Julian Assange arrested ...

[Saracen999]

According to media reports, he has been arrested indide the Ecuadorian embassy, at Ecuador's invitation, by British police and removed to a central London police station", and is expected to then be taken to Westminster Magistate's Court to answer charges related to him abusing his original bail conditions.

Quite what went wrong between him and Ecuador is unclear, but there have been reports for some time that Ecuador wanted rid of him, having come to regard his presence as a considerable nuisance. It didn't apparently hrlo Assange that the new President is considerably less sympathetic to him that the previous incumbent.

It now seems he's pushed his luck once too often and had his sanctuary revoked for "breach of asylum". It's not (yet) clear quite what that was, but asylum does come with some conditions including, apparently, refraining from political activity and he's reportedly been at loggerheads with Ecuador for quite some time about what that consists of. There are also some reports that he's been .... less that considerate, as a guest. A bit of a slob, allegedly.


Anyhow, now, he'll at least have to answer to a British court over absconding from bail (for 7-ish years) and it remains to be seen if any other country, lime Sweden or the US, seek his extradition. Sweden had wanted him to answer questions on sexual assault charges but have subsequently dropped that. If he's now out of the protection of asylum and, I assume not likely to be grsnred bail again, theh may reinstate those charges, and the US is believed to have been readying charges for some time, in anticipation of something like this. Niw I guess we find out if they really were.


Anyway, he's now back in custody rather than his self-imposed incarceration, and potentially still facing the same charges he always was.

I wonder if he thinks those seven years were worth it?

[spacein_vader]

I hope he does his time for skipping bail then the Swedes get their turn.

The smartest thing the US could do would be ignore him, making his accusations of it all being a front to get him to the USA look like a paranoid conspiracy theory and destroying any remaining credibility.

That said, the current US administration doesn't do smart very often.

[philehidiot]

The Swedes dropped their charges. By the sounds of it, Assange is wanted in the US for being politically inconvenient in that he did what most journalists do (receive leaks or data, work with authorities to redact information which might endanger people and then release it) and is being charged with quite an interesting offence. Apparently it's fine for a journalist to receive leaks in the US, BUT if you ask for or seek out the information, you're a co-conspiritor. It sounds like they're trying to do him on that.

What is more interesting to me is that Youtube was actively censoring any videos about this. It seems like they may have stopped now but even Tim Pool had his video blocked and he re-released it under a different title.

There may be more to it but I strongly suspect that the US want Assange and that we're helping because we're now under diplomatic pressure connected to a trade deal. That being said, Assange's releases did help the Trump campaign indirectly but he may not be involved in this - there's only so much of a government a man can control.

[TeePee]

The US started a Grand Jury investigation of Assange last year, which is ongoing. There's no chance this isn't related.

Popular support for Assange has largely evaporated in the US as well, since he released a lot of information which was damaging to Hillary. Apparently freedom of information only matters if it supports your political opinions?

[philehidiot]

Also bear in mind the rape claim was basically fabricated by the Swedish government, presumably to get him out of the embassy for the Yanks to extradite. There was a woman who slept with Assange once with protection, second time without. Both aspects of the encounter were consensual. She later found she had an STD and met another women who also slept with Assange unprotected and got an STD. In most people's book, if you sleep around and don't use protection, you accept that risk but the Swedish government doesn't see it that way. They went to the authorities to try and get him forced to get tested as I'm guessing he refused. The authorities twisted this into rape. That it's entirely conceivable he caught the STD from the first woman and passed it on to the second is obviously irrelevant as evidently only men are responsible for communicable diseases.

If I'm missing something, please correct me but this is the story as I've heard it more than once from mostly reputable sources.

[Saracen999]

Also bear in mind the rape claim was basically fabricated by the Swedish government, presumably to get him out of the embassy for the Yanks to extradite. There was a woman who slept with Assange once with protection, second time without. Both aspects of the encounter were consensual. She later found she had an STD and met another women who also slept with Assange unprotected and got an STD. In most people's book, if you sleep around and don't use protection, you accept that risk but the Swedish government doesn't see it that way. They went to the authorities to try and get him forced to get tested as I'm guessing he refused. The authorities twisted this into rape. That it's entirely conceivable he caught the STD from the first woman and passed it on to the second is obviously irrelevant as evidently only men are responsible for communicable diseases.

If I'm missing something, please correct me but this is the story as I've heard it more than once from mostly reputable sources.

I'm sorry but ..... what?

The Swedes invented the rape claim to get him out of the Embassy?

That, it has to be said, is drivel.

For a start, Assange had been suubject to the arrest warrant on rape and sexual molestation for nearly two years before he went into the Ecuadorian embassy.

To issue the warrant two years (22-23 months-ish) before he went into the embassy in order to get him out of it really is extraordinary planning - knowing what he was going to do nearly 2 years before he did it

Timeline :-

August 2010 - Arrest warrant first issued
June 2012 - Assange enters Ecuadorian embassy seeking asylum.

In the meantime, Assange had tried to weasel out of these charges through, IIRC, three levels of court and appeal, in Sweden, and certainly, the High Court, Appeal Court and Supreme Court, here in the UK.

He only entered the embassy after losing the Supreme Court case, in 2012.

Damn but are those Swedes good, predicting that they'd need to get him out of the embassy after he lost all those cases. I wonder if they'd mind predicting the next couple of weeks lottery numbers for me, if they're that good.

[TheAnimus]

Also that is not what the rape claims state.

They claim he woke up AA having sex with her without a condom, she had previously consented to sex, but only with a condom.

It's as if he is a raging narcissist who went around the world going on about how great he is for setting up a website on TOR whilst some poor mentally ill sod got used and left to rot in jail.

[badass]

Also bear in mind the rape claim was basically fabricated by the Swedish government, presumably to get him out of the embassy for the Yanks to extradite. There was a woman who slept with Assange once with protection, second time without. Both aspects of the encounter were consensual. She later found she had an STD and met another women who also slept with Assange unprotected and got an STD. In most people's book, if you sleep around and don't use protection, you accept that risk but the Swedish government doesn't see it that way. They went to the authorities to try and get him forced to get tested as I'm guessing he refused. The authorities twisted this into rape. That it's entirely conceivable he caught the STD from the first woman and passed it on to the second is obviously irrelevant as evidently only men are responsible for communicable diseases.

If I'm missing something, please correct me but this is the story as I've heard it more than once from mostly reputable sources.

What sources? You've done this several times before in posting unsubstantiated highly dubious information. On at least one occasion, it turned out that the source was "A Youtube channel"

[Saracen999]

According to the news, Swedish prosecutors are "actively considering" reinstating the rape charge. The other charges cannot be brought back because their legal system has a tighter timeline for the lesser charges and it has expired.

I can certainly understand why prosecutors have a time limit, rather than being able to let things hang over somebody permanently but .... maybe where the accused evades due process by fleeing jurisdictions, that ought to suspend the timeline clock for the duration of the fleeing. Maybe Sweden needs to look at that?

[badass]

According to the news, Swedish prosecutors are "actively considering" reinstating the rape charge. The other charges cannot be brought back because their legal system has a tighter timeline for the lesser charges and it has expired.

I can certainly understand why prosecutors have a time limit, rather than being able to let things hang over somebody permanently but .... maybe where the accused evades due process by fleeing jurisdictions, that ought to suspend the timeline clock for the duration of the fleeing. Maybe Sweden needs to look at that?

Very valid points, however I suspect that will only happen if he gets extradited to Sweden, gets convicted and the question of "why he got away with the other charges" hangs around in the Swedish media for too long.

I'm just liking the fact that his actions are still keeping up with him.

[awea]

The US started a Grand Jury investigation of Assange last year, which is ongoing. There's no chance this isn't related.

[Lucio]

Am annoyed that he's effectively gotten away from an accusation simply by running down a clock.

I hope that he does get sent to Sweden first to face the charges there, and that there's a way to argue that the statue of limitations doesn't apply as he fled rather than face the charges.

Don't care even if he did genuinely believe the US would go after him, running from accusations like that, instead of facing them speaks of a guilty conscience

[Saracen999]

As I understand it, if Sweden reinstates the rape inquiry and requests extradition, it's likely to succeed as that is a more serious charge than those levelled by the US (at least, so far).

Also, if the US wins and fails to convict, it's likely the clock will have expired on the rape allegation by that time, and that will be killed too.

The bjg question, IMHO, is whether Sweden wants to get back into handling this hot potato, because if they get him, then it's them having to deal with whether he subsequently goes to the US.

They may prefer to stay quiet, and out of a messy business.