The Swedes have asked the UK to extradite him to Sweden.
The US hasn't asked either the UK nor Sweden to extradite him to the US. Is there even a court case against him in the US?
The extradition to the US seems to be Assange's own narrative. Why didn't the US reach out to get him on the streets of London?
This is the real issue. Whether or not he would likely be extradited if he were to return to Sweden.
Obviously Assange thinks he will otherwise he would have returned long ago.
If you think he would not be, then that should be the focus of your debate.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/assange-why-is-doj-wikileaks-inve...
Why would a nation give a warrant for communication data associated with a person, close down that persons bank accounts, and send investigators to interview people close to the person and request evidence? Those are the supporting evidence, and while it doesn't conclusively prove anything, some people would conclude that it is enough to warrant caution.
Our laws do also, by the way, make it impossible for us to extradite him to the US without the consent of the UK, so it seems awfully convenient that he claims that he would trust an illegal guarantee by the Swedish government but not that it would follow it's own laws. That is, unless the UK is the problem - but then why the hell did he go there in the first place, and stayed there?
If they think the demands for extradition are not fulfilled, they can say so, and that's the final word. There's nothing the US or UK can do but complain, there's no court they can apply to to overrule such a decision (because of course, the UK or US governments would certainly not allow themselves to be overruled by any independent court in a matter like this).
The national courts can overrule the government and say that an extradition is illegal, even if government wants to extradite. But the converse is not true: if the court thinks that an extradition would be permissible, the government can still stop it. They can even promise this beforehand, preempting the need for a court ruling. See sovereignty, again.
At worst this would be "impolite". The government of course loathes to do something like this, because then they have to answer for all the cases they did not intervene in with the courts and the civic service's many rulings. They would like to wash their hands of unpopular decisions. But they do in fact intervene quite a lot.
That the government claims "we must not meddle with the judiciary" as some holy principle is darkly ironic in this case. Because if you don't think it was political that Marianne Ny revived the case after it had been firmly dismissed by the previous prosecutor, how naive are you?
> You don't get to avoid prosecution for a crime because it is politically or legally inconvenient for you.
You clearly do, if the alternative for the people who want to prosecute you is to violate international norms and storm an embassy.
The UK isn't that complicit, because he's been here for a while and the UK has done fuck all.
If they really wanted him in the US they'd have spent a tenth of that and had him renditioned.
If the UK and Sweden were to agree that Assange wouldn't be extradited to the US I imagine he'd be on the next flight to Stockholm. It's the extradition order that's blocking these two women getting justice, not Assange himself.