SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is finally being questioned by prosecutors more than six years after he was first accused of rape in Sweden.
Ingrid Isgren, Sweden's deputy chief prosecutor, arrived at the Ecuadorian Embassy this morning, according to The Guardian, ending a stalemate which began in 2012 when the South American nation offered Assange political asylum on the grounds that he faced political persecution from the United States.
Assange claims that the rape accusations, which he denies, are part of a plot to extradite him to the United States that would swing into action were he to answer prosecutors' questions in the Scandinavian country.
The interview suggests some forward movement is being made in the diplomatic deadlock between Ecuador and Sweden regarding the arrangements for Swedish prosecutors to talk to Assange in the embassy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:34PM
One part of the story you are conveniently leaving out: Assange's lawyers offered for Assange to return to Sweden in exchange for an agreement from Sweden that they would not turn him over to the US regardless of whether he was guilty of the crime he's being investigated for. Sweden refused. Which is basically an acknowledgement that that was the plan all along. The UK, for its part, has made it clear that it will violate diplomatic protocols if necessary to stop Assange from leaving the Ecuador embassy.
The US worked with several EU allies to ground and search the plane of President Evo Morales of Bolivia because they thought Edward Snowden was on board. That's about as serious a diplomatic violation as you can get (imagine if, say, Russia or China had stopped and searched Air Force One). So the idea that they will break the rules to get their hands on Assange is not far-fetched in the slightest.
A UN body investigated whether the threat to Assange from the US was real. They determined it was.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 15 2016, @05:15PM
> Which is basically an acknowledgement that that was the plan all along.
Nope. They asked the UK to extradite him. The process went through after many petitions and appeals.
Why is the Swedish prosecutor at fault for waiting out the process, rather than caving to the demands of someone who is already guilty of breaching his UK bail?
> The UK, for its part, has made it clear that it will violate diplomatic protocols if necessary to stop Assange from leaving the Ecuador embassy.
Which is why they stormed the embassy and took him, rather than spend millions having a police van parked in front waiting for him to get out.
There was that bit about not letting the ambassador drive away with an Assange-size diplomatic luggage, which is a reminder that embassy privileges are maintained by playing nice with your hosts. Ecuador didn't call that bluff, so we won't know whether the UK would have made good on the threat (diplomacy, yay!) or just uninvited any ambassadors for a few years.