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A comment on Julian Assange Appears in Court for U.S. Extradition Hearing. Parent comment

Re:Julian Assange Appears in Court for U.S. Extradition Hearing by danso on Thursday May 02, 2019 @11:53AM (#19809241)
It might. Part of Ecuador's public justification for kicking Assange out was that it had received a "verbal" pledge [0] from the U.S. and the UK that the U.S. would not be seeking the death penalty. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who apparently agreed to this, is resigning. In 2010 [1], Trump commented that "there should be like death penalty or something" for Wikileaks. But obviously things have changed since then, and he wasn't a public official at the time.

[0] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-gave-verbal-pledge-death-...

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/politics/kfile-trump-wikileak...

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Re:Julian Assange Appears in Court for U.S. Extradition Hearing by ChrisSD on Thursday May 02, 2019 @12:28PM (#19809629)
The US cannot seek the death penalty for people extradited from the EU.

Well ok, they technically can break their own treaties but then no EU nation will ever extradite to them again. And many other countries require similar assurances which would now be worthless.

Incidentally, the maximum penalty for the charges is five years, which is far short of a death sentence.

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Re:Julian Assange Appears in Court for U.S. Extradition Hearing by mzs on Thursday May 02, 2019 @01:16PM (#19810128)
He can face more charges later, possibly more are already under seal. It is very unlikely he will face capital punishment, there is also legal precedent from the '60s in federal cases that makes it so.
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Re:Julian Assange Appears in Court for U.S. Extradition Hearing by ChrisSD on Thursday May 02, 2019 @01:33PM (#19810333)
He cannot. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review...

> Extradition is prohibited by statute if:

> ...

> there are no speciality arrangements with the requesting country – ‘speciality’ requires that the person must be dealt with in the requesting state only for the offences for which they have been extradited (except in certain limited circumstances)

Here's the relevant law: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/section/95

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Re:Julian Assange Appears in Court for U.S. Extradition Hearing by throwaway031519 on Thursday May 02, 2019 @04:42PM (#19812654)
Incidentally has the US filed its formal extradition paperwork yet? We can only speculate what charges Assange will face in US court until that document is filed.
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Re:Julian Assange Appears in Court for U.S. Extradition Hearing by ChrisSD on Thursday May 02, 2019 @05:10PM (#19812968)
The official charges will probably be put online as part of court transcripts eventually but I'd expect a journalist (or even Assange's lawyer) will post it sooner.

However it looks like the US indictment[0] is more or less the same as the formal charges will be, considering the exact same maximum sentence as for the indictment was stated at the UK hearing (five years).

[0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481...

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