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0 pointsnotahacker10y ago0 comments

There is little reason to believe he is more likely to be extradited to the USA after being exonerated of a crime in Sweden than before being charged with a crime in Sweden, or from the UK before the courts had exhausted all options to stop him being from extradited to Sweden. His jurisdiction-hopping simply doesn't square with someone fearing US power rather than Swedish courts (cf. Snowden)

Frankly, the probability of the USA torturing or executing a celebrity journalist from a Western country isn't particularly high anyway, especially not when it involves extradition from a European country, but of course asking countries to rewrite their statute book to offer him a special personal guarantee it won't happen is a good way of deflecting a rape charge.

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vidarh10y ago· 1 in thread

> There is little reason to believe he is more likely to be extradited to the USA after being exonerated of a crime in Sweden than before being charged with a crime in Sweden, or from the UK before the courts had exhausted all options to stop him being from extradited to Sweden.

Which of the two is known to have continued to cooperate in illegal extradition flights long after its own government told the US to stop it (we know thanks to Wikileaks), and have had a history of illegally black-bagging political asylum seekers and handing them to the CIA to be shipped off and tortured? (that would be Sweden, if it wasn't clear)

> His jurisdiction-hopping simply doesn't square with someone fearing US power rather than Swedish courts (cf. Snowden)

If you are going by this, then it also doesn't make sense that he's prepared to spend years holed up in an embassy to avoid a case based on allegations that 1) has extremely low conviction rates even before considering that at least one of the women is refusing to cooperate with police, 2) where the punishment generally would be much less time than what he's so far spent holed up in an embassy in a relatively low security Swedish prison. If all is above board, then had he returned to Sweden he'd have been free a long time ago.

As I've said many times before before, I don't think that Sweden has been pushed by the US here, but I do think Assange genuinely think they do, and I can see why he'd be worried, especially given the strange behaviour of the prosecutor.

notahackerOP10y ago

> Which of the two is known to have continued to cooperate in illegal extradition flights long after its own government told the US to stop it (we know thanks to Wikileaks), and have had a history of illegally black-bagging political asylum seekers and handing them to the CIA to be shipped off and tortured? (that would be Sweden, if it wasn't clear)

Except that he stayed in Sweden for months knowing there was an investigation against him and being free to leave, then left on the day he was advised they intended to interview him under caution with intent to charge him. The former makes no sense whatsoever if you fear conspiracies to render you to the US. The latter makes a lot of sense if what you're really trying to avoid is a reputation-damaging trial.

And yes, his reputation isn't exactly unblemished, but making the story about conspiracies against him certainly has a lot more appeal to his natural supporters than making the story about that tearful woman opposite him in the courtroom, even if that tearful woman's testimony amounts to nothing.