The term conspiracy theorist is used to denote some idea that is irrational. Yet we're regularly challenged to redefine what is rational. It's not hard to come up with examples of things which were commonly accepted as conspiracy theories, which are now accepted as fact by most people.
Thus it's probably more prudent to accept one's own ignorance of the situation, and await more information before calling anything a conspiracy theory.
>Yet we're regularly challenged to redefine what is rational. It's not hard to come up with examples of things which were commonly accepted as conspiracy theories, which are now accepted as fact by most people.
It is really frustrating to witness people throw the 'conspiracy theorist' derision around so liberally when we know the above is true.
The U.S. has claimed the right to kidnap people off the street, detain them indefinitely, or kill them as it deems necessary. I'd be very surprised if any of those tactics would be used on Assange, but in that context pressuring/asking another country to deport him to the U.S. to face charges seems within the realm of possibility.
If you were Assange, would you want to gamble life in prison on your odds, whatever they are?
So if I was Assange, yes I would.
If you were one of them, would you do that?
First, there are claims of a sealed indictment. Second, Dianne Feinstein and other similarly influential people have called for charges. And third, they have reason to delay those charges: laying them now would make extradition harder, as compared to extraditing for a subpoena and then bringing charges.
The result is that he's not charged (which could make things like grounding planes harder) but I don't know anyone who seriously believes he wouldn't be charged if he showed up in the US tomorrow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#U.S._criminal_i...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Protection_Act
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_Specia...
Edit: downvoters are welcome to prove me wrong by providing evidence to the contrary. We've no more reason to believe Morales is telling the truth than any of the alleged conspirators, particularly not when his own account is contradicted by the hard evidence of what the pilot said before landing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/03...
You state that Sweden can't extradite him to the US. Given the fact that most of the laws created in most western countries (ranging from tax law to civil law) are often not extremely well defined (or frankly not even well thought out / put together), and can often easily be interpreted in very different ways by different judges, I can totally understand his point of view.
At the end of the day, as long as Ecuador doesn't kick him out, all he has to do is wait for the statute of limitations to expire. He's got leverage. If Sweden really wanted a solution to this, they would've done this years ago.
The Swedish investigation may well expire (parts have already). This has never really been about the Swedish charges.
The English charges (relating to failing to comply with bail) do not expire. Very few offences in English law expire - something I'm sure will surprise Americans who are used to relatively short statute of limitations on even some serious crimes (e.g. the Bill Cosby sexual assault allegations). England routinely prosecutes and jails people for alleged offences 50 & 60 years ago; many are elderly men in their 80's & 90's with little chance of mounting any sort of defence due to their age, but that's another issue.
Arrange cannot wait out the English charges and England is well documented as an enthusiastic participant in torture and rendition of both it's own citizens and foreign nationals. The UK-US extradition treaty is a shocking travesty of justice and is routinely used to send people from the UK to the US for activity carried out in the UK and considered lawful in the UK but which has upset US authorities. [1]
He has good reason to remain in the Embassy. Unfortunately he's likely to be there for many years to come and either be grabbed when he requires hospital treatment at some point in the future, or, the UK will decide it can live with some diplomatic protests and expulsion of UK diplomats after sending the SAS in to grab him from the embassy and hand him over to the US.
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-14339901
Don't know about Sweden, but in the U.S. the statute of limitations is not granted to those fleeing from the law.
> No statute of limitations shall extend to any person fleeing from justice.
- 18 U.S.C 3290 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3290):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Swed...
When the US barks, Europe rolls over.
New Zealand is just as much a lapdog of the USA as Sweden, and Dotcom actually has had charges laid.
I don't like the guy, but let's not lie about it.
This doesn't sound like something a lapdog would do (February 2016): http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/296076/us-requests-fa...
Lawyers for the US were at the High Court in Auckland today, where they asked Justice Asher to give the appeal priority and set an early date for the hearing.
Justice Asher declined that request but set a date for August.
On the other hand, insisting that superfluous assurances are made by bodies that don't have any legal authority to make them is a very good excuse for not going anywhere.
Sweden's government can't give any assurances beforehand, since every case must be judged independently. Sweden can't extradite Assange anywhere after he's been extradited to Sweden from the UK without the UK's permission [0, 1]. If the US needs Sweden and the UK to cooperate, why wouldn't they just ask the UK from the start, who's a much closer allied?
[0] http://jtl.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/04/F...
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/12/07/wikileaks.assange/index...
The laws are created by those in power to serve those in power. They do not stand on their own, because they are enforced by cops, lawyers and judges, who are people. These people choose to enforce the law based on the situation at hand, and this can lead to a large disparity in outcomes given technically similar cases.
Assange and Snowden will both rot in Guantanamo the second they leave their safe houses. If you think otherwise, you are absurdly naive to the geopolitics of the world we live in.
1. the Vice President of the USA, Joe Biden, has publicly called Julian Assange a terrorist
2. the US Government has a policy of assassinating people it considers to be terrorists.
Make of these facts what you will
I suppose you have found a way to improve the prisoners' lot and at the same time outwit US Congress who is adamant in not letting them set foot in the United States...
But I believe very few people actually agree with you.
(I really didn't mean to accuse the Obama administration of racism, but seriously, what if he'd been an Arab and living in Yemen. Would the US really not have classified him as terrorist and killed him by drone?)
Can you support that claim?
My understanding was exactly the opposite. Sweden can't execute someone who would face the death penalty where they are being extradited. That's part of why Assange hasn't been charged under the Espionage Act - it would bar extradition. I'm not conspiracy theorizing there, it's been explicitly stated that extradition is a reason to delay charging him until he can be brought here to face a grand jury.
> "Sweden isn't a better country to extradite him to the US from than the UK."
This claim doesn't seem relevant. As soon as he was facing legal involvement in the UK (or as soon as he got asylum, I'm not sure how the timing shook out there), he ran for the embassy. Your implication seems to be that he's hiding from Swedish prosecution rather US law, but I've seen no indication that he would leave the embassy if Sweden dropped charges. Without that, I don't see how the Sweden/UK distinction matters - he's avoiding both legal systems which could extradite him.
This is a sincere question - I'd like to know anything backing those points. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I haven't seen anything suggesting that A) Sweden couldn't extradite, or B) Assange is willing to face the UK legal system but not the Swedish one. One or both of those seems necessary for your conclusion.
The UK will extradite to the US for a capital offence, but only with a written assurance that the death penalty will not be applied. I don't think the US would risk its extradition treaty for the sake of one person.
The question the Assange fans never seem to want to answer is why, if the US secretly wants to have Assange extradited, they didn't do that in the months when he was under house arrest in the UK. Why would they concoct an elaborate conspiracy to get him to Sweden so they could extradite from there, when it would be harder than extraditing from the UK?
> Can you support that claim?
Yes, and I've linked to a source in a different comment that's at the moment at -2 here. It's both due to the The Doctrine of Specialty and whether what he has done is a crime in Sweden or not [0, 1, 2].
When Sweden asked for Assange's extradition from the UK he was arrested after presenting himself to the London police and then let out on bail. London's Belmarsh Magistrate's Court then rules in favor of Assange's extradition. Then the High Court upholds this decision. Then he wins the right to appeal to the UK Supreme Court because his case is "a question of general public importance." He was certainly willing to face the UK legal system.
The UK's Supreme Court also ruled that he should be extradited to Sweden, at which point he jumped bail and fled to the embassy where he sought and received political asylum. He fled to the embassy only after all legal ways of getting out of the extradition from the UK to Sweden was exhausted. Nowhere in this has the US made any claims on him, all such talk comes from Assange himself that says it's all part of a smear campaign. If the Swedish charges are dropped he will still face the criminal charges in the UK from jumping bail.
[0] http://jtl.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/04/F...
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/12/07/wikileaks.assange/index...
[2] https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-press/for-media/assangearend...
That's the standard European countries have adopted for such extraditions.
Not even particularly original FUD. Jacob Appelbaum was able to get away with a lot of things because he could always point to his accusers as being planted by the FBI or whoever.
Of course they are.
Nothing in this case supports any of the scare tactics he himself and parts of the Internet is using. Sweden isn't a better country to extradite him to the US from than the UK. Sweden isn't legally allowed to extradite him after he's been extradited from the UK. He was in the UK for months before he started hiding in the embassy. He is not in house arrest, he's fleeing the justice system of two well developed western countries. Sweden's government can't give any guarantees that he's been asking for, because it's against Swedish law for the government to interfere in legal matters. It's all a bunch of FUD, and people seem to eat it up because it fits their narrative.