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Swedish prosecutor has decided to discontinue the investigation against Julian Assange, who has been accused of sex crimes in Sweden. If this means that Julian is free to leave the embassy to go to Ecuador or not remains to be seen.
takyon: It does not mean that Assange is free to leave the embassy at this time, although his lawyer is asking for an arrest warrant to be dropped:
The London Metropolitan Police, however, made it clear in a statement that there is an outstanding arrest warrant for Assange. "Westminster Magistrates' Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange following him failing to surrender to the court on the 29 June 2012. The Metropolitan Police Service is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy," it read.
The maximum penalty for breaching bail is up to a year in prison or a fine.
The police also recognized that Assange is now "wanted for a much less serious offense" and said they would "provide a level of resourcing which is proportionate to that offense."
It remains unclear whether there is a standing U.S. extradition order for Assange. The policy of Britain's Home Office is to neither confirm nor deny extradition orders until such time as a person has been arrested in relation to an order. Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he was stepping up efforts to arrest Assange as part of a broader fight against those who leak secrets into the public domain.
Also at BBC and The Guardian.
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @06:10PM (15 children)
I know how Assange can leave the Ecuadorian embassy.. The problem is he can't leave it horizontally because then any ground transport or air travel will be intercepted. But vertical escape is not covered that easily. So start shipping an excavator in parts to build a underground rocket facility and ship the soil out the same way. Then ship the rocket parts and assembly it on site. Once finished, ride the rocket to the Kármán line and down to a landing site of his choosing.
Or just build a tunnel to another building and exit through a diplomatic box. Which by convention cannot be inspected.
Messy and costly but it can be done! :-)
Enjoy the plan while listening to Ecuador [youtube.com].. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)
Yes yes but how are SpaceX and The Boring Company involved?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @07:27PM
The Russkies are probably more interested in this ;)
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday May 19 2017, @07:59PM (5 children)
Sure he can exit through the tunnel to the diplomatic box, but he still has to show his passport at the boarder (tunnel, boat, or airplane). That is where he will be stopped and arrested. The officers at the embassy are only there to prevent him from using the front door and can tip off the board security when he leaves out the back (or box in this example).
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by nekomata on Friday May 19 2017, @08:15PM (3 children)
By that logic he would get a speeding ticket for riding a rocket beforehand.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @08:25PM (2 children)
Yeah... "Assange caught on low orbit by London police after a rocket chase. Gets a speeding fine, will fight the ticket in court"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 19 2017, @08:28PM (1 child)
"Assange Skips Bail, Heads to Mars"
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @09:02PM
The lawyer speaking on behalf of him says "Fuck you Musk, I got there first" :-)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @09:04PM
The fine print of diplomatic box or bags etc is that they are exempt from customs. And boxes are not processed as humans, so no "papiren BITTE".
Hmm, maybe the embassy needs to send some furniture home.. :p
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday May 19 2017, @09:28PM (6 children)
Much easier than that: As an Ecuadorian citizen Assange can be listed as part of embassy staff. Then he can be officially given the diplomatic bag to take to Ecuador. The holder of the diplomatic bag has ABSOLUTE immunity and cannot be arrested. If the UK does this - well, their diplomats everywhere and anywhere can be arrested and UK diplomatic documents seized.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday May 19 2017, @10:46PM
None of that helps us to recreate that scene in Spies Like Us where a huge box is shipped to Ecuador, you pop open the front, and see Assange in a recliner with beer cans and empty pork rind bags laying around him....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @11:22PM (1 child)
So why are they not doing that? it seems very simple and cost effective.
The story has a lot of similarities with József Mindszenty in 1956 who fled the Soviet intrigues and had to stay inside the US Embassy for 15 years and then got a negotiated free pass out. And these types of events seems to have a history back until 1726 [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Saturday May 20 2017, @03:38AM
Because the UK would probably just grab him anyway.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Saturday May 20 2017, @01:33AM (2 children)
Much easier than that: As an Ecuadorian citizen Assange can be listed as part of embassy staff. Then he can be officially given the diplomatic bag to take to Ecuador. The holder of the diplomatic bag has ABSOLUTE immunity and cannot be arrested. If the UK does this - well, their diplomats everywhere and anywhere can be arrested and UK diplomatic documents seized.
Hmm, I don't know. the UK (and the USA and other NATO countries) have clearly shown consistent disregard for international law when it is in their interest, on the pretext of "might makes right". Assange and Snowden are great examples, such as with the grounding of the Bolivian presidents plane on the suspicion Snowden was on it, and the UN itself lambasted the UK for their behavior against Assange as a violation of international law, to which the response from the UK was the diplomatic equivalent of the middle finger.
Not to mention the kidnap and torture of people. and the invading, bombing, forced redrawing of borders and overthrowing foreign governments if they are not subservient enough. All of which are violations of international law as well. Quite frankly it would be quicker to list the times that international law had not been violated by them.
I can fully imagine they take action if they had to, and claim this was a "one off", or otherwise threaten retribution to any countries that wish to reciprocate such action against their diplomats. Hypocrisy is pretty much a requirement in politics from what I can see, so would not surprise me for it to happen.
Of course, I try to not be a complete pessimist all the time, so I am hopeful this is really the end for Assange, and he can get out of that place as a free man (what an awful life, so many years stuck in a tiny London flat. That sofa he has been sleeping on all this time must really reek by now).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 20 2017, @08:33AM (1 child)
What? You reckon they'd arrest the sofa as well if it goes out to be cleaned, or changed?
Or are you of the people that never clean or change sofas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 20 2017, @03:46PM
They send it out to be cleaned and it comes back with bugs.