[yasp]

Craig Murray's reaction is worth reading [1]. I realize he does not respond to the bail breach directly, but rather to what precipitated this chain of events.

> If the Swedish allegations against Julian Assange were genuine and not simply a ruse to arrest him for extradition to the United States, where is the arrest warrant now from Sweden and what are the charges?

> Only the more minor allegation has passed the statute of limitations deadline. The major allegation, equivalent to rape, is still well within limits. Sweden has had seven years to complete the investigation and prepare the case. It is over two years since they interviewed Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy. They have had years and years to collect all the evidence and prepare the charges.

> So where, Swedish prosecutors, are your charges? Where is your arrest warrant?

> Julian Assange has never been charged with anything in Sweden. He was merely “wanted for questioning”, a fact the MSM repeatedly failed to make clear. It is now undeniably plain that there was never the slightest intention of charging him with anything in Sweden. All those Blairite MPs who seek to dodge the glaring issue of freedom of the media to publish whistleblower material revealing government crimes, by hiding behind trumped-up sexual allegations, are left looking pretty stupid.

> [...]

[1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/04/so-where-is-...

[_petronius]

This whole "if the accusation is real then why hasn't he been charged?" pseudo-fact relies on a rather stubborn misunderstanding of the difference between the Swedish legal system and the UK one. Assange can't be "charged" in the sense that the Anglosphere thinks of it until he is physically present for trail; that doesn't mean that the charges haven't been put to him or that Sweden isn't actively pursuing the investigation.

Much of the commentary around the legal aspects of Assange's case it misleading or outright false.

See:

1. (2012) https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/media/2012/09/legal-mytho...

2. (2019) https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/11165977611288453...

[pbhjpbhj]

I think that's how it works in UK to, you get arrested first, then charged, if you flee then you're wanted "to face charges", ie the charges will be pressed once you're caught. Does any legal system have a full court case first, then apprehend only those proven guilty? Surely without essential witnesses that's not possible.

[leereeves]

> that Sweden isn't actively pursuing the investigation.

Ecuador started arranging for him to leave the embassy at least five months ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/dec/06/ecuador-says-u...

Why didn't Sweden have an extradition request ready? They had at least five months to prepare one.

[_petronius]

Because Ecuador warned the US they would be kicking him out of the embassy, but did not warn Sweden. I don't think that is in doubt at all.

The US does not need Sweden's involvement to extradite and try Assange. The rape charges are separate and irrelevant to the charges he faces in the US, and whether the UK would even grant his extradition to the US is not a sure thing.

These two cases are unrelated, and the only reason they have been conflated is a concerted effort on the part of Assange supporters to discredit the accusations of sexual misconduct by lumping them in with his WikiLeaks activities and make up a whole lot of guff about CIA plots rather than just accept that he should face the criminal justice procedure for some shitty personal behaviour on his part.

[akvadrako]

They are related because UK might not extradite him to the US, but they might to Sweden, who might extradite him to the US.

[leereeves]

> Ecuador warned the US they would be kicking him out of the embassy, but did not warn Sweden

Ecuador hardly needed to notify Sweden. It was international news. The Guardian article from five months ago that I linked was just one of many. "No one in the Swedish government reads international news" is not a credible explanation.

I see two possible explanations:

1) Sweden doesn't place a high priority on prosecuting famous accused rapists who've escaped justice for years, or

2) Sweden doesn't consider Assange a famous accused rapist who's escaped justice for years.

[_petronius]

I don't think either of your "possible explanations" are borne out by the evidence, but then there are a dozen other explanations that are both more plausible, and whose truth-potential is not dependent on whether they make sense to you personally.

[leereeves]

If the tweets you link are to be believed, we don't have to guess. Apparently no one in the prosecutor's office reads the news.

I don't find that believable, but whatever.

[thinkingemote]

> Why didn't Sweden have an extradition request ready

From what I recall about the situation from past threads is that Sweden cannot send extradition requests in advance. Most criminal courts don't go out of their way to break the rules as that costs and they have to justify the budget.

Also why spend extra time and money on something when they could just wait until he was under British custody? Where is the urgency when normal procedures would suffice?

The Americans went out of their way because this is a political matter to them and their budget was approved.

[monocasa]

Sweden _can_ send extradition requests; they're just for 'questioning', not 'arrest'. The bail he skipped out on was for a Swedish extradition request.

[tomp]

According to your [2], more than 2 weeks ago, Swedish lawyers started preparing their case to request his extradition. Have there been any updates?

[Ettvatre]

No there's no updates.

These things normally takes quite some time.

[ryanlol]

As far as I've understood the EAW process is super fast, am I wrong?

[droithomme]

> In the case of the allegation in Sweden that did fall through the statute of limitation, the accusation was that during the act of consensual sex Julian Assange deliberately split the condom with his fingers, without consent. ... But the split condom given to Swedish police as evidence had none of Assange’s DNA on it – a physical impossibility if he had worn it during sex. And the person making the accusation had previously been expelled from Cuba as working for the CIA.

Interesting, this is the first I heard about the DNA evidence, which is compelling. The prosecutor's dropping of this charge is reasonable given the lack of any DNA present on the sabotaged condom.

Also should mention that Craig Murray is a personal friend of Julian Assange, something his blog readers are well aware of. Murray is the one who testified he personally collected the DNC email leak from a disgruntled DNC employee in Washington DC and hand couriered it across the Atlantic where he handed it over to Assange. This leak origin account contradicts the Russian hacker narrative regarding the DNC email leak.

[novaleaf]

Regardless of the allegation's basis in fact (or lack thereof)...

Based on all the problems Assange has faced in the last 8 years, it's pretty much "mission accomplished, total victory".

[foldr]

This is not a quote from the article? It seems to be taken from Craig Murray's website. Murray is no expert on forensics. See for example his embarrassing analysis here: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/the-impossib...

[droithomme]

Presumably the staff of the two separate forensics teams that found no DNA on the split condom were quoted in the 100 page police report are qualified.

They did find DNA in the other woman's condom, but that condom was not split and there was no claim by her of condom sabotage.

[foldr]

No, I mean, he's not qualified to interpret the findings. It's far from obvious that a negative DNA test result means "definitely didn't wear the condom". (And more broadly, such a test is only informative if you can be sure that no other condom was used, which you probably can't.)

[bberrry]

Why are you quoting a sentence that's not in the article? Nice way to appropriate BBCs credibility to your conspiracy theory.

[dang]

I'm guessing that droithomme meant to reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19796933, but posted a top-level comment by mistake. That is not uncommon.

With that in mind, I've moved 19797118 to be a child of 19796933. Even if the guess is wrong, it makes more sense in that context anyway.

[akvadrako]

To be fair, this seems like a dishonest account of the situation. My understanding is that being "charged" in Sweden normally happens later in the process than in the USA/UK, so the fact that he wasn't "charged" isn't meaningful.

[lucideer]

To be fair, you've nitpicked one minor detail in the above quote. The subtantive point still hands. Why is Assange not now wanted for questioning in Sweden?

[u10]

It's a substantial part of the Swedish legal system, not a 'minor detail'.

[lucideer]

A minor detail in the original quote!, not a minor detail in life. Please don't take the comment out of context.

[Ettvatre]

Please stop spreading misinformation. They have stated in a press release that they will look into this case again. It was 2 weeks ago and these things takes some time.

[FireBeyond]

He is. Even by one of your own sources, Swedish prosecutors started preparing the extradition warrant a couple of weeks ago.

[lucideer]

Not my sources, I merely replied. The gp was another commenter.

[Hamuko]

Hasn't the crime expired?

[Ettvatre]

No it hasn't. There's so much misinformation in this area that it's funny.

The original case was closed since the prosecutor didn't expect a conviction because Assange was hiding under a rock.

[CharlesColeman]

>> Hasn't the crime expired?

> No it hasn't.

IIRC, a couple of the less serious crimes expired but the most serious one remains prosecutable.

[Ettvatre]

I assume we are talking about rape if we are talking about "the" crime. This is the one the Swedish prosecutor is bringing up again. I'm not sure what other crimes he was suspected to commit.

[OldFatCactus]

isn't he?

[Veen]

The answer to Murray's questions is in the article.

Prosecutors dropped the rape investigation in 2017 because they were unable to formally notify him of allegations while he was staying in the embassy.

They are considering re-opening the investigation.

[yasp]

So was a warrant issued or not? In the US, at least, being "unable to formally notify [someone] of allegations" would not prevent a warrant from being issued.

[Veen]

A warrant was issued, but while he was in the embassy the Swedish government couldn't serve him with a notification of it.

Top prosecutor Marianne Ny said his arrest warrant was being revoked as it was impossible to serve him notice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39973864

You are unlikely to come to sound conclusions if you reason on the basis of your knowledge of US law. Sweden is not the US.

[akvadrako]

This is not the US, so US legal customs are irrelevant.

[evilmoo]

This isn't in the US.

There are many differences between the US and EU/UK.

[PaulRobinson]

Referring to "Blairite MPs" in this context is so laughable it undermines this person as a serious political commentator.

[yasp]

Craig Murray is a former British ambassador.

[JoeSmithson]

And current nutjob. Check out his tweets/blogs around the time of the attempted Skripal assassination.

His questioning here is clearly in bad faith. Assange successfully evaded justice on most of his charges in Sweden because they have a statute of limitations. It's not something to celebrate.

The situation with Assange is all public record. Obama DoJ didn't pursue extradition, Trump DoJ did.

Separately to this, Assange was suspected of sexual offences in Sweden, most of which have now expired. Connected to those charges, he committed an offence under the Bail Act in the UK for which he has now been convicted.

Anyone arguing that USA was intending to extradite Assange in 2010 is misinformed or arguing in bad faith. Only Sweden wanted to extradite him in 2010 because they had strong evidence he had committed a sexual offence in their jurisdiction.

---

Downvoters - did I get something wrong?

[pjc50]

Murray is interesting - he's intelligent and well-informed, but he leans so heavily against the UK intelligence services that he's unable to spot situations where they're probably not the villain. Like the whole Skripal case.

He regards "bellingcat" as an enemy; they are the supposedly independent blogger producing OSINT that showed the Russian missile launcher used to shoot down MH-17. These days I'm suspicious of people defending the argument that this wasn't Russia.

[mafribe]

Calling Murray a "nutjob" is not conducive to a well-informed discussion about touchy subjects. His last summary of the Skripal case is [1], and while certainly controversial, hardly a "nutjob".

He was removed from his ambassadorship to Uzbekistan because he protested against human rights violations in Uzbekistan. This may not be what an ambassador should do, but displays integrity.

[1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/03/pure-ten-poi...

[lucideer]

It's a common term in UK politics—he's not coining.

[IIAOPSW]

>All those Blairite MPs who seek to dodge the glaring issue of freedom of the media to publish whistleblower material revealing government crimes, by hiding behind trumped-up sexual allegations, are left looking pretty stupid.

Considering how well its working, I'd say they're left looking pretty smart.