[tarcyanm]

Assange himself and the rape charges have been politicized to such an extent that I find it essentially meaningless to pontificate about what may or may not have happened in Sweden. His character has been debated endlessly, but when one thinks of what WikiLeaks has actually revealed, I find it totally likely that a systematic effort was made to curtail him: https://twitter.com/SomersetBean/status/1116916146458877952/...

[tdcbfdct3]

Who's politicized the rape charges other than Assange himself continuously calling them a government conspiracy against him?

The Swedish government doesn't discuss them (which is what's allowed Assange's version of events to get so popular). The US hasn't mentioned it. The UK gave him a fair trial based on them.

[viraptor]

> Who's politicized the rape charges other than Assange

Swedish LE when they refused to hear the case with Assange in the embassy. Whether he's guilty or innocent, I can't take it as anything other than "we don't care about the case or the victims, we just wanted the extradition".

[dogma1138]

Or they don’t want to set a precedent that you can hide out of reach of justice just because you are famous?

What’s next should you be able get trial over FaceTime while evading the police without any consequences?

[belorn]

The Swedish courts disagree. They said that the prosecutor must use all available methods to progress the case, and if the objective is to interview a person of interest who is yet to be official charged then that is what the law say they should do. The law do not give an exception that it may give a precedent that people suspected of a crime may seek political asylum in a embassy and that the interview is then located there.

But let say this did create a precedent that you can dictate where the interview is located by seeking political asylum. Is that bad? In the US you can escape the reach of justice by just being pardoned by the president. Apple to apple comparison, the situation with political asylum seem like a better precedent.

[viraptor]

I'm not sure what the issue is. If you are already hiding in a place unreachable by the Swedish LE, you don't have to take part in anything. If you agree to take part in the investigation over internet anyway, that's still better for the victims. (verdict, potential damages from any sources the LE can take over, public acknowledgement of guilt, etc.)

[dogma1138]

For the same reason you don't usually negotiate with terrorists? Or any other behaviour you don't condone, right or wrong the guy made a mockery of Swedish LE if nothing else he should be charged with obstruction for going AWOL after agreeing to come for an interview and then skipped the country a day before.

[viraptor]

I don't see how this is similar to negotiating with terrorists. He holds no power in this case while physically unreachable by Sweden. If found guilty, he gets more problems. If found innocent, he's stuck with all the original problems.

Charging him for running away also seems irrelevant to the original question - was this case more than a political play.

[trevelyan]

The UK trial was not on the rape charges (there was no permitted discussion of the evidence or total lack of it). The ruling was over whether the UK was bound to extradite given the Swedish government's refusal to interview Assange in England or indict him in Sweden. The tortured legal conclusion was basically that the UK couldn't definitively conclude the Swedes were acting in bad faith, and they couldn't be entirely sure that Assange was only being extradited for questioning (technically illegal).

As far as the Swedes go, the Swedish government discussed the case when it closed it for the first time. If the government hasn't been public about the case since it was re-opened by a political appointee, perhaps it is because there is zero evidence against Assange. We know this because the pretext for re-opening the case was the "discovery" of new physical evidence (a broken condom) that lacked any of Assange's DNA. This is all public knowledge, btw. Funny how it isn't discussed much in the press.

[trevelyan]

Thanks for the downvote whoever it was. History is not going to be kind to those unaware of basic facts however, in this case the fact that the Assange case was re-opened in 2010 on the basis of fabricated evidence:

https://www.smh.com.au/world/no-assange-dna-on-torn-condom--...

https://www.rt.com/news/assange-condom-no-dna-277/

Assume that people can get their hands on the UK high court ruling. It takes only a bit of reading to confirm the complete accuracy of the statements above.

[nvarsj]

Exactly. There is almost certainly an organized government sponsored campaign to discredit him in every way possible. That means the things we read in the media about him need to be considered very critically.

[scoot_718]

I agree. Except he's the one running the campaign to discredit himself. Wikileaks has done the damage to his own reputation, all sponsored by Russia.

He's actively hurt the goal of radical transparency with his antics. Actual people with principles abandoned Wikileaks a decade ago.

[pvg]

They're striking graphics but that is an Assange advocacy account. A bunch of these things weren't 'revealed' by Wikileaks, the most famous one being the incident at the heart of their 'Collateral Murder' video.

[tptacek]

Indeed, worth remembering that (Reuters, I think?) published a scene-by-scene account of the tape in "Collateral Murder" before Wikileaks ever did.

[wiz21c]

That's a rather myth busting information I wasn't aware of. Do you have any link/source ?

[pvg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...

Reuters editors saw parts of the footage within a couple of weeks of the event. Two of the people killed in the strike were working for Reuters.

[vl]

If we ever saw a successful CIA operation this is it. I bet in twenty years we'll be reading how it was all organized.

[tutfbhuf]

It usually takes longer on average until closed CIA documents gets released to public (if ever). There are still some unreleased JFK files.

[scoot_718]

He certainly would love everyone to believe he's a man of principles, unfortunately his actions over past decades don't work in his favour.