[quink]

> Sweden would like to question Julian Assange about allegations made be two women. These women have a right to make these accusations, and they have a right for the state to investigate them. Nobody could possibly deny this.

You may have missed this bit in the article, at the very end:

"An offer to the Swedish authorities by Ecuador for investigators to interview Mr Assange inside the embassy, was rejected."

[objclxt]

So? Sweden is well within their rights to refuse that offer. They have an outstanding, legitimate European Arrest Warrant that was subject to many appeals, all of which were denied. I do not blame them for refusing that offer: are you suggesting if they did interview Assange in the embassy and decided they wanted to charge him he would just walk out happily? I doubt it.

[Joakal]

Swedish law says that Assange can very well be interviewed over video link, police station and embassy (Even Ecuador offered). Despite this, the Swedish prosecutor is adamant that he should be on Swedish soil to be questioned.

If they did charge him at Ecuadorian embassy and then he refuses to leave, Ecuador would feel a lot more pressure and Assange would lose a lot of support. But now that it's clear that the Swedish prosecutor's blatant disregard for immediately interviewing him in favour of him being disadvantage in Sweden, there's even more support for Assange and Ecuador.

[rdtsc]

You seem confused. At one point you claim that this is about helping the women who are Swedish citizens and trying to question Assange so they can charge him with rape or figure out what happened. Have we agreed that in the previous comment you seems to be concerned and think the Swedish government is also concerned about these women?

> These women have a right to make these accusations, and they have a right for the state to investigate them. Nobody could possibly deny this.

and

> not beyond the realms of possibility, is that these women are genuinely making these accusations.

Those statements seem to support that, wouldn't you say?

However, when presented with the question of why didn't they just come in and questioned him after being invited and granted access you reply with

> Sweden is well within their rights to refuse that offer.

So they are just dragging their feet refusing the offer. Is it because they don't like British food or is the travel too grueling. Remember, they are spending all this effort and time supposedly because they deeply care about the fate of these two women.

The next step in the process is the questioning and then after being invited to question him to move the process along they refuse.

You'll have to forgive everyone if they don't quite believe the official reasons. To me it sounds fishy for example.

> Assange in the embassy and decided they wanted to charge him he would just walk out happily?

It doesn't matter what happens then. They identified a next step in the process and they claim they cannot accomplish it. While it has been clear that they can.

[quink]

Sweden has the option, under their law, to interview someone over a video link, and it does the job just as well. Edit: They also have permission to come to the UK and interview him there.

They have been offered many times over by now, but have refused. Its refusal is probably going to cause a major diplomatic incident between two different sovereign nations that has the potential to violate some serious stuff.

Does any of this sound, if not normal, even remotely reasonable to you?

If the prosecutor had any real interest in seeing justice for these women any time soon, he would have done said interview months and months and months ago. Instead, if Julian Assange is guilty, then it's been an unnecessarily long drawn out process for the victims. Instead, the prosecutor is saying by this that he has no real interest in the case, but is just trying to get Julian Assange to Sweden, for easier extradition to the US. It's pretty known, through The Pirate Bay not least of all, that the Swedish justice system is at least a bit under the control of the US. Not unlike New Zealand's.

> if they did interview Assange in the embassy and decided they wanted to charge him he would just walk out happily?

How does that matter at this stage? Let's assume that Sweden does find him guilty, and it's pretty likely that they will (guilty or innocent)... Julian Assange will lose at least a bit of support once he is a convicted criminal, so there's a win for the prosecutor over the current situation there too.

Edit: Furthermore, they sent a letter, which says "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the Embassy."

The only way that this can happen is by invoking the "Under National Security" clause of said act. If Julian Assange is arrested in the embassy, then the UK must consider him a national security risk for this arrest to be valid under UK law. If that happens, it's a very, very serious bending, if not breaking, of the law.

Edit 2: And lastly, Julian Assange presented himself to the Swedish authorities before, in Sweden, for questioning. But they decided that they weren't going to press charges. That was on the 30th of August 2010, almost two years ago. I quote from Wikipedia: "On 1 September 2010, Swedish Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny decided to resume the preliminary investigation concerning all of the original allegations. On 18 August 2010, Assange applied for a work and residence permit in Sweden. On 18 October 2010, his request was denied. He left Sweden on 27 September 2010. The Swedish authorities have asserted that this is the same day that they notified Assange's lawyer of his imminent arrest."