While I am saddened by this decision I hope he now is able to get proper medical care and fight the case against extradition. As long as he is not on London streets the US can't just snatch him up. [1] [2]
There may not be and extradition case. It doesn't seem like Sweden is still keen, and on balance, the US mightn't want him either at this point.
It's not a guaranteed conviction. The president has an embarrassing YouTube reel where he "loves WikiLeaks" 50 times. It'll drag the contents of contentious leaks back into the spotlight. It could be more convenient to let it go.
> The president has an embarrassing YouTube reel where he "loves WikiLeaks" 50 times. It'll drag the contents of contentious leaks back into the spotlight. It could be more convenient to let it go.
But America isn't a dictatorship so the decision isn't exactly up to him. There's a whole legal system operating under their own framework that the president doesn't have much control over.
You should probably let the Met know. They seem to think there is one.
>UPDATE: Julian Assange arrest.
>Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court later today (Thursday, 11 April).
It is an extradition case: the US have made an extradition request for conspiracy to hack (only). Assange is currently held for that as well as the Bail Act offence.
Not in London, but GP linked two examples (one in Macedonia and one in Italy). There are also many other examples of CIA-run extraordinary rendition[1].
However in these cases they were both done with co-operation from the local police (or military) and government as part of the US "war on terror" (abductions without local government approval have also happened in the past -- Mossad did this in the 1960s[2] -- but I don't recall a US example).
> The case was picked by the international media as one of the better-documented cases of extraordinary rendition carried out in a joint operation by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) [emphasis added]
A joint operation implies there was co-operation. I'm not saying the US has never conducted extraordinary rendition without local government involvement, just that the two examples aren't like that.
You are right then. I missed it because I was focusing on the way the Italian judiciary handled the case afterwards, which indicates the clandestine nature of the co-operation.
They've done it in countries to which they are way less "aligned" than the UK [0] and the UK has historically been the US's strongest partner on all things "national security/terrorism".
In that context, I wouldn't really be surprised if it's happened before, tho the blowback potential, if it should become public, would be massive so it will probably be kept under extremely tight wraps.
>even just refueling is something the MSPs demand action over.
Yep, Members of the Scottish Parliament have been pissed off. Scottish police were blocked from doing anything however. Westminster unfortunately rides roughshod over both of them and has been a supporter of the rendition flights, as noted in the article from The Times.
>"The CIA has been accused of using Scottish airports to facilitate the transfer of terrorism suspects to overseas black sites for interrogation and torture.
>A report by Westminster’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) says that MI5 or MI6 was involved in at least 50 rendition operations."
It's not a guaranteed conviction. The president has an embarrassing YouTube reel where he "loves WikiLeaks" 50 times. It'll drag the contents of contentious leaks back into the spotlight. It could be more convenient to let it go.