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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Judge blasts Assange for jumping bail, sentences him to almost one year
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for fleeing to the Ecuadorian embassy in London while on bail in 2012. At the time, he was facing possible extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.
Assange remained in the embassy until last month, when he was evicted by his Ecuadorian hosts and re-arrested by British authorities.
Wednesday's sentencing is unlikely to be the end of Assange's legal problems. Shortly after he was re-arrested last month, US authorities unsealed an indictment charging him with conspiring with Chelsea Manning to crack a hashed password belonging to a Pentagon computer in 2010. At the time, Manning was an Army private leaking confidential military documents to WikiLeaks. Assange was unable to learn the password, but the US argues that his attempt is sufficient to charge him with conspiracy.
In a letter to the court, Assange argued that he had fled to the embassy out of fear that he'd be extradited to the United States and wind up being held indefinitely at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Also at BBC, The Guardian, CNET, and The Register.
Previously: Inadvertent Court Filing Suggests that the U.S. DoJ is Preparing to Indict Julian Assange
U.S. Ramping Up Probe Against Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Says
Ecuador Denies That Julian Assange Will be Evicted From Embassy in London
Wikileaks Co-Founder Julian Assange Arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London
Julian Assange Associate Arrested In Ecuador
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 3, Informative) by bussdriver on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:52PM
They will have to pull even more crazy stuff to bring expired laws back. Even then the main crime they started with in Sweden was a dead law their court threw out before that 2 experts back then said would be similar to "involuntary rape" in the USA which is why it failed to be successfully used before wikileaks. Making the whole thing even less credible; aside from the fact they dropped the whole thing and let him leave their country until another the USA found another official to bring up charges to grab him. Remember, years later saying they couldn't do video interviews despite doing video interviews for MURDER suspects.
The PURPOSE is to make an example out of anybody who messes with the empire even if they are not under jurisdiction or working as press. The smear campaign (some of which was leaked) has continued and worked pretty well. Assange hasn't helped himself either... Any FAIR person would give him time served, 9 years vs 1 of a nice British prison... If he had known that was all, he'd have volunteered to only lose 1 year of his life.
NOTE: Hillary people FORGET it was the FBI, not Wikileaks! She rebounded from the email leak; the email issue existed before the leak. The last second illegal FBI announcment about NEW emails that came from her assistant's laptop; had nothing to do with Wikileaks. Mostly likely it would have had a BIGGER negative impact if it wasn't the 2nd leak of her emails. But forget that, we love Comey now so lets forget the attack on the Free Press.