A UK Court has granted a request to extradite Julian Assange to Sweden to face rape and sexual assault charges.
District Judge Howard Riddle of Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in south London ruled the extradition would 'not breach Mr Assange's human rights.'
Assange is not pleased, to say the least:
"What we saw today at Belmarsh was a rubber-stamping process. It comes as no surprise, but is nonetheless wrong."
"There was no consideration during this entire process as to the merits of the allegations made against me, no consideration or examination of even the complaints made in Sweden."
Actually, what Assange is really worrying about is a possible extradition to the US. Assange's lawyer brought that up during the hearing two weeks ago, claiming his client could ultimately be extradited to the US on separate charges relating to Wikileaks and could face the death penalty there.
Clare Montgomery QC, for the Swedish authorities responded that Sweden provided "protection against that sort of threat and violation" taking place.
The European Court of Human Rights would intervene if Mr Assange was to face the prospect of "inhuman or degrading treatment or an unfair trial" in the US, she said.
(via memeorandum)
1 comment:
If Mr. Assange were not a prominent anti-American who is able to have the top legal talent in the world working on his behalf as well as having the world and American news media eating out of the palm of his hand, he would have been extradited to Sweden a LONG, LONG time ago to face these charges. Even still, being such a prominent anti-American, helps his status significantly and makes it much more likely that he will beat these charges.
As to the prospects of him being extradited to America, this is complete bull sh!t!! Ain't gonna happen!! The Swedes would NEVER go along with it. Even if they did the European Court of Human Rights would not allow it either. America could never expect to get a fair trial there.
Now the Europeans MIGHT allow an extradition to America IF Mr. Assange actually did something to endanger them and they don't want to do the dirty work of prosecuting him. The whole thing will likely be a circus with media whores oogling and oggling over the "great Julian Assange." Even in an American court can the prosecution get a fair trial? It would be very difficult. The deck is and clearly will be stacked heavily in the favor of Mr. Assange.
As such, even if there was something they could charge him with, they likely won't because the mountains one would have to climb to get a conviction would be just to steep. Also, there are a number of people within the American government who agree with Mr. Assange and would not pursue such a prosecution with any vigor or determination.
At the very least, it seems very likely that other nations will not trust us with sensitive information any more. For example, some day we may need valuable infromation on what the Russians, the Chinese, or the Iranians are doing, especially if any of those nations have imminent plans to harm us. Others may have this information and if they caught sharing this with us the aforementioned countries would be VERY displeased. In the future, others will likely be less forthcoming with us beuause we can't be trusted to handle confidential information. This makes defending Aemrica infinitely more complex than it was and places all of our lives in great jeporady. Mr. Assange didn't care about any of that. If any other nation execpt possibly Israel had been treated in the way America has been here, the world media would howl with rage against the perpatrators. Yet is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged when it is America who is hurt. In the eyes of the world, American lives really do seem to be worth less than the lives of others.
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