Current Julian Assange arrested. * Priti Patel approves US extradition 17/6/2022

[Kurve]

Metropolitan Police have arrested Julian Assange for breach of bail and dragged him shouting out of the Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange has been taken to a central London police station and then was arrested again on behalf of the US in relation to an extradition warrant. It's not clear though yet what the US is accusing Assange of.

I'm in shock ....

UPDATE: The US U.S. Justice Department is accusing Assange of conspiracy with Chelsea Manning in 2010 and charges him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

Yes, seriously.

TIMELINE

2006
Assange creates Wikileaks with a group of like-minded activists and IT experts to provide a secure way for whistleblowers to leak information. He quickly becomes its figurehead and a lightning rod for criticism.

2010
March: U.S. authorities allege Assange engaged in a conspiracy to hack a classified U.S. government computer with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
July: Wikileaks starts releasing tens of thousands of top secrets documents, including a video of U.S. helicopter pilots gunning down 12 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. What followed was the release of more than 90,000 classified US military files from the Afghan war and 400,000 from Iraq that included the names of informants.
August: Two Swedish women claim that they each had consensual sex with Assange in separate instances when he was on a 10-day trip to Stockholm. They allege the sex became non-consensual when Assange refused to wear a condom.
First woman claims Assange was staying at her apartment in Stockholm when he ripped off her clothes. She told police that when she realized Assange was trying to have unprotected sex with her, she demanded he use a condom. She claims he ripped the condom before having sex.
Second Swedish woman claims she had sex with Assange at her apartment in Stockholm and she made him wear a condom. She alleges that she later woke up to find Assange having unprotected sex with her.
He was questioned by police in Stockholm and denied the allegations. Assange was granted permission by Swedish authorities to fly back to the U.K.
November: A Swedish court ruled that the investigation should be reopened and Assange should be detained for questioning on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. An international arrest warrant is issued by Swedish police through Interpol.
Wikileaks releases its cache of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables.
December: Assange presents himself to London police and appears at an extradition hearing where he is remanded in custody. Assange is granted conditional bail at the High Court in London after his supporters pay £240,000 in cash and sureties.

2011
February: A British judge rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden but Wikileaks found vows to fight the decision.
April: A cache of classified U.S. military documents is released by Wikileaks, including intelligence assessments on nearly all of the 779 people who are detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
November: Assange loses High Court appeal against the decision to extradite him.

2012
June: Assange enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London requesting political asylum.
August: Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador.

2013
June: Assange tells a group of journalists he will not leave the embassy even if sex charges against him are dropped out of fear he will be extradited to the U.S.

2015
August: Swedish prosecutors drop investigation into some of the sex allegations against Assange due to time restrictions. The investigation into suspected rape remains active.

2016
July: Wikileaks begins leaking emails.
November: Assange is questioned over the sex allegation at the Ecuadorian Embassy in the presence of Sweden's assistant prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and police inspector Cecilia Redell. The interview spans two days.

2017
January: Barack Obama agrees to free whistleblower Chelsea Manning from prison. Her pending release prompts speculation Assange will end his self-imposed exile after Wikileaks tweeted he would agree to U.S. extradition.
April: Lenin Moreno becomes the new president of Ecuador who was known to want to improve diplomatic relations between his country and the U.S.
May: An investigation into a sex allegation against Assange is suddenly dropped by Swedish prosecutors.

2018
January: Ecuador confirms it has granted citizenship to Assange following his request.
February: Assange is visited by Pamela Anderson and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel.
March: The Ecuadorian Embassy suspends Assange's internet access because he wasn't complying with a promise he made the previous year to 'not send messages which entailed interference in relation to other states'.
August: U.S. Senate committee asks to interview Assange as part of their investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
September: Assange steps down as editor of WikiLeaks.
October: Assange reveals he will launch legal action against the government of Ecuador, accusing it of violating his 'fundamental rights and freedoms'.
November: U.S. Justice Department inadvertently names Assange in a court document that says he has been charged in secret.

2019
January: Assange's lawyers say they are taking action to make President Trump's administration reveal charges 'secretly filed' against him.
April 6: WikiLeaks tweets that a high level Ecuadorian source has told them Assange will be expelled from the embassy within 'hours or days'. But a senior Ecuadorian official says no decision has been made to remove him from the London building.
April 11: Assange has his diplomatic asylum revoked by Ecuador and he is arrested by the Metropolitan Police; he is remanded in custody by a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court.
April 12: He is found guilty of breaching his bail terms.
May 1: Sentenced to 11 months in jail.
May 2: Court hearing takes place over Assange's proposed extradition to the U.S. He tells a court he does not consent to the extradition and the case is adjourned until May 30.
May 13: Swedish prosecutors reopen rape case saying they still want to question Assange.
June 3: Swedish court rules against detaining him in absentia, setting back the extradition case.
June 12 Home Secretary Sajid Javid signs an extradition request from the US.
June 13 A hearing sets out the date for Assange's full extradition hearing - February next year.

 

[Kurve]

Overstayed his welcome ...

Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno said on Twitter they had withdrawn asylum after Assange's "repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols".

 

[sprockets]

Overstayed his welcome ...

Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno said on Twitter they had withdrawn asylum after Assange's "repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols".

He's a law unto himself. He may well be 'doing the right thing' or he may be just doing his own thing and tbh it seems like the latter. But, will we ever get the truth about what has gone on? Not from him, Wikileaks or the government. Will we ever know if what he's done has helped society? Doubt it.

 

[petedavo]

https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/ecuador-drar-tillbaka-assanges-asyl/



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[petedavo]

One of the other Swedish complainants of alleged rape has reiterated that she wanted her complaint against Julian investigated.

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[petedavo]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-computer-hacking-conspiracy

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[petedavo]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/11/wikileak-hashes-dont-match-so-whats-going-on.html

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[Kurve]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-computer-hacking-conspiracy

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Wikileaks is a media outlet, he was doing a job. IMO the US is right out of line.

 

[Kurve]

He's a law unto himself. He may well be 'doing the right thing' or he may be just doing his own thing and tbh it seems like the latter. But, will we ever get the truth about what has gone on? Not from him, Wikileaks or the government. Will we ever know if what he's done has helped society? Doubt it.

He looks like he needs some vitamin D ....

 

[Johnny Karate]

Assange is most likely a conceited boor who has done himself no favours. It is also a shame that his alleged victim’s complaints have not been properly investigated, perpetuating that the endgame was to always extradite him to the US.

As for the geopolitical grievances against him, has he really done anymore than whistle blow? I’d say this looms as a pretty big human rights issue. What has happened to Chelsea Manning is also troubling.

 

[petedavo]

Wikileaks is a media outlet, he was doing a job. IMO the US is right out of line.

The US Attorney's Office is only asking for extradition from the UK over a charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer.

That charge isn't anything to do with publishing nor journalism.

Anyhow, the UK Court has only dealt with the bench warrant for breach of bail.

An extradition hearing date will have to be set. I'd expect in the meantime, that Sweden will be deciding whether to make a competing extradition claim of their own, as it appears that the limitation period for the most serious of the original accusations is yet to expire.

It's highly unlikely, with his propensity to run away, and not front up to Court to fight his accusers, that he'll ever be granted bail again.
However, time held in remand usually comes off any custodial sentence, but I don't know if the time held on remand in the UK can be considered by a sentencing Judge in any other country, or whether his going on the lam in the UK would affect an application for bail in any other country.
It'll be interesting to see how the legal systems works in these issues.

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[Procrastinator35]

What a snow-job.....There is zero defense against the criminal cabal now running our Western governments & media.

 

[Bostonian]

Those crazy Libertarians. Making all the establishment s**t lords angry

 

[petedavo]

GUY ADAMS on the downfall of Assange as he's dragged out of Ecuadorian Embassy to face justice https://t.co/Cjybu4pYo7 https://t.co/tMYE5h07gi

A soaring ego, vile personal habits, and after years in his squalid den, hardly a friend left: GUY ADAMS on the downfall of Julian Assange

By Guy Adams for the Daily Mail21:25 11 Apr 2019, updated 02:13 12 Apr 2019

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...aring-ego-vile-habits-hardly-friend-left.html

Extract 1»
Assange has managed, during his marathon stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy, to fall out with a host of former allies, including many Left-leaning celebrity friends who not only fought his corner, but also financed his expensive legal battles, and at times put him up in their various mansions.

The high-profile supporters to turn against him range from feminists queasy at his decision to jump bail to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning after two women accused him of rape and sexual assault, to many free speech campaigners for whom he was once a great hero of our age.

The latter group were outraged by the revelation a few years ago that, seemingly due to a combination of egotism and paranoia, Assange was making WikiLeaks employees sign contracts threatening them with a £12million lawsuit if they spoke publicly about his organisation.

Meanwhile, Assange's reputation among liberals of every persuasion was severely dented in 2016, when WikiLeaks played a key role in the murky campaign to destabilise Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US election campaign, publishing emails seemingly obtained from her campaign team by Russian hackers.

It was, however, the breakdown of Julian Assange's once-chummy relationship with the government of Ecuador that really sealed his fate.

After his arrival in 2012, the country's hard-Left then president, Rafael Correa, had initially said, that he was welcome to stay in the embassy, a stone's throw from Harrods, for 'centuries'.

Yet as the years went by, the mutual affection soured, with staff reportedly tiring of their house guest's often belligerent manner and questionable approach to personal hygiene, along with the vast amount of cash it was taking to house him.

Extract 2»
'During his stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy, during the government of the former president Rafael Correa, they tolerated things like Mr Assange putting faeces on the walls of the Embassy and other types of behaviour of this kind that is far removed from the minimum respect a guest should have in a country which has generously welcomed him,' said the country's interior minister.


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[Bostonian]

 

[Procrastinator35]

Western owned & corrupted media in overdrive in trying to sell their 'anti-Assange' narrative.....When any sane person knows the diametrical opposite is true.....It is our governments & our media who are the lying criminals....No intelligent person trusts or believes these people any longer.

 

[Bostonian]

Western owned & corrupted media in overdrive in trying to sell their 'anti-Assange' narrative.....When any sane person knows the diametrical opposite is true.....It is our governments & our media who are the lying criminals....No intelligent person trusts or believes these people any longer.

Tucker Carlson is one who is asking what has Assange really done wrong.

 

[Kurve]

'During his stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy, during the government of the former president Rafael Correa, they tolerated things like Mr Assange putting faeces on the walls of the Embassy and other types of behaviour of this kind that is far removed from the minimum respect a guest should have in a country which has generously welcomed him,' said the country's interior minister.

Prisoners have been known to do that, he's possibly been slowly going barking mad but I'm not prepared to believe what may be a smear campaign no pun intended, yet.

Its just astonishing to me how many journalists have turned on him writing spiteful columns of condemnation backing extradition to the US. I personally don't think much of him or his politics but that's beside the point.

 

[Procrastinator35]

Tucker Carlson is one who is asking what has Assange really done wrong.

Simple answer really....He's brushed aside the thin veneer of the fake humanitarianism front of our Western governments, by exposing their rampant criminality beneath....And for that they must desperately try to turn the tables by portraying him as the criminal.

It's a pretty simple equation really.

 

[PetterdHoisted]

hk89
Thoughts?

 

[PetterdHoisted]

Just because you are a narcissist, don't mean they're not after you.

 

[petedavo]

”Sweden’s extradition treaty with the United States is differently worded from that between the US and UK, and prohibits extradition for an “offense connected with a political offense”. Excellent discussion of UK/US and Sweden/US extradition law. https://t.co/K1Sgt009Ih


spinninghugo

Assange, Extradition and Human Rights

by spinninghugo

11 hours ago


Mr Julian Assange was arrested yesterday after the Ecuadorian government withdrew the asylum they had given him in their embassy, thereby depriving him of the immunity they had conferred upon him from arrest. He was first arrested for failing to attend court on 29 June 2012 in contravention of his bail conditions. He was then further arrested on behalf of US authorities under an extradition warrant under section 73 of the Extradition Act 2003.



The shadow Home Secretary has intervened urging the Prime Minister to block the extradition of Mr Assange to the United States on human rights grounds, calls echoed by the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Lord Chancellor. The purpose of this post is to explain why, legally, this cannot be done. Ironically, the best hope Mr Assange now has of avoiding extradition to the US is if the Swedish authorities apply for him to be extradited there for other offences.



The Extradition Act 2003

The United States is a “category 2” country for the purposes of the Extradition Act 2003. In almost all respects, the decision whether to grant extradition is a matter for the courts, and not for the Secretary of State. In particular it is for the judge, not the Secretary of State, to decide whether extradition may be denied on human rights grounds. This is for good reasons that are illustrated by the Assange case itself. It is best to have cases like this decided by rules set down dispassionately in advance and adjudicated upon by judges, rather than through the discretion of politicians whose choices may be influenced by considerations unrelated to the justice of the case. We need clear rules of extradition that may be quickly applied. If the UK wishes those who are suspected of violating its criminal law to be tried here, and not to be able to flee to other jurisdictions to escape sanction, comity requires that we extradite to other countries those accused of offences there. There need to be safeguards in place (for example ensuring that any person extradited will obtain a fair trial) but we do not wish the extradition hearing to enable the accused to be able to run all the same substantive arguments as to his innocence as he would in the criminal trial (thereby obtaining two bites of the justice cherry, and encouraging flight).



The Indictment

Under the doctrine of specialty, a person extradited to stand trial may only be tried for those offences specified, and not for any other pre-extradition offences. The offence alleged in the US indictment is that of conspiring with Chelsea Manning to obtain unauthorised access to information held on a computer holding information of the United States classified as “secret”. Hacking.



In the United Kingdom, it would similarly be an offence to conspire to commit the unauthorised obtaining of data held on a computer contrary to section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (this is of significance, as we shall see).



The Role of the Judge

The first issue for the judge is to determine whether the offence on the warrant is an extradition offence (we will not extradite for, say, road traffic offences, or for breaches of esoteric offences we do not recognise).



An extradition offence is one that is both an offence in the UK and the country seeking extradition. Further that offence must carry a term of imprisonment of 12 months or longer. The maximum prison sentence for the UK equivalent offence is2 years. This “dual criminality” test here seems satisfied.



Second the court must consider if any of the bars to extradition apply: double jeopardy, passage of time, if the real motive for the prosecution is in fact to punish the defendant for another reason such as political belief, hostage-taking considerations, and the forum seeking extradition is inappropriate for reasons of justice.



It may be that some will argue that the motivation for prosecuting Mr Assange is for his political beliefs, but this seems hard to sustain. It is his alleged role in the hacking that is the concern, not his libertarian views.



This last requirement (the forum) is the only one possibly applicable, but is itself carefully defined. The essential questions are whether the United States is the appropriate forum for any trial (it plainly is) and whether such a trial would be unfair on the defendant? It was on this basis that Mr Lauri Love (another alleged hacker) successfully resisted extradition to the United States, because of his physical and mental fitness to be extradited. As far as is known, no equivalent consideration applies to Mr Assange, but his condition after seven years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy may not be good.



Third the court must conclude that there is evidence which would be sufficient to make a case requiring an answer if there were a summary trail of an information against him.



Human Rights

The third requirement is that the extradition must be compatible with accused’s Convention rights as defined by the Human Rights Act. Most obviously, if the accused would not be afforded a fair trial extradition would be refused under article 6. It was on this basis of the accused’s human rights that in 2012 Theresa May as Home Secretary refused the extradition of Mr Gary McKinnon’s to the United States on the basis of his article 2 right to life (there was a risk of suicide were he to be extradited). However, this power to decline on human rights grounds was (rightly) transferred to the courts by the Crime and Courts Act 2013, reducing the Secretary of State’s role.



The most relevant Convention Right applicable to Mr Assange is Article 10 (freedom of expression). After all, Mr Assange’s motive was to disseminate information through Wikileaks, which he then did. Would extradition to the United States violate his right to freedom of expression?



Given the “dual criminality” rule, it is hard to understand how it could. If Mr Assange were to be tried for equivalent offences in the United Kingdom, would the court interpret the Computer Misuse Act to permit this kind of hacking, or declare that that Act is incompatible with the Human Rights Act? This seems implausible. Mr Assange is not simply charged with publishing information obtained illegally by Chelsea Manning, but with conspiring to obtain unauthorised information from a computer system. This is not required by freedom of expression.



The Secretary of State

The extradition process is now “substantially judicialised“. The Secretary of State’s role is now limited to considering whether he is prohibited from seeking extradition on the basis of the death penalty, specialty, or earlier extradition to the UK. None of these apply here, and so if the court makes an order for extradition the Secretary of State must comply.



The calls by newspapers and politicians for the government to act to prevent extradition of Mr Assange are therefore misconceived at best. This is a matter for the courts, and on its face all the conditions for extradition are met.



Sweden

There is however one way in which Mr Assange might avoid extradition to the United States.



Originally, Mr Assange had sought asylum in order to avoid a European Arrest Warrant from Swedish authorities in relation to rape allegations. This warrant is no longer extant, but the proceedings may recommence.



Where the Secretary of State receives competing extradition request he may order one request to be deferred until the other has been disposed of. The relevant considerations include the seriousness of the offences, where they were committed and the date when each request was received. Rape is a more serious offence than hacking, and the original Swedish warrant was seven years earlier.



If Mr Assange were extradited to Sweden, he could not be extradited from there to the United States for offences the UK would not also extradite him for (an aspect of the specialty rule). He could not therefore be any worse off. Sweden’s extradition treaty with the United States is differently worded from that between the US and UK, and prohibits extradition for an “offense connected with a political offense”. Mr Assange’s alleged hacking may be said to be covered by this wording, in a way that it is not under the UK legislation.



Ironically therefore, once Mr Asasange has served his punishment in the United Kingdom for skipping bail, his best hope for avoiding extradition to the United States is that he is extradited to Sweden first.

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[Kurve]

The US Attorney's Office is only asking for extradition from the UK over a charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer.

That charge isn't anything to do with publishing nor journalism.

Acting as a journalist at the time to assist/protect a source in maintaining anonymity and to avoid detection as a core obligation. He merely said he'd try to crack a password but could not. Whether he was actually really trying and there's corroborating evidence to this or it was just something he said over jabber might be helpful to know but also beside the point if we accept he was acting in his role and fulfilling his ethical duties as a journalist at the time.

The Obama DOJ decided not to indict Assange for good reason imo.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download

 

[Procrastinator35]

”Sweden’s extradition treaty with the United States is differently worded from that between the US and UK, and prohibits extradition for an “offense connected with a political offense”. Excellent discussion of UK/US and Sweden/US extradition law. https://t.co/K1Sgt009Ih


spinninghugo

Assange, Extradition and Human Rights

by spinninghugo

11 hours ago


Mr Julian Assange was arrested yesterday after the Ecuadorian government withdrew the asylum they had given him in their embassy, thereby depriving him of the immunity they had conferred upon him from arrest. He was first arrested for failing to attend court on 29 June 2012 in contravention of his bail conditions. He was then further arrested on behalf of US authorities under an extradition warrant under section 73 of the Extradition Act 2003.



The shadow Home Secretary has intervened urging the Prime Minister to block the extradition of Mr Assange to the United States on human rights grounds, calls echoed by the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Lord Chancellor. The purpose of this post is to explain why, legally, this cannot be done. Ironically, the best hope Mr Assange now has of avoiding extradition to the US is if the Swedish authorities apply for him to be extradited there for other offences.



The Extradition Act 2003

The United States is a “category 2” country for the purposes of the Extradition Act 2003. In almost all respects, the decision whether to grant extradition is a matter for the courts, and not for the Secretary of State. In particular it is for the judge, not the Secretary of State, to decide whether extradition may be denied on human rights grounds. This is for good reasons that are illustrated by the Assange case itself. It is best to have cases like this decided by rules set down dispassionately in advance and adjudicated upon by judges, rather than through the discretion of politicians whose choices may be influenced by considerations unrelated to the justice of the case. We need clear rules of extradition that may be quickly applied. If the UK wishes those who are suspected of violating its criminal law to be tried here, and not to be able to flee to other jurisdictions to escape sanction, comity requires that we extradite to other countries those accused of offences there. There need to be safeguards in place (for example ensuring that any person extradited will obtain a fair trial) but we do not wish the extradition hearing to enable the accused to be able to run all the same substantive arguments as to his innocence as he would in the criminal trial (thereby obtaining two bites of the justice cherry, and encouraging flight).



The Indictment

Under the doctrine of specialty, a person extradited to stand trial may only be tried for those offences specified, and not for any other pre-extradition offences. The offence alleged in the US indictment is that of conspiring with Chelsea Manning to obtain unauthorised access to information held on a computer holding information of the United States classified as “secret”. Hacking.



In the United Kingdom, it would similarly be an offence to conspire to commit the unauthorised obtaining of data held on a computer contrary to section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (this is of significance, as we shall see).



The Role of the Judge

The first issue for the judge is to determine whether the offence on the warrant is an extradition offence (we will not extradite for, say, road traffic offences, or for breaches of esoteric offences we do not recognise).



An extradition offence is one that is both an offence in the UK and the country seeking extradition. Further that offence must carry a term of imprisonment of 12 months or longer. The maximum prison sentence for the UK equivalent offence is2 years. This “dual criminality” test here seems satisfied.



Second the court must consider if any of the bars to extradition apply: double jeopardy, passage of time, if the real motive for the prosecution is in fact to punish the defendant for another reason such as political belief, hostage-taking considerations, and the forum seeking extradition is inappropriate for reasons of justice.



It may be that some will argue that the motivation for prosecuting Mr Assange is for his political beliefs, but this seems hard to sustain. It is his alleged role in the hacking that is the concern, not his libertarian views.



This last requirement (the forum) is the only one possibly applicable, but is itself carefully defined. The essential questions are whether the United States is the appropriate forum for any trial (it plainly is) and whether such a trial would be unfair on the defendant? It was on this basis that Mr Lauri Love (another alleged hacker) successfully resisted extradition to the United States, because of his physical and mental fitness to be extradited. As far as is known, no equivalent consideration applies to Mr Assange, but his condition after seven years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy may not be good.



Third the court must conclude that there is evidence which would be sufficient to make a case requiring an answer if there were a summary trail of an information against him.



Human Rights

The third requirement is that the extradition must be compatible with accused’s Convention rights as defined by the Human Rights Act. Most obviously, if the accused would not be afforded a fair trial extradition would be refused under article 6. It was on this basis of the accused’s human rights that in 2012 Theresa May as Home Secretary refused the extradition of Mr Gary McKinnon’s to the United States on the basis of his article 2 right to life (there was a risk of suicide were he to be extradited). However, this power to decline on human rights grounds was (rightly) transferred to the courts by the Crime and Courts Act 2013, reducing the Secretary of State’s role.



The most relevant Convention Right applicable to Mr Assange is Article 10 (freedom of expression). After all, Mr Assange’s motive was to disseminate information through Wikileaks, which he then did. Would extradition to the United States violate his right to freedom of expression?



Given the “dual criminality” rule, it is hard to understand how it could. If Mr Assange were to be tried for equivalent offences in the United Kingdom, would the court interpret the Computer Misuse Act to permit this kind of hacking, or declare that that Act is incompatible with the Human Rights Act? This seems implausible. Mr Assange is not simply charged with publishing information obtained illegally by Chelsea Manning, but with conspiring to obtain unauthorised information from a computer system. This is not required by freedom of expression.



The Secretary of State

The extradition process is now “substantially judicialised“. The Secretary of State’s role is now limited to considering whether he is prohibited from seeking extradition on the basis of the death penalty, specialty, or earlier extradition to the UK. None of these apply here, and so if the court makes an order for extradition the Secretary of State must comply.



The calls by newspapers and politicians for the government to act to prevent extradition of Mr Assange are therefore misconceived at best. This is a matter for the courts, and on its face all the conditions for extradition are met.



Sweden

There is however one way in which Mr Assange might avoid extradition to the United States.



Originally, Mr Assange had sought asylum in order to avoid a European Arrest Warrant from Swedish authorities in relation to rape allegations. This warrant is no longer extant, but the proceedings may recommence.



Where the Secretary of State receives competing extradition request he may order one request to be deferred until the other has been disposed of. The relevant considerations include the seriousness of the offences, where they were committed and the date when each request was received. Rape is a more serious offence than hacking, and the original Swedish warrant was seven years earlier.



If Mr Assange were extradited to Sweden, he could not be extradited from there to the United States for offences the UK would not also extradite him for (an aspect of the specialty rule). He could not therefore be any worse off. Sweden’s extradition treaty with the United States is differently worded from that between the US and UK, and prohibits extradition for an “offense connected with a political offense”. Mr Assange’s alleged hacking may be said to be covered by this wording, in a way that it is not under the UK legislation.



Ironically therefore, once Mr Asasange has served his punishment in the United Kingdom for skipping bail, his best hope for avoiding extradition to the United States is that he is extradited to Sweden first.

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Utter nonsense.....While Assange remains on British soil he is subject to their system of jurisprudence.....If a court of law finds the extradition warrant groundless & baseless, then it can be dismissed easily enough.

This is all political bullshit.

The reason why they are moving now, is cause they know that Jeremy Corbyn will grant Assange both immunity & a pardon from his trumped up & since proven to be, groundless bail condition charges from the outset.

The U.N court has already cleared him of all charges....But we now know that the criminal cabal that runs the West from behind the scenes, of which May is equally just as much one of their puppets as Trump is, doesn't accord with Democracy & seeks to transcend all human rights & common law.

 

[petedavo]

Software engineer ‘close’ to Julian Assange arrested while trying to leave Ecuador

By Yaron Steinbuch

April 12, 2019 | 9:07am

https://nypost.com/2019/04/12/softw...sange-arrested-while-trying-to-leave-ecuador/

NEWS

Software engineer ‘close’ to Julian Assange arrested while trying to leave Ecuador

By Yaron Steinbuch

April 12, 2019 | 9:07am

[https://thenypost]

Ola BiniTwitter

A Swedish software engineer with close ties to Julian Assange was arrested while trying to leave Ecuador as authorities investigate the WikiLeaks founder’s alleged efforts to fight his eviction from the country’s embassy in London by blackmailing the country’s president.

Ola Bini was arrested Thursday at Quito’s airport as he prepared to board a flight to Japan, a senior Ecuadorian official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Swedish man by the same name describes himself on a blog as a software engineer working in Quito for the Center for Digital Autonomy, a group based in Ecuador and Spain focused on privacy, security and cryptography matters.

It makes no mention of any affiliation with WikiLeaks.On Twitter earlier Thursday, Bini called claims by the interior minister that Russian hackers and someone close to WikiLeaks were working inside Ecuador “very worrisome” news.


NEWS

Software engineer ‘close’ to Julian Assange arrested while trying to leave Ecuador

By Yaron Steinbuch

April 12, 2019 | 9:07am

[https://thenypost]

Ola BiniTwitter

A Swedish software engineer with close ties to Julian Assange was arrested while trying to leave Ecuador as authorities investigate the WikiLeaks founder’s alleged efforts to fight his eviction from the country’s embassy in London by blackmailing the country’s president.

Ola Bini was arrested Thursday at Quito’s airport as he prepared to board a flight to Japan, a senior Ecuadorian official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Swedish man by the same name describes himself on a blog as a software engineer working in Quito for the Center for Digital Autonomy, a group based in Ecuador and Spain focused on privacy, security and cryptography matters.

It makes no mention of any affiliation with WikiLeaks.On Twitter earlier Thursday, Bini called claims by the interior minister that Russian hackers and someone close to WikiLeaks were working inside Ecuador “very worrisome” news.

“This seems like a witch hunt to me,” Bini wrote.

The arrest came after police in London dragged Assange out of Ecuador’s embassy when his seven-year asylum was revoked.

The man had frequently traveled to Ecuador’s London embassy, Interior Minister María Paula Romo said, according to the BBC.

“He has been detained simply for investigation purposes,” she said.

“A person close to Wikileaks, who has been residing in Ecuador, was arrested this afternoon when he was preparing to travel to Japan,” Ecuador’s interior ministry tweeted late Thursday.

Ecuadorian officials believe Bini may be part of a blackmail ring assembled to pressure President Lenin Moreno and his government to allow Assange to remain in the embassy, according to the Times of London.

Ecuadorian diplomats told their counterparts in the UK that they were worried that Assange’s associates would try to seek revenge with cyberattacks and information leaks if he was handed over.

Britain agreed to assist Ecuador in shoring up its cybersecurity, the newspaper reported.

The Ecuadorian government accused WikiLeaks of being behind an anonymous online campaign implicating Moreno and his family in alleged corruption.

The leaked materials — dubbed the “INA Papers” — also contained private photographs of Moreno and his family.

Moreno, 66, said that Assange had no right to “hack private accounts and phones” without directly accusing him.

Bini’s friends described him as a soft-spoken geek who is being unfairly accused of plotting to destabilize the Ecuadorian government.

Vijay Prashad, who runs a Marxist publishing house based in India, considers himself a close pal.

Bini is “the last person who would ever be involved in an attempt overthrow a government,” he said, adding that he last saw Bini a few months ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Martin Fowler, a US-based computer programmer, tweeted: “I’m very concerned to hear that [he] has been arrested. He is a strong advocate and developer supporting privacy and has not been able to speak to any lawyers.”




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