Assange Requests Asylum In Ecuador

david.emery writes "Julian Assange, his appeals in the United Kingdom having run out, today went to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to request asylum from his pending extradition to Sweden to face questioning for 'unlawful coercion and sexual misconduct including rape.'"

Re:how is he going to leave the UK?

[betterunixthanunix]

I am not entirely sure what the UK government would do if Ecuador granted asylum in this case. It would certainly be harmful to diplomatic relations if the UK refused to honor the asylum i.e. refused to allow Assange to enter the Ecuadorian embassy or travel to Ecuador. Maybe the UK government is willing to pay that prive to send Assange to Sweden; I am not sure what is worth more, Assange being questioned by Swedish police or diplomatic relations with Ecuador. I suspect the latter; the UK has little to lose from sending Assange to Ecuador, and if the Swedes and Ecuadorians have a diplomatic fallout over it, the UK can at least stay in the clear.

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Re:Dumb reading

[Ironhandx]

Way to drink the kool-aid. That or you are astro turfing.

He's not even being charged by the women involved anymore. The women suddenly wanted to charge him AFTER they were approached by a swedish prosecutor. They later attempted to drop the charges, were told they couldn't, eventually succeeded in dropping the charges, only to have the charges somehow re-instituted by a swedish prosecutor with known high up US ties under pressure from the swedish government.

This is all as reported by the SWEDISH Press. Stop fucking astro-turfing to attempt to cover this shit up. This is the most blatant abuse of power by the US over its allies I've ever seen.

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Re:[Stupid] move

[mrbester]

He was given permission to leave Sweden. So he did. Then something weird and as yet unexplained happened and another prosecutor decided he was guilty of something without including the two women the original questioning had been about.

I've never heard of this "have to be in Sweden to be questioned by a prosecutor" before. Presumably neither Assange nor his lawyers have as well. The prosecutor was asked several times to come to London during the last 450+ days of house arrest but refused without saying why.

If a prosecutor is enough of a "judicial authority" (not in this country they aren't) to authorise a EAW then the Swedish embassy is Swedish enough to be a venue for questioning.

Re:Dumb reading

[InspectorGadget1964]

Julian Assange has not been charged with any crime in Sweden. There is a request for extradition to question him in relation to allegations of having sex without wearing a condom, which is in itself dubious as extraditions have in the past only been granted for convicted criminals. To extradite someone for questioning is a world first. And top pretend that a country like the USA has nothing to do with it is naive to say the least. The USA uses financial and political pressure to force countries that cannot invade to strip down and bend over. They even kill people arbitrarily without due process! If I were Julian Assange, I would have been running long ago.

Re:Smart move

[SplashMyBandit]

I'm in New Zealand where the US FBI is getting the NZ Government to charge the owner of MegaUpload 'Kim DotcCom' on their behalf. There is nothing wrong with this, it is part of NZs responsibilities. However, the FBI have been duplicating the MegaUpload harddrives while in New Zealand despite not being permitted to.

In short, the FBI broke New Zealand law. Maybe the US would respect Ecuadorean law if Assange were there, maybe they wouldn't. The USA does more good things than people give them credit for, and I personally am pretty pro-US, but the evidence is the US flouts international laws and norms when it suits them.

If I were Assange then seeking asylum is possibly not a bad thing (issuing an Interpol warrant for the charges he faced is pretty extreme - it shows the lengths that the Powers That Be will go to in order to silence this whistle-blower [he didn't report anything false, just made duplicity publicly known]).