> “As a condition to let Assange be heard they [Ecuador] have demanded a special agreement in which Sweden recognizes asylum status for Assange. But the government cannot make such a commitment because it is the Migration Board which decides whether or not a person has the right to asylum.”

From: http://jackofkent.com/2015/08/assange-the-law-of-limitation-... and http://www.thelocal.se/20150807/sweden-hits-out-at-illegal-e...

Basically they want the Government to interfere in another body's decision. Could you imagine if the someone asked the US government (or Obama) to agree that the Supreme Court will find a certain way?

That Sweden recognise his asylum claim in Ecuador as valid, which the Swedish prosecutor does not have the legal authority to do.

There is a good writeup from a British legal blogger at http://jackofkent.com/2015/08/assange-the-law-of-limitation-...

It's worth picking out as well that Assange faces British legal issues from breaching his bail conditions. The bail set during his very lengthy legal process which validated the Swedish process as just. The British legal system isn't perfect but when you're a high profile individual with access to plenty of fine legal minds it's about as good as you're going to get.

The extradition hearing took three days, which is hardly a "very lengthy process". And it didn't validate the Swedish judicial process because that isn't its function. An EAW extradition hearing in the UK is merely to establish that an extraditable offence is alleged, that the party requesting the extradition has standing, and that there are no Human Rights Act issues [1]. Persons facing extradition on an EAW don't get to argue about the merits of the allegations they're facing: that happens when they arrive in the extraditing country.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/extradition-processes-and-review

Except many of the claims his supporters make, including in this thread, are that what he allegedly did aren't actually crimes. The UK court system has repeatedly held that they are analogous to UK sexual offences. Others have argued that the Swedish prosecutor can't issue a warrant, again the Supreme Court decided otherwise. Given the scope of the UK Human Rights Act, along with the argued abuse of process claims, I'm not quite sure what objections to the extraditions don't come under a heading that the court would look at.

The problem for Assange is that "but the Americans might try to extradite me, and the Swedish and British courts might suddenly become supine" isn't a valid reason to not be extradited.

I imagine the UK courts would hold that a rape charge in the UK is similar to a rape charge in Sweden. That makes sense. However, there's a difference between acknowledging that and ruling on whether the allegations have merit.

They specifically didn't look at anything other than the allegations made on the European Arrest Warrant. From the High Court decision:

> In respect of each offence, Mr Assange contended that the court should examine the underlying material from the prosecution file... [W]hat was provided contained the principal statements of the complainants and other material which made it obvious that the conduct of which he was accused was not fairly and accurately described in the EAW. [...]

> In our view, it is not apposite to take into account the material in the prosecution file. [...]

It would be rather helpful if you sourced your quotes. The Queen's Bench ruling (which does contain the apposite phrase in para 71) in http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_11_11_assange....

Except that if you'd read further (or not taken the Wikileaks edited highlights) the court immediately goes on to say "Nonethless, as the material was put before us de bene esse, we will express our view on what difference it would have made if we have taken it into account in determining whether the description of the conduct was fair and accurate."

The court did specifically look at whether the offences alleged would constitute crimes in the UK for instance in para 96: "In our view, therefore, the description was fair and accurate; the offence was, for the reasons we have given an offence under the law of England and Wales; the requirement of dual criminality was satisfied".

On the rape question in para 109: "In our view on this basis what was described in the EAW was rape." it even goes on "A requirement of proof of coercion, if that is what Swedish law requires, is a more onerous test for the prosecution to satisfy than the test for consent in the 2003 Act".

So the court went "you showed us this, we don't need it but we're going to point out how it doesn't help your case anyway". Assange got spanked by the British Courts, repeatedly, who were convinced that he had to go to Sweden to assist in the investigation into serious offences. Despite the best efforts of some very experienced and serious lawyers no Human Rights angle was found to stop it either.

So he wanted to be tried in the UK instead of Sweden?

That's not my point. It was implied that the High Court decision somehow validated the charges against Assange, while all they did was confirm that, yes, the UK do have laws against rape.

> I imagine the UK courts would hold that a rape charge in the UK is similar to a rape charge in Sweden.

Although to be clear, there are no rape charges involved in the Assange case. The crime he is accused of in Sweden is not even illegal in some countries.

The BBC [1][2] and Guardian [3] are describing the remaining charge as rape. [1] quotes the Swedish prosecutor (in 2010):

"There is reason to believe that a crime has been committed," she says in a statement. "Considering information available at present, my judgement is that the classification of the crime is rape."

Wikipedia [4] gives the Swedish term as "våldtäkt", which Google translates as "Rape":

"On 18 November 2010, the Stockholm District Court ordered Assange detained in absentia, on request by prosecutor Marianne Ny. As basis for the ruling, the court stated Julian Assange to be suspected on reasonable grounds to have committed rape (våldtäkt), unlawful coercion (olaga tvång), and three cases of sexuellt ofredande — which has been variously translated as "sexual molestation", "sexual assault", "sexual misconduct", "sexual annoyance", "sexual unfreedom", "sexual misdemeanour", and "sexual harassment" [3]

(The above, to be clear, are allegations).

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11949341

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33907874

[3] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/13/julian-assange-...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...

A small correction to what you said, the allegations (that you quoted) were lowered after Assange appealed (but the rape still remains, although as a "lesser degree").

Your [4]:

> The decision was appealed by Assange on 22 November to the Svea Court of Appeal, which two days later upheld the warrant but lowered it to suspicion of rape of a lesser degree, unlawful coercion and two cases of sexual molestation rather than three.

okay, the first version I heard of this was that none of the charges are rape.

However, I think we can all agree that it doesn't do the conversation any justice to discuss it in such a way as to give people the impression that he held somebody down or used violence or anything. All he did was something creepy and gross, and the only reason the woman brought it up with the cops was because she wanted him to get an STD test.

He went all the way up to the UK Supreme Court.

> That Sweden recognise his asylum claim in Ecuador as valid, which the Swedish prosecutor does not have the legal authority to do.

I wonder what recognizing that asylum would do to Sweden's ability to prosecute. If Assange (or Ecuador) is, in effect, saying "you can talk to him about it, but you can't prosecute him for it", that's a pretty cheap trick to avoid the charge.

But even if it's only talking about whether it's valid for Assange to claim asylum to avoid extradition to the US, why should Sweden have to agree to that before investigating a sexual assault accusation?

actually for failing to adhere to his bail conditions his surety is forefit however there are unlikely to be any other significant effects of this action.

In short two things according to the Swedish department of Justice. 1. Ecuador require the Swedish prosecutors to grant Assange refugee status, but only the Migration Agency can do that, not the department of Justice or the prosecutors office. 2. Ecuador want guarantees that Assange will not be extradited to the US in the future. In Sweden extradition requests are handled by the supreme court and the prosecutor-general and a promise in advance never to extradite someone cannot be given.

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&art...