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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: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday May 19 2017, @07:31PM (1 child)
Now that we are in bizarro world it will the the Democrats baying for his blood and Trump's people probably calling for a lighter sentence.
What are you talking about? It looks like Trump wants Joe Lieberman to be the next FBI head, and Lieberman is already talking about how badly he wants to prosecute Assange.
It's funny how the Trumpists all think that Trump is somehow different and better from the regular politicians, and is going to do things differently instead of being beholden to various moneyed interests. Trump has already proven that wrong many times.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday May 19 2017, @10:02PM
Joe Lieberman has wanted Assange's head on a pike since 2010 or so when Wikileaks released the Collateral Murder video. And I'm speaking only somewhat metaphorically here: He was among those calling for drone strikes and shooting Assange on sight. He was also at the forefront of attempting to silence Wikileaks by cutting off their funding by calling up the major credit card processors and demanding that they refuse to process transactions for Wikileaks (you still can't donate directly).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.