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struggle4progress

(118,039 posts)
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 01:05 PM Aug 2012

Assange asylum seen as travesty of justice in Sweden

ue Aug 21, 2012 7:20pm IST

... "Assange has evolved into a megalomaniac rhetorician, who seems to have very little contact left with reality," Sweden's Svenska Dagbladet daily said after his embassy balcony speech ...

Along with other Nordic countries, Sweden sees itself as a legal safe haven and it has welcomed thousands of leftist refugees from dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s to Iraqis fleeing the U.S.-led invasion and war after 2003.

The World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index 2011 report ranked Sweden first of 66 nations on fundamental legal rights ...

"There would be a storm in the media worldwide stopping any extradition. That would be the best guarantee he would have, together with the formal conditions," said Sven-Erik Alhem, a former prosecutor and a commentator on legal matters in Sweden ...

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/21/sweden-assange-idINL6E8JKBL020120821


Alhem was called as a witness (by and for Assange) in the UK court case and testified in court that Sweden really couldn't extradite Assange to the US

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formercia

(18,479 posts)
2. Karl Rove would see to that
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 01:23 PM
Aug 2012

He advises the Swedish government on Policy.

--snip--
Rove has advised Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt for the past two years after resigning as Bush White House political advisor in mid-2007. Rove's resignation followed the scandalous Bush mid-term political purge of nine of the nation's 93 powerful U.S. attorneys.

These days, Sweden and the United States are apparently undertaking a political prosecution as audacious and important as those by the notorious "loyal Bushies" earlier this decade against U.S. Democrats.

The U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks, if successful, could criminalize many kinds of investigative news reporting about government affairs, not just the WikiLeaks disclosures that are embarrassing Sweden as well as the Bush and Obama administrations. Authorities in both countries are setting the stage with pre-indictment sex and spy smears against WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange, plus an Interpol manhunt.

"This all has Karl's signature," a reliable political source told me a week and a half ago in encouraging our Justice Integrity Project to investigate Rove's Swedish connection. "He must be very happy. He's right back in the middle of it. He's making himself valuable to his new friends, seeing the U.S. government doing just what he'd like ─ and screwing his opponents big-time."

--snip--
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig/rove-suspected-in-swedish_b_798737.html

struggle4progress

(118,039 posts)
4. Assange's witness Alhem testified in court that couldn't happen, and here he is again saying that
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 02:08 PM
Aug 2012

same thing in the newspaper

ronnie624

(5,764 posts)
6. How can he "testify" that it "couldn't happen"?
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 02:24 PM
Aug 2012

He can't possibly know what could or couldn't happen.

Pure gibberish.

struggle4progress

(118,039 posts)
7. He was Assange's witness: Assange's lawyers put Alhem on the stand and presented him as credible
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 02:31 PM
Aug 2012

If Assange's lawyers believed Alhem was spouting gibberish, they were free to say so

Instead, Assange thereafter simply chose not to argue the re-extradition issue in UK court

 

tama

(9,137 posts)
9. You can't read simple English?
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 03:04 PM
Aug 2012

Alhem does not say that "it could not happen", that is what struggle4progress says. Alhem only states his opinion about best guarantees against it happening, which are quite obvious for anyone. Public opinion (how much that helped victims of CIA renditions?) and formal guarantees - which Sweden is refusing to give, despite also your article telling it has full administrative powers to do so if it so chooses.

qb

(5,924 posts)
3. telling counterpoint from the article: "But Sweden's record is not always so clean."
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 01:56 PM
Aug 2012

Supporters of Assange point to Sweden going along with the CIA in 2001 in sending two men to Egypt during the U.S. spy agency's anti-terror campaign.

ronnie624

(5,764 posts)
5. A couple of editorials made some negative comments.
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 02:19 PM
Aug 2012

That doesn't necessarily translate into "Sweden" or even "many in Sweden".

 

tama

(9,137 posts)
8. From the article
Tue Aug 21, 2012, 02:56 PM
Aug 2012

"The government can still reject a Supreme Court decision to extradite but cannot force an extradition if the court says no to the petition."

Ie, it's ultimately administrative decision and if Swedish government wanted, it could easily give Ecuador and Assange guarantees that he won't end up in US custody during the legal process of the alleged sex offense in Sweden. But it does not want to and it's refusal speaks for itself.

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