Security → Assange makes 1st public appearance in 2 months

The reason he cites for not answering sexual assault accusations against him by two women is that Sweden may extradite him to America, where he fears he will be tortured and put to death.

His account of the law is both misleading and inaccurate. Britain could as easily extradite Assange to the U.S. as to Sweden, but it can't. Like the rest of Europe, Britain may not deliver to America a criminal suspected of a capital crime - spying, in Assange's case -- because America has the death penalty. The same is true of Sweden. But his suggestion that if America could capture him he would be tortured and killed is plausible. And any who doubt his seemingly absurd claim should acquaint themselves with the wretched plight of United States Army Private First Class Bradley Manning.

President Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, condoned the Pentagon's treatment of Manning as "appropriate and meeting our basic standards." He later followed Richard Nixon's legal calumny over Charles Manson by pronouncing Manning guilty as charged, even though he still awaits trial. While Assange is protected by European laws from being sent to America, where he might be killed in cold blood by the state, Manning may still be put to death. So long as Assange is on the run, the world will be reminded that America, once a benign republic proudly defending the world's freedoms, has slipped in the last 10 years into a state of shame where torture is excused and executions defended by even the most liberal of public figures. I wonder what "The Greatest Generation" would think?

Even hours before it was announced, Ecuador’s decision to grant asylum to Assange because of the lack of international guarantees of due process of law for the founder of Wikileaks, had the effect of generating an overreaction by the government of Great Britain, which bypassed diplomatic law and threatened to storm the embassy of Ecuador in London to arrest Assange. This aggressive outburst by Britain against Latin America made in the long shadow of the Falklands invasion was immediately labeled as colonialism. It has been a catalyst to unite all countries of the region around Ecuador.

The government of President Rafael Correa has received the backing of the two most powerful Latin American organizations, ALBA and UNASUR. In at least one of these institutions are Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, as well as other countries in the region. In advance of scheduled meetings of both organizations this weekend in Guayaquil to generate a statement of solidarity with Ecuador, several foreign ministers in Latin America have already expressed their opposition to Britain’s threat to enter the embassy of Ecuador by force.

The US stated yet again that it will not intervene in the case of Julian Assange. Yet, the US government’s repetition of “we are not involved” fails to convince. Too many statements by U.S. lawmakers and officials denouncing WikiLeaks and threatening Assange with imprisonment for life and even the death penalty have been widely disseminated in the world press. The fundamental reason that attorneys for Julian Assange believe their client cannot accept extradition to Sweden is because from there Assange will be almost certainly delivered to the U.S. That the U.S. has initiated a secret grand jury proceeding to indict Assange for crimes including espionage and treason is not mere speculation.

According to Assange’s lawyer, Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the internationally recognized Center for Constitutional Rights, a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, was convened to investigate violations of the Espionage Act, where the grand jury received testimony including Twitter messages related to Assange and WikiLeaks. An FBI agent who was a witness in the case of detained soldier Bradley Manning has stated that the “founders, owners and managers” WikiLeaks were under investigation. Ratner also noted that the FBI has compiled a dossier of 42,135 pages pertaining to Assange.

In this context, Assange’s fears of being extradited, imprisoned and deprived of any right to a fair defense in the U.S. should be considered well-founded and reasonable. And in the same way, the decision to grant asylum by Ecuador should be considered a humanitarian decision viewed within the legal framework of international law governed by the Vienna Convention.

From this context, there arises a unique situation in which a Latin American country now stands as a defender of the human rights of an individual against the will of two European countries, Britain and Sweden, who refuse to give assurances that Assange will not be extradited to the United States. What irony that a small nation which until recently was considered a mere “banana republic” today openly protects a major world icon of freedom of expression from persecution by United States and its allies.

From what I just heard on BBC in the last few minutes, the demand from Assange and the Ecuadorian embassy is that he would be willing to stand trial in Sweden for the sexual assault charges. However, the condition they are insisting on is that his waiver of extradition to Sweden will not result in his extradition from Sweden to any third party nation (i.e. the US).

I would guess that at the present time Sweden would almost immediately send Assange to the US the moment a firm commitment is made by the US to not seek the death penalty for him. The immediate question is now whether Sweden wants Assange enough for its own trials to meet the non-extradition condition.

... he did it to himself.

Ecuador is pressing for a deal that offers justice to Assange's accusers – and essential protection for whistleblowers

Can anyone seriously believe the dispute would have gone global, or that the British government would have made its asinine threat to suspend the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status and enter it by force, or that scores of police would have surrounded the building, swarming up and down the fire escape and guarding every window, if it was all about one man wanted for questioning over sex crime allegations in Stockholm?

The US interest in deterring others from following the WikiLeaks path is obvious. And it would be bizarre to expect a state which over the past decade has kidnapped, tortured and illegally incarcerated its enemies, real or imagined, on a global scale – and continues to do so under President Barack Obama – to walk away from what Hillary Clinton described as an "attack on the international community". In the meantime, the US authorities are presumably banking on seeing Assange further discredited in Sweden.

None of that should detract from the seriousness of the rape allegations made against Assange, for which he should clearly answer and, if charges are brought, stand trial. The question is how to achieve justice for the women involved while protecting Assange (and other whistleblowers) from punitive extradition to a legal system that could potentially land him in a US prison cell for decades.

But why, Assange's critics charge, would he be more likely to be extradited to the US from Sweden than from Britain, Washington's patsy, notorious for its one-sided extradition arrangements. There are specific risks in Sweden – for example, its fast-track "temporary surrender" extradition agreement it has with the US. But the real point is that Assange is in danger of extradition in both countries – which is why Ecuador was right to offer him protection.

The solution is obvious. It's the one that Ecuador is proposing – and that London and Stockholm are resisting. If the Swedish government pledged to block the extradition of Assange to the US for any WikiLeaks-related offence (which it has the power to do) – and Britain agreed not to sanction extradition to a third country once Swedish proceedings are over – then justice could be served. But with loyalty to the US on the line, Assange shouldn't expect to leave the embassy any time soon.

Sweden says it is up to Washington to give WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who fears the US wants to prosecute him for divulging state secrets, the guarantees he has sought from Stockholm.

If Sweden were to receive an extradition request from a country that practices capital punishment, such as the US, 'guarantees must come from the other state (requesting extradition) that ... the death penalty will not be handed down or carried out,' Swedish justice ministry adviser Per Hedvall told AFP.

'The guarantees do not come from our side, they have to come from the other end,' he said.

Swedish law and the European human rights convention ratified by Sweden ban extradition of a defendant to a country where he could face the death penalty.

Hedvall refused to speak about Assange's case in particular and stressed his remarks regarded Swedish legislation in general.

He said that when an extradition request is issued for a crime that doesn't carry the death penalty, 'each case is reviewed based on the legislation in that individual case', but then 'Swedish legislation does not provide for guarantees.'

To complain about bureaucracy go to the same bureaucracy and expect something to be changed?

DOJ sues Gallup polling firm

Justice Department officials joined a whistle blower lawsuit and alleged that The Gallup Organization, a major polling firm, intentionally overestimated the amount of time it would take to complete a job for the government and was paid accordingly.

“Contractors who do business with the federal government must honor their obligations to provide honest services and products,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in a statement on the lawsuit. “Working with relators and federal investigators, we will do all that we can to act against those who illegitimately bill the American taxpayers.”

»washingtonexaminer.com/d ··· W1mzCz8A

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He said that when an extradition request is issued for a crime that doesn't carry the death penalty, 'each case is reviewed based on the legislation in that individual case', but then 'Swedish legislation does not provide for guarantees.'

said by Ian1
Blanket hypothetical immunity from extradition is an invention.

I think we need to look at the whole picture here, not of the man. This will set precedence for humans and mankind going forward.

....simple request really.

... I think we need to look at the whole picture here, not of the man. This will set precedence for humans and mankind going forward. Whether Assange is guilty or not really is not important in this case, and is a personal item he needs to deal with, and by all substance, neither him or Equator are deigning due process, just assurances....simple request really.

This is what some of us have been saying, and which puts the lie to Assange's and Ecuador's claims.

Sweden would already not extradite a possible death penalty charge. And they would need to have an extradition request made before ruling on it in any case. As would any Country. Blanket hypothetical immunity from extradition is an invention.

If one looks at the "whole picture", they will see that Sweden is not in a legal position to give carte-blanche, advance disavowal of a possible extradition of Assange to the US that has not even been requested, nor charges yet filed in the US.

What many observers fail understanding is that the extradition request by Sweden is already legally in existence

Now along comes Ecuador into the situation...

And as far as Ecuador is concerned, they have not made an offer to release Assange in the event the death penalty is waived.

Instead, they have deemed for some reason any potential prosecution of Assange

Manning has been held for 800 days already, there seems no rush to process him.

You, too, have overlooked the historically based reasons for this action as explained in my previous posts.