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0 pointselemeno13y ago0 comments

Sweden is part of the EU and any extradition from Sweden to the US would have to permissible under EU Human Rights laws, which specifically deny extradition if the extradited person could be subject to the death penalty if found guilty of the accusations they're being extradited for.

Given that the US has filled no charges against him, made no extradition requests to Sweden or the UK, and that there seems to be a fair degree of legal consensus that the European Court of Human Rights would deny extradition for the sort of charges that the US could plausibly file against him it seems to me that to believe that Assange has credible reasons to try and avoid obeying the request that he attend questioning in Sweden for what would be considered fairly serious accusations in most western countries is to buy into a conspiracy theory.

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2 comments · 2 top-level

vidarh13y ago

Sweden has participated in illegal rendition with the US (and admitted as much). It is naive to assume that if they were prepared to violate their own laws in order to bend over for US interests, that they will somehow worry all that much about following extradition procedures for Assange.

It also means the lack of public charges (the repeated claims is that there might be a secret grand jury indictment), nor a lack of a public extradition request is pretty much irrelevant.

It's not like Sweden or the US announced in advance they planned to illegally take a couple of Egyptians from Sweden and hand them over to Egyptian authorities for torture. But they did.

Incidentally, this is a good reason for Assange to prefer to be in the UK vs. Sweden - the UK seems less inclined to violate their own laws in this manner.

TallGuyShort13y ago

I'm not sure I believe this is part of a plot to get him to the US either, but I also think that given the weakness of the actual accusations from the female "plaintiffs" (perhaps not the best word) it seems unusual how bold some parties are being in trying to apprehend Assange. Calling him the "scum of earth" also doesn't help anybody seem impartial.

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