Now the Metropolitan Police is banging at the door of a foreign embassy to get hold of a suspect, and the time for jokes is all but gone. Now it's not about who's the best-looking media-darling, it's about principles and long-standing conventions in international relations.

They would look fabulous by coming out swinging, saying "we can't stand the man, but the asylum principle is inviolable and not worth losing just to score a cheap point, so let him go to Ecuador if they want him."

But no, silence. Had it happened in China or some godforsaken African hellhole, we wouldn't hear the end of it. It happens in London, chips are down, and now we're failing HARD at world peace.

It make me very sad.

There may be a risk of an extradition request from the US but that can't override the fact that there is a serious crime that needs to be properly investigated and that Assange appears to have questions to answer.

And it's not as if he's being sent to somewhere with a shitty human rights record or a dodgy judicial system. It's Sweden. Even if he doesn't trust them as a member of the Council of Europe they're signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights so he has the right of appeal all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights. I honestly can't think of too many places I'd rather be if I wanted my rights respected. It's certainly way above Ecuador on my list.

That threat in itself is shocking. If they were to go through with it, dictatorships everywhere would instantly ensure every dissident who as much as looks towards a foreign embassy will get slapped with criminal charges so they can use it to justify entering the embassy to pull them out.

> And it's not as if he's being sent to somewhere with a shitty human rights record or a dodgy judicial system. It's Sweden

It's Sweden, the country who has admitted to having handed Egyptian dissidents over to masked CIA agents who proceeded to strip them, drug them, chain them, and ship them off to Mubarak to be tortured, in violation of Swedish law and international treaties.

The European Court of Human Rights didn't help them much.

The kicker?

Said Egyptians were in Sweden seeking political asylum because they presumably believed the same you do.

In terms of the being charged thing, that's a technical distinction based on how the Swedish process works where you have to be formally questioned before you can be charged. As the UK judges at his appeal stated, it's misleading to say that, criminal charges have in effect been bought.

But that still doesn't justify storming the embassy.

I'm not saying that mistakes haven't been made in the past but Assange will, I suspect have far better legal representation and a far better PR apparatus than the Egyptian's had. This is a trial that would be in the glare of the world's media which makes any kind of cover up far, far harder.

It took another prosecutor to take the extremely unusual step of swooping in and reopening the case before it was suddenly imperative he was questioned in Sweden, after he had been given the go-ahead to leave.

Meanwhile the Swedish police are happily interviewing suspected murderers elsewhere without the same insistence.

As for the Egyptians - it caused a massive uproar, then as stated, the US was shown to be right back at it again shortly afterwards, ignoring the political fallout of the initial cases. Even if Sweden doesn't want to be involved in the dirty work - and they have a lengthy history of bending over for the US -, that is by no means any guarantee of anything.

Unnecessary. As I pointed out the last time you made this argument, dictatorships already have more effective ways of doing this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/chen-guangcheng...

You'll note that China found it less troublesome to threaten someones family with violence than to risk a diplomatic incident by violating the integrity of a diplomatic mission.

Regardless, there are many ways of going about obtaining justice for alleged "simple" crimes. Violating the Vienna Convention and jeopardising the basic cornerstones of human-rights policies is simply not worth it for such a small-time criminal matter. A long-sighted view would see that, and find a compromise that Sweden could live with.

Even the UK has engaged in this renaming of terrorist/paramilitary actions as "criminals", especially in their own country. Just look at the recent history of "political status" for prisoners in Northern Ireland ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike )

Personally I'd class it as the second most significant crime against the person that the law recognises after murder.

There's no suggestion that these charges have been manufactured or that he's only being prosecuted for who he is. There are real victims who have made real accusations and for all the other bullshit going on, Julian Assange isn't above the law

(And before we get into the whole "it was about using a condom" thing, one accusation is that he had sex with a sleeping woman which, as well as being really classy, is something that would be recognised as rape in pretty much every civilised country in the world including the UK and the US.)

The UK's threat to change the status of the embassy is a massively stupid move (and would violate the Vienna Convention as far as I can see) but everything else is a distraction. Julian Assange may be a freedom fighter, a brave campaigner for truth and whatever else people want to believe, but he's also an accused rapist and none of the other stuff over rides that.

Even if the people who set this up drop everything and don't try for an extradition to the united states, they will have succeeded in thoroughly sliming Julian. They don't need to kill him or imprison him (that would probably backfire anyhow), they only need to classically condition people to associate JULIAN ASSANGE and RAPIST. You realize that the central intelligence agency actually had plans to make Castro's beard fall out because they believed that Cubans would view him as less virile and thus easier to depose? Or that they wanted to dose him with LSD so he would act crazy during a major speech? You really think the United States intelligence apparatus wouldn't try to break someone that burned them very hard by playing on views like "Personally I'd class it as the second most significant crime against the person that the law recognises after murder"???? Particularly given that rape can be her word versus his, and that can be sufficient to get a conviction? With murder, you need a body, and that can be hard to produce.

And the fact that the CIA have a real history of crap like this doesn't change the possibility that this is a real accusation of a real crime with real victims.

I'm not saying he's guilty and I agree that what we know of the evidence at the moment means that the whole thing isn't cut and dried (rape cases rarely are, the nature of the crime makes the investigation and prosecution of them messy in the extreme and there are far too many false accusations - something which should be a crime). What I am saying that he's wanted for questioning and that situations like this where things aren't clear are why we have due process.

Is it possible that he's being set up? Yes. Is it possible that he's committed a significant crime? Yes.

How best to deal with this? Using an established, public process based on solid principals of justice established over centuries which may be flawed but is the best thing we have at present, or some curious combination of political manoeuvring, PR and who knows what else?

The Swedish justice system may not be perfect, but it's surely a far better way of establishing what might have happened between Assange and the two women than what we're seeing now. If the case is that weak and the police have been that remiss then his lawyers should have a field day.

Given that, I see no reason at all to trust that he would get a fair trial, if he'd get one at all.

No, it's pretty obvious you're just another anti-Wikileaks crusader because you ignore everything relevant such as how he was already questioned and released, how even with allegations of murder questioning takes place in the defendants country of residence UNTIL adequate proof has been collected for extradition, etc.

As for the possibility of Assange being a rapist, there's the same possibility you're a rapist.

But regarding probability, yes, that the CIA has pulled this shit before, and the Swedish police aren't following protocol at all, does make it far less likely that the case is real. They wouldn't need these games if he was actually accused of a real crime.

I only wish you were trolling, and not representative of Fox News viewers.

I live in the UK and have voted for left wing parties every election (local, national and Euopean) for over 20 years now. My political ideals are so far from Fox News it's not true.

In terms of questioning and release, who knows maybe they'd question someone as many often as twice before charging them with rape. If you think that's suspicious then you have an odd idea of what comprises a thorough criminal investigation.

Yes, I could be a rapist though there is a key difference between Assange and myself when it comes to the possibility which is that there are currently at least two ore women making suggestions that he might have than are saying the same about me.

In terms of being anti-rape. Sorry, guilty as charged. It's a controversial view that people shouldn't be forced into sex against their will but thats the kind of troll I am. I wish that the police investigated them all with this level of vigour but the fact that they don't has no real significance here other than another example of how high profile figures of all sorts tend to get more attention in these cases.

What you are trying very hard to miss is that Assange is available for questioning. He pretty much always has been. Sweden doesn't want to question him or they would have, they want him in custody and don't want to state charges.

As for being a rapist yourself, you keep speaking in possibility. And you're still a possible rapist. You mean to speak in probability. But you fail the understand that normal probability (of charges being false, or the purpose of his arrest being limited to those charges) can't be assumed when there's obvious evidence of the circumstances being abnormal.

Your political ideals may be miles from a Fox News broadcast but your rhetorical techniques aren't that different.

But being handled as a normal person means that he doesn't get to dictate terms to the police about how and where he'll be questioned. If he were a witness then maybe but he's not, he's a suspect being questioned for the second time. People talk about him not having been charged but if you read the UK appeals court judgement they say that the claim he's not been charged is a semantic distinction based on specifics of the Swedish legal system and that it is clear that "legal proceedings have begun against him".

Under those circumstances I don't think it would be normal or reasonable to allow him to dictate the terms under which he's questioned.

My intent in using possibility as opposed to probability is simply not not prejudge his guilt or innocence because I don't think anyone at this point has the evidence to do that.

I do believe that there is a case to be answered (I believe that's close to certain given the number of legal appeals and judges in the UK that have examined the question and the various objections) but all the evidence hasn't been heard so I don't want to start assessing likely guilt. If you have a greater level of certainty one way or another for whatever reason I have no issue with that, but I say possible because I think that's the most appropriate description at this point from what I've read and heard.

The ultimate problem is that the whole thing is messy. It's messy because rape investigations always are, it's messy because of Wikileaks and what may or may not happen as a result of that, it's messy because both of those are highly charged situations, it's messy because Assange is a complex figure and it's messy because of his actions and the ill considered actions of at least four governments have only made things worse.

The rhetoric it's a function of the medium where we all just pick up on the bits we disagree with rather than writing long form balanced pieces on the whole thing. If that's what you're interested in then this isn't a bad approximation of my view: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/16/julian-a... though there are issues with it (specifically the fact that it doesn't mention that the Swedes have handed over people to the US in the past in ways that were, to put it mildly, troubling).

The main reason I have banged on about the rape position is that it's something that a lot of people seem to be willing to discard almost completely, in some cases to the point of misogyny (to be clear that's not an accusation I'm levelling at you).

My rhetoric may be wound up but I could say the same about discussions of me as a potential rapist (just one example among several I could pick from your original post), a suggestion which even hypothetically is clearly charged enough to likely override any clarity it offers and I'd venture given it's personal nature is beyond anything I said. Dare I say that it's a touch Fox News?

Unpleasant as these things are, it's part of the medium. Hastily banged out messages, only picking up the bits you have specific issue with, little time to consider subtlety. At least we have an excuse, unlike Fox.

I do not know why it's so hard to believe that a driven, virile man who is gathering the reins of power into his hands for the GOOD OF MANKIND must be pure of heart and soul. My experience with suchlike is that they are bullies at heart. We hope they will be bullies on the side of light and goodness, but-- maybe not in every part of their lives.

People who KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR MANKIND often KNOW WHAT IS GOOD IN BED too, and go for it regardless.

I do feel that these women have the right to air their grievances publicly, and be afforded the opportunity for an impartial legal process. Unfortunately, I have very strong doubts that any impartial legal process will occur, but rather a highly partial extra-legal process.

I respect that you have observed situations where men have taken advantage of women, or a woman's rights have been disregarded; it happens with alarming frequency, and it saddens me greatly. I do feel that society in general (in the west anyhow) is very sympathetic to the woman in instances of sexual assault. Because of its horrible frequency, it is very easy for any man to imagine that the woman who was raped was his mother, his wife, his daughter, his sister or a close female friend. This fills us with wrath and gives us a desire for terrible vengeance; that is precisely why we must collect ourselves and be rational. did you know that rapists and child molesters tend to be treated so savagely by other inmates that special prisons (or special wings in regular prisons) are constructed to keep them alive?

But you said it yourself: rape (like murder) is a crime against the person. Not against the nation. Nations shouldn't be violating treaties just to 'get their man'. It's a bit like the point of the 5th Amendment in the US: sure, some bad guys get away with it, but overall it protects everyone.

Here's another example: elsewhere in the thread someone mentions China not going into the US embassy to get their man. But if the UK does this, China now has a clear and more importantly very public precedent and the UK embassy becomes more insecure in China: "Hey, you've shown us that if you really want the guy, it's okay to break the rules".

But asylum was never meant for this either and while they shouldn't go in and get him I see no reason why they should grant him safe passage either.

I suspect that the next step may well be a legal challenge to the grant of immunity.

> There are real victims who have made real accusations

This is misleading at best.The current prosecutor made the accusations in the forms they have been presented. The only hint we have of what may be in the police's version of the statements from the women are in illegally leaked documents and in statements made by a prosecutor who took over the case after a previous prosecutor claimed the same police investigation showed that no crime had taken place.

At least one of the women stated early on that she refuses to sign the statements the police took down because she was severely distraught at the manner in which the police was pursuing this. Said statements were further taken down in violation of Swedish police procedure, by failing to record them, so ensuring that we don't have a reliable way of ascertaining how the wording in the statements were arrived at, or whether the police documents actually match what the women actually said.

Having had to read and sign statements taken down by police, I see exactly zero reason to assume that just because police has written it down that it bears any resemblance to what was actually said. In my case, it was because I was refusing conscription in Norway, and it is a formality to be interviewed by a police officer as to the reason why; said officer was friendly and trying to accurately represent what I was saying, but despite that it took several hours of hard work to correct the statement before it represented what I had said in a remotely accurate manner. Of course this is just one anecdote, but it did make me appreciate why recordings are so important).

If it is indeed correct that one of the women is categorically refusing to sign, that is significant.

In either case, not even the prosecution have claimed that either alleged victim have made any statement claiming rape or sexual assault, nor have they filed complaints, nor as I understand have the police claimed to even have asked whether or not they considered themselves to have been victims of anything.

Any inference of the presence of a crime thus rests with the prosecutor, based on information of an unclear provenance, and where the public record is full of holes.

When another senior prosecutor came to the opposite conclusion, it does seem not seem unreasonable to ask the question whether or not there are in fact any real accusations from real victims.

One or the other of two senior Swedish prosecutors have necessarily made a substantial mistake in their assessment, or been biased or motivated by other factors. None of the alternatives surrounding that are particularly pleasant to consider.

Maybe Assange did commit these crimes. Maybe he didn't. Regardless, the Swedish prosecutors do have some serious questions to answer about why this case has been handled in this highly unusual manner. Not least for the sake of the alleged victims and the future public trust in their office.

See here: http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/01/54/35/77809ec6.pdf. Page 3, Section 12, Point 3.

Worth noting that this is the text of the "THE EXTRADITION FOR CRIMINAL OFFENCES ACT (1957:668)", rather than some statement of government position and therefore is binding in Swedish law. The government simply couldn't send him to the US without suitable assurances.

One can reasonably believe that persecuting journalists who expose government wrongdoing is good or bad, of course, but to deny that political motivations exist here is simply lying. It's not a position that can be honestly held.

But for whatever reason, lying about this case appears to be important to you - as if the Hacker News discussion is somehow going to affect the course of world events - so go right ahead.

What I believe is that two women have made serious allegations which I think deserve to be properly heard and subject to due process.

Whatever else Julian Assange has or has not done (on which I have mixed opinions) and whatever political manoeuvering has gone on around it, there is a serious criminal allegation with two alleged victims and I think that matters.

If the case is that weak, the evidence that circumstantial and the police process that unprofessional, I'm sure his lawyers will do just fine.

Is there a risk to Assange? Maybe, but if the Americans really want him we in the UK have a long history of being America's bitch and I suspect would have handed him over in a trice. I simply can't see how being in Sweden is a greater risk to him than being here.

I believe in due process. Not because it's perfect, but because it's better than all the other stuff that's been tried in these situations. You can call me naive or ill-informed but please don't call me a liar, it adds nothing to the debate and you really haven't enough evidence to back it up.

And so on. Sorry, I know that rape is very serious crime and should be punished, but I don't think your stance in this matter - that Assange is guilty of RAPE, omg, omg! - is valid. I think you're needlessly emotional about the matter. You may dislike him, but you should at least try being objective - you'd realize that finding him guilty here on forum is not a good thing at all, not to law, not to his victims, and not even to you.

European rules can and will be broken whenever national governments see fit, often without real consequences. You should know by now, after years of haggling on broken treaties about economy, national budgets etc. Besides, the UK government could simply broker an agreement between Sweden and Ecuador, where Sweden renounces the warrant in exchange for something else. Obviously, they are not even trying. This is what Amnesty should complain about, and loudly.

So no, the UK government has not had its hands tied. Craig Murray states that Foreign Office civil servants rightly opposed the decision to pressure the embassy, and were overruled by William Hague. This is because they know what they're doing, whereas Hague is just the last of a long list of amateurish Tory hacks.

Basically, even if the US thought there was a political/persecutorial aspect to this, they recognized the gravity of the situation (that there were overriding factors) and in the spirit of maintaining relations, decided to send Wang, LiJung out on the street.

Had the US not handed him back to China, China would have made things very difficult for the US, in other areas, as they are wont to do. This illustrates, that asylum and Vienna conventions and such are respected to a good degree, but there comes a time when most actors recognize that there can be extreme extenuating circumstances which make it impractical to be strictly principled in cases resemble local disputes. In this case, Ecuador is willing to burn bridges as it were --on the other hand, it's convenient for them. It gains them some cred in their circles and have nothing to lose (immediately, commerce wise). I mean, it's not as though they are the paragon of freedom in LatAm.

[edit] wont let me respond to your comment below, so I'll just say that while I'm not sure how you measure 'what the world sees as a greater good', its a reasonable point and that the Amnesty blogpost would have made much more sense if it had used the argument that you do...

Assange is fighting a personal criminal charge against himself.

If you're going to pick up dubious allies, then you should do so in a cause which justifies it, where the trade offs are worth the costs.

See the highlighted section. She was asleep. That's almost certainly going to be rape in the UK, the US, Australia or pretty much anywhere else you'd count as civilised.

I agree, it's not clear cut. That's why we have due process, and that's all I want to see.

If her compliance comes from fear (the threat may be real or perceived), if she had been clear previously about a lack of consent or a whole bunch of other situations.

Whethe you could get a criminal conviction under those circumstances is another question but sure, it could be rape.

The point is: There is an extradition order to Sweden. The Swedish police want to talk to him. He fled the country before his interview.

Last time I checked, you don't get to just tell the police "sorry, not interested" when they are investigating rape allegations. I'm pretty sure that in just about every country in the world, at some point, there are rules dictated that you have a certain level of cooperation with authority. And if you don't, there are consequences.

How is this so hard to understand?

Assange is transparently a scumbag at best, and rapist at worst, but this isn't true.

He was given permission to leave Sweden: the authorities had finished with him. They changed their minds weeks later.

And they can talk to him as much as they like. In London. Even in the Ecuadorean embassy. He's offered this much many times.

He cooperated, and now it's escalated due to political motivation.

How is this so hard to understand?

In further depositions, his attorney said he "can't remember" if he mentioned to his client the pending interview.

And furthermore: What is your point? Politically motivated or not, the police are engaged in an investigation. They have, at some point in time (regardless of the timeframe) decided they are seeking a second interview and will most likely be charging Assange with a crime.

Even if what you said was true (it's not), so what? The simple fact of the matter is, as I said, that Sweden has issued an extradition order. Whether you personally agree or not, it's legal. Everyone involved knows that he will eventually be extradited. Because there is no legal reason for it not to go through.

So as I said previously: I am missing something? How is this so hard to understand?

In the London extradition court case, the lawyer for the Swedish authorities (Clare Montgomery) admitted giving Assange permission to leave:

'She said Mr. Assange's Swedish lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, was told on Sept. 15 that his client was "not subject to any restraint and could leave Sweden."'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870442220457612...

The authorities were in full possession of the facts of the case at this time.

Then -- weeks later -- they changed their minds.

> There are transcripts of his lawyer setting up the 2nd interview with the authorities.

Montgomery -- Sweden's counsel, remember -- also said that during this conversation, his lawyer said he was unable to contact Assange. Is that in the transcript?

> And furthermore: What is your point?

My point is that the accusation that he fled Sweden is not an established fact.

> Politically motivated or not, the police are engaged in an investigation.

You really don't think it makes any difference if it's politically motivated? No equal access to justice regardless of political opinions?

This is what you are missing.

If everything that was 'legal' was in black and white as you suggest, there would be no need of lawyers or appeal courts.

Because people are too caught up in America-wants-to-kill-Assange conspiracy theories to bother trying to understand.