Julian Assange and Wikileaks

Lol. I'd call that a huge abuse of Diplomatic Immunity if it was actually granted. I guess the Ecuadorians thought it was worth a punt just in case.

Almost sounds like they are sick of him and desperate to get him out of their hair.

I’m still surprised they haven’t put him in a large diplomatic bag and smuggled him out.

I forgot about this thread for a while, but since I'm here I'll just get right back in it, starting with a reply to Jovian - well, after I apologise for letting this post bloat as much as it did, as I kept thinking of new ways to try to speak as clearly as possible:

First of all, I'm not trying to weasel my way out of anything when I use words like "maybe" or "perhaps" or "might" etc. We don't know, and probably never will know, all of the facts of this case, especially when it comes to the private motivations and plans of the people and institutions involved. It would be dishonest to speak as if I can be certain of something like that. I want to be clear that all that we can say here is just speculation, unless we can find a source for a fact claim.

The comment that I haven't taken seriously the possibility that Assange is lying is absolutely ludicrous, when I've made the effort to consistently speak in terms of what things seem like or what each side's representatives are saying, etc. I've also criticised Assange's comments about his suspicions regarding the case in Sweden, which clearly shows that I do believe he's probably lying there. (I do also keep pointing out that he might really believe it, as the alternative. We can't know for sure when he's lying and when he's wrong - and when, perhaps, he happens to be right, if that is the case.)

The reason I keep bringing up both the Obama and Trump AGs' position is that it might be a factor in Assange's reasoning for not changing his mind about leaving the embassy even after the charges in Sweden were dropped. If he was only worried about being tried in Sweden, he might have come out by now. If he doesn't believe he could get extradited, he could face the trial in the UK for escaping bail. Of course, he could also be trying to avoid that, even if he doesn't genuinely believe in the risk of extradition to the US. Then there's the possibility that he might be worried that surrendering now, after the Swedish case is dead, would make him look guilty in the public eye; but I doubt that he'd stay in the embassy just to save face. (Would the Ecuadorian government allow him to stay, just to save face? Who knows.)

I guess I must take the time to spell this out, even though I had thought it was quite obvious: the questions and arguments I'm responding to have to do with at least three different aspects of this case. Some of them challenge the hypothesis that Assange believes he could get extradited to the US, while others challenge the hypothesis that extradition to the US is a plausible possibility. That's why I've been speaking both in terms of the reasons Assange might have believed in the threat of extradition even if we didn't, and in terms of the reasons why extradition to the US might be a legitimate possibility.

Assange might be lying about believing it, whether the threat of extradition is real or not. Assange might believe it, whether the threat of extradition is real or not. That's four scenarios, and when you say the threat of extradition to the US wasn't the reason Assange sought asylum, I have to make the case for three of them (all but the one where Assange is lying and there's no threat of prosecution).

There's also the point that Assange might have been escaping the Swedish case, and again a similar pattern emerges: either he was worried about being tried in Sweden but not in the US; or he was not worried about being tried in Sweden, but was worried about being tried in the US; or he was worried about both; or he's not worried about either. (I think we can dismiss the last case as a possibility.) Assange claims it's scenario 3, where he's not worried about being tried in Sweden but is worried about being tried in the US. That only covers two factors, though; we should also introduce the factors of whether the threat of extradition tothe US and Sweden was real.

Even if we just accept that the threat of extradition to Sweden was always real until very recently - which I think we should - we're still left with 3 factors: was assange worried about Sweden, the US, or both; was he right to be worried about being tried in the US; and was he right to worry about being convicted in Sweden?

Most of the people posting in this thread seem to argue this case: Assange was worried about Sweden; Assange was not worried about the US; Assange was wrong to worry about the US; and Assange was right to worry about Sweden. What I'm proposing as perhaps the most likely scenario is this: Assange was worried about Sweden; Assange was worried about the US; Assange was right to worry about the US; and Assange was right to worry about Sweden. I'm very hesitant to commit to this scenario even with the expressions of uncertainty, though. It's very hard to tell what he was really thinking, and whether he was right to think it.

As I've said before, on the basis of his comments towards the Swedish case and the accusers, I'm inclined to think he's probably guilty. I can't make up my mind about whether he believes he is, though - he might think he'd win in Sweden, which he might do, even if he's guilty. (Rape cases are sometimes complicated.) In any case, the Swedish case is not even a factor any more, except when we consider the initial decision to seek asylum.

On the US stuff, on the balance of everything discussed here and in the sources I've linked, I do think he believed he would be charged by the US, and I do believe he's probably right to think that.

Both of the scenarios I've been proposing - that Assange might have believed the extradition threat and had that as his motive for seeking asylum, rather than (or in addition to) the charges in Sweden; and the argument that the threat of extradition to the US seemed at least plausible - have been treated as completely ridiculous conspiracy theories on this threat, on par with the idea that the US might attack the Ecuadorian embassy in London, or that NATO might establish its own court just to try Assange. I think the scenario where the US seeks to extradite Assange is much more plausible than either of those.

I also find it quite curious that the comments from the Attorneys General from two consecutive administrations seem to be taken by some of the posters here as completely worthless as indications of the possibility of prosecution, especially when some of the related cases have actually been prosecuted. I don't believe that high-ranking officials always mean what they say, either, but I'm obviously less eager than most of the people in this thread to disbelieve them in this case, all things considered.

If we feel free to speculate that both Attorneys General were lying about this, can we also suppose that they might not be completely open about their plans in other ways - for instance, is it plausible that they're building a case against Assange without revealing their lawyers' progress in public?

Once again, we can't know for sure whether they're being honest when they say they're building a case to prosecute Assange or consider his prosecution a priority. They might be lying, or they might be telling the truth and taking their time, or waiting for Assange to turn himself in first, before they submit an extradition request or other action against him. It would not be the very first time in history that a case has been prepared in private before an arrest warrant is submitted by public prosecutors.

On the other hand, it's possible that after they spent years preparing a case against Assange, they concluded that they couldn't make any charges stick and just dropped it, while continuing to interrogate his associates and tell the press they were still on it. Maybe the grand jury and subpoenas and everything was just circus to look like they were after Assange.

Speaking of preparations to try Assange, a grand jury was opened to investigate Manning, Assange, and Wikileaks pretty soon after the leaks happened. I don't know if we're willing to consider leaked documents, or ones acquired via Freedom-of-information requests, as reliable, but if we are, there's plenty of evidence that preparations were under way to charge Assange before he sought asylum at the embassy. Most of this information - about the grand jury, for instance - was already mentioned in newspaper articles before Assange sought asylum at the embassy. (More information about the ongoing pretrial hearings and investigation has also emerged since then.)

We still can't know for sure whether there was a serious threat of extradition against Assange, or that Assange believed there was, but I really hope that by now, which the grand jury, statements from politicians and officials, subpoenad Wikileaks activists, etc, I've shown that it's plausible that there was a threat, or that at least it's plausible Assange believed there was a threat.

I think I've also shown that from late 2010 until now, US authorities have been consistent in at least pretending to be after Assange, while Assange has consistently avoided turning himself in, even when the threat of prosecution in Sweden disappeared. (As I said, he might still be worried about the charges in the UK and not thinking about the US at all - we can't know, but publicly the US is all that he worries about.)

Finally, as for the Ecuadorian citizenship and attempt to get him diplomatic immunity, that's ridiculous. At a stretch, I can see the citizenship thing - although I'm not sure how I feel about counting time spent in an embassy as equivalent to time lived in the country itself - but the granting of diplomatic immunity, or seeking it, would have been a disgusting abuse of the institutions of diplomacy and the protections given to diplomats. Just asking for it is an insult to all real diplomats and to the UK justice system.

Could anyone perhaps provide us with an article that explains the legal situation of a possible extradition to the USA and whether or not that this is a likely outcome? Because I (and perhaps other readers too) have little knowledge about this kind of thing, perhaps there are precedents which might have encouraged Assange in his conviction.

See I think Assange’s concern about the US are genuine in that he holds them, but false in that they’re not grounded in reality.

I’m sure that in his mind the Sweden case is just a smokescreen or was a CIA honey trap, he fears it because he thinks that the Swedish authorities are out to get him (I’m sure he doesn’t think of himself as a rapist, few rapists do), he also fears extradition to the US, becuse he thinks that the US government (or at least the US government under Obama has a personal hatred of him and wants him dealt with). Now obviously he’s stuck in the embassy because of his own pride (he can’t admit that the US isn’t after him, even if he came to terms with it himself), his parnaoia (which I’m sure has gotten worse with his isolation) and because he (rightly) fears that the UK authorities aren’t going to let him get away with skipping bail.

I don’t think the risk of US extradition is real, or at least that it wasn’t under Obama, sure the AG said they were looking at it, and I’m sure they were, but the US didn’t want another Wikileaks so they can’t admit that they aren’t after him seriously, also I’m sure in a perfect world they would like to put him on trial.

But dollars to doughnuts I bet a political desicion was made relatively early on that he wasn’t worth it, that Wikileaks would survive without him, that he wasn’t worth making a martyr, that the diplomatic cost of getting him to the US wasn’t worth it and that the public spectacle of a trial bring everything back up wasn’t worth it.

Neither the UK or Sweden have extradition treaties with the US that cover the crimes he’s accused of (and the UK has a very one sided extradition treaty with the US), even if they did such an extradition would not be allowed by the EU due to the risk of the death penalty. Legally he has no reason to be concerned about extradition to the US unless there is a legal change in either Sweden or the UK.

edited 15th Jan '18 3:29:41 PM by Silasw

I'll list some of the stuff from the articles I've already linked.

Here's a BBC article on the difficulties the prosecution would face, from 2010.

So here's why so much attention was paid, during Manning's trial, to a chat log where Manning received assistance from an unknown person. There was an attempt to prove that this person was Assange, but the evidence was not sufficient.

That's a pretty cheeky way to build an argument in your defense before you commit the crime.

So here we see that Assange's defense would be that he's not a US government employee, and that he's a journalist. The prosecution would argue that he's not a journalist and doesn't get 1st amendment protection (which is something the current head of the CIA has said), and that he did collude with Manning in obtaining the data, rather than just publishing it. That line seemed to sink during Manning's trial. (That trial was in 2013, so between 2010 and then, it would've been hard to guess how that part of the investigation and trial would go.)

The article mentions that leakers are rarely punished, but Obama's administrations changed that: they prosecuted more people for leaking information than all previous administrations combined, so the line was very tough.

Here's another article, from 2017.

There's also an obstacle or two on the UK side, also from 2017.

The key point in that one is that if Assange was arrested, the UK would probably extradite him to Sweden first, before considering an extradition request from the US. This was before Sweden revoked the international arrest warrant, though, so now it would be between the UK's case against him for jumping bail and extradition requests after that, if any arrive.

This one, also from 2017, mostly deals with the ways in which an extradition request and trial would set a precedent. It also mentios the link between Manning and Assange:

The article also points out that the statute of limitations on some of the more obvious charges expired in 2015, so bringing charges now would be much harder than it was before then.

A former DOJ spokesperson from Obama's administration has this to say:

This one is from 2011, about the grand jury. This stuff goes over some of the general information about the case in the US, so it doesn't necessarily focus on the extradition.

It's worth noting that some of the charges mentioned in the subpoena (which are further into the article) were probably being prepared against Manning, not Assange.

In 2011, the FBI, under false pretenses, carried out an investigation into some Wikileaks associates in Iceland, until the Icelandic government asked them to leave because they had lied about the purpose of their arrival in Iceland, according to the Minister of the Interior at the time. (This article is from 2013.)

The article also mentions that Wikileaks activists have been informed that Google had given over all information they had on them and their accounts as a result of a court order. One activists, who had been set to meet Assange and was collaborating with the investigation, had been asked to wear "a wire" for one of his trops to meet Assange when he was in house arrest (so before he moved to the embassy).

This article, from 2012, mostly repeats the same stuff that's already in this post, but it has, as its sources, papers from the Australian embassy to the US, which were acquired through freedom-of-information requests and confirm that a case was being prepared against Assange. (Well, either that, or the US authorities were working hard to give the Australians that impression.) A representative of the embassy was present at the Manning trial and made notes, extracts of which are included in the article. I'd summarise them here but it's just more of the same I've already mentioned, coming from a different source.

Based on all this, I think it's fair to conclude that the US were building a case against Assange from 2010 until at least 2013 and probably longer. I'd also suggest that they might have wanted to wait until Assange was arrested by the UK authorities for the Swedish case or for escaping bail before they'd issue any charges against him or an extradition request, so that he'd already be in custody. That's if they had a case built to an extent where they'd want to go with it, should the opportunity arise - and I think it seems reasonable to believe that they do have something. Recently, the DoJ has been making more noises about getting Assange, so they might have recently prepared something new, as indicated by the suggestion in one of these articles that they've found a way around the First Amendment problem.

Getting him extradited would be very difficult, though, what with the UK-US extradition treaty's terms not including extradition for espionage. They'd have to do him on theft of government property, and that's a tricky one. They would've had more luck getting him extradited on that before 2015, and then adding the espionage charge once he's in the US. Of course, we'll probably never know if that was ever the plan, either.

edited 15th Jan '18 4:44:06 PM by BestOf

Assange lost the battle against an arrest warrant issued by the Metropolitan Police Service, so it still stands.

I don't think that's very surprising. He did escape bail by seeking asylum at the embassy. I don't know what the statute of limitations on that crime is, but until that passes there's no good reason for the UK authorities to relent on this. Perhaps it would be a little bit easier on public resources to not pursue him for such a (relatively) minor crime, considering the expenses they've already sunk into surrounding the embassy, but I don't see why any country should want to have a public case where escaping bail was allowed to go unpunished.

If the UK authorities have an extradition request from the US pending, or expect one to come in in the near future, that would also be a motive for them to keep pursuing Assange for this, but it's not like they need additional motivation on top of the high profile crime, anyway.

I understand there is no statute of limitations for jumping bail (I'm on my phone and found no good sites about it so no links). So depending on how much the reduced surveillance of the embassy costs they could potentially keep this up forever. Or until Assange tries to escape or hands himself in.

It's hard to see how this will end. He's not coming out as long as he believes he could be deported to the US. The UK have no reason to let up, and even if somehow the US would promise not to seek extradition - perhaps after the stature of limitations on his crimes in the US system expires - he'll still be prosecuted in the UK for escaping bail (the punishment for which will probably be much less severe than the practical imprisonment in the embassy).

To be consistent with his statements about this, he'd have to surrender when there's no threat from the US - so presumably a couple of years from now, when the case against him expires.

A sort of outside-the-box solution could come if the UK authorities decide that the time at the embassy would make up for any sentence that would be given for jumping bail, so he could maybe get away with just paying a fine; but again, I don't see any good reason why the UK should be so lenient here. There's little to gain from it, other than having all this just be over ASAP.

Breach of bail conditions have no statutes of limitations of them.

In the UK, criminal offences carry no statute of limitations. There are certain exceptions, if the criminal offences are of the type that can be tried in a magistrate's court instead of the higher courts, but these get called summary offences.

In England and Wales, things like breaches of contract or civil action or debt claims can have statute of limitations, but the general rule is that if it's ambiguous as to whether an action or offence would be eligible for a limitation then the default is to assume it's not eligible. Even offences or actions that are typically eligible for limitations can have that statute overridden if there is deemed to be sufficient need.

edited 14th Feb '18 9:29:32 AM by Wyldchyld

Yeah he could genuinely end up staying in there until one of three things happens.

• He dies.
• The embassy is moved and he is arrested.
• He is smuggled out is a oddly shaped diplomatic bag.

About that 2nd situation, what happens to Assange if Ecuador withdraws its embassy/the UK expels them (for whatever reason)? Does he have to walk out and be detained by the Met, or does he have any sort of protection?

He has nothing, so either the Met go in and get him or he walks out to them.

Note that diplomatic protection doesn’t get dropped automatically, so if the UK revoked the buildings diplomatic status it would hold for a certain amount of time before lapsing. So he’d have a few days/weeks to try and hide in the moving van that woudl still be under diplomatic immunity.

Diplomatic immunity even once revoked has a grace period for the involved diplomats to pack their stuff and leave in an orderly fashion.

edited 14th Feb '18 2:48:37 PM by Silasw

Of course, though at some point he'd probably be detected, likely at an airport.

Listening to the judge about it she almost sounded like she wished a drone strike on the embassy, given how damning she was. I'm all for Assange facing justice for what he had actually done but she sounded more vengeful, came across as he must pay.

Even if he was detected nothing could be done, diplomatic immunity is serious business, if he’s inside a diplomatic bag he’s safe.

Judges don’t take people defying the justice system lightly, if people were able to just tell the justice system to fuck off ti would bring the entire system down.

Oh that. I assumed he'd eventually have to get out of the bag, but then I remembered that stunt was pulled a few times getting people across the Iron Curtain.

Remains to be seen if his hosts are willing to go the extra mile to protect him.

Like I said I'm all for justice and if Assange is guilty then he should pay. The judge however came across to me as a Hanging Judge, almost the way the justice system was in the case of Lindsey Chamberlain where the police said, "If you beat this charge we'll find something else to arrest you for," vengeful.

Bag is just a term, a diplomatic bag can be a large packing crate or a car, he can get in the bag, the bag can be carried to the airport and put onto a diplomatic plane and the plane can fly out fo the country.

The thing is doing that is a massive fuck you to diplomatic protocol, there’s a reason it was done so rarely even during the Cold War, because you’re basicly daring the other side to start seriously fucking with you and abusing the rules themselves, that’s without the risk of them just going “yeah fuck this shit” and ignoring the rules of diplomatic immunity.

You take the piss with diplomatic immunity to much and “regretful incidents” where “lone actors” show “totally unpredictable and completely regrettable” disregard for diplomatic immunity tend to crop up.

Assange is undeniably guilty of the crime being discussed, that of skipping bail.

Even if he was proven 100% innocent of rape he’d still be going to jail, because skipping bail is a crime and you don’t ge to commit crimes just because you didn’t do the crime you’re initially accused of.

edited 14th Feb '18 3:19:14 PM by Silasw

I see we have someone tone policing a judge.

@Silasw: I don't suppose that there is a fourth option of the Ecuadorian government finally giving up on him after a few more years?

IIRC, the MPS withdrew surveillance teams due to the racking cost.

It’s possible, they can kick him out whenever they like, though I think he’s been a valuable propaganda tool for the Ecuadorian government.

The physical teams were withdrawn, there’s still probably somebody assigned to check CCTV for the area every so often.