dodgy documentary a few weeks ago giving a platform to Assange's lawyers who (Surprise!) think he's innocent of the sex charges. The program ran some reckless claims about the women involved, including the apparently seismic fact that one of them allegedly had consensual sex with Assange prior to the subsequent alleged assault, ignoring the pretty obvious fact that it is entirely possible for two people who have agreed to sleep together on one or several occasions to have a subsequent encounter which is forced and illegal.

If people had any sense they should at least wait until Assange's trial is over before leaping to this man's defence. To their shame, many of them are even arguing that a trial should not proceed anyway, as if standing up to evil Western governments is such a noble cause that it absolves you from the little matter of manfully facing court to deal with that little matter of a rape charge.

The other moral of the story, of course, is that communiques aren't worth the paper they're written on and I apologise for signing the dumb thing in the first place.

penberthyd@thepunch.com.au

One of David's more balanced articles.
Or do I think so because it actually agrees with my thoughts on the subject?