The judge’s approved bailing of Julian Assange earlier this week took another turn for the bizarre today when the Swedish government revealed that they had not, despite widespread reports to the contrary, appealed the bailing decision.
Rather it was the British government themselves which decided to keep Assange in detention despite the judge’s order to release him on 240,000 pounds bail. A new British judge ordered him released again on Thursday morning.
Exactly why this was remains unclear, but the Swedish prosecutors they had no new evidence regarding Assange in the Thursday hearing. The decision, therefore, wasn’t based at all on the merits of the case for keeping Assange but entirely on Britain’s ability to select a judge more favorable to keeping him in detention. They were not successful
In the mean time Assange was held in the notorious Wandsworth prison, and his lawyer reports difficulty with prison officials in even allowing him access to his client, seemly a trivially normal request.
Some officials have argued Assange may pose a flight risk, despite the enormous size of the bail given the nature of the charges against him. The Obama Administration is said to be seeking Assange’s acquisition as well, so it could be that officials put some pressure on the British to keep him easily acquirable. Whatever the case, the hearing will unlikely be the end to what is shaping up to be a long, curious case.
CIA?
Democracy or AUTOCRACY, Stalin's way
I wonder if the recent U.S. civil suit against BP has anything to do with the British government keeping Mr. Assange in jail? It would certainly be interesting if the British government extradites Mr. Assange to the U.S., and the B.P. suit is suddenly dropped.
Good point. The US has shown that uses its "legal" system to blackmail the private sector into obeying.
Hey, isn't that something similar to what just happened in Nigeria with Halliburton and Cheney? Maybe the US has learned something after all.
Western "democracies" are ten fold more totalitarian and autocratic than anything I experienced behind the "iron" curtain, (term coined by the mass murderer turned politician).
That's obviously because they have 10 fold more "freedoms" to protect…
CIA? No, Kafka.
Western democraty is a lie as the politicians and bureaucrats can turn down civil rights as they like. This is the biggest irony that after 9/11 all the civil rights have been crushed especially for Muslims and now this exception of Aussange.
The respective govt. have their own agenda and will carry out.
9/11 has destroyed the rights of their people and blindly carrying out their mischievous behavior.
Actually we the Muslims must learn wait and see what is coming out from Pendora box.
O = W
Historically Sweden is a colony of English and England have lots of business in Sweden.., among other Telecommunications is one of them. In the other hand the monarch style relation between those whom been stealing the Swedish people wealth and hiding it in England is enormous.., Sweden have a lots to say in BP (British Petroleum and its world wide operations) as the company CEO is Swedes and have a direct connection with the Swedish Monarch family.., in many political case the Swedes secret services have cooperated with M16 or CIA.., one of which was about the Swedes helping CIA kidnapping of people with Arab decent in Scandinavian which was taking place during the Social Democrats governing the country. So it shouldn’t be a surprise where someone from the Swedish justice department have called the English and asked them for the case to be dragged on. In reality the entire show put up by those two women shows how stupid these two women are and how naïve and imprudent the Swedish justice is.
This is utter b.s. and readers of AntiWar.com will not fall for it. First; consider the nature of the legal move that postponed Mr. Assange's release. Was it another request for extradition – from another country? No. Was it a criminal charge brought by a British law enforcement agency? No. It was, as stated even in Jason's article, an appeal. An appeal is put forward by the party that lost in the previous legal skirmish. This plain fact is supported by the absolute absence of any other criminal charge pending against Mr. Assange by any other party before the British Court. Only the stupid Swedes lost. Therefore, only the stupid Swedes are entitled to an appeal. Any other charge against – or attempt to hold – Mr. Assange would be a separate case / action. CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) can't appeal "their" loss because CPS never lodged a case or action against Mr. Assange in the first place.
This is an attempt by Sweden to avoid retaliation for their u.s. driven appeal and obvious surrender of sovereignty to their u.s. puppet-masters. However, I don't think AntiWar readers will 'buy' it. The hacktivist community – the people most apt to retaliate against Sweden – probably won't 'buy' it either.
The Swedes are trying to distance themselves from the appeal by hiding behind their pro hac vice status. It goes like this: The Swedish prosecutors, of course, are not licensed to practice law in the u.k.. This impediment was overcome by the Swedes requesting permission to appear pro hac vice. Such requests are routinely put before the Court in the form of a formal written motion filed on behalf of the foreign attorneys by the local State prosecutor's office or the local State public defender's office. The foreign attorneys are then relatively free to make mistakes and to argue their case. The local prosecutor or public defender (the office who forwarded the motion to proceed pro hac vice) – is rarely mentioned in the proceedings, but the visitors operate "under the wing" of the local license holder.
The crux point here – the point left out of the news reports – is this: The Swedes needed to re-apply for pro hac vice status when THEY appealed because the appeal hearing was set to be heard in a different (higher) Court. This gave the Swedes their chance to misrepresent the situation to the press by claiming that the CPS was appealing. True, the CPS necessarily made another request for pro hac vice admittance of the Swedes in the higher Court, but this falls far short of the CPS being responsible for the appeal. They were merely used (duped) by the Sweden / u.s. team as cover. The fact that there are putative "news" reports out there claiming that the CPS appealed (someone else's) Sweden's loss is clear evidence that these Swedes (under the influence of the u.s) will say anything to cover their tracks.
Ask yourself; if Mr. Assange had lost on Tuesday, could you have appealed? Why not? That's right – only the looser has a right to appeal. Sweden lost, Sweden appealed, and then Sweden lied far and wide in an attempt to deflect the blame.
How's that for a conspiracy theory, eh?
The UK is ever so eager to wag its tail for its imperial master.
Now what do you suppose would happen if I made a Freedom of Information Act request for the diplomatic cable traffic between the US and the UK regarding Assange being kept in jail over the Pissy Swedish Blondes affair? Would they say, "By all means the USG is the servant of the people, open and forthcoming, our business IS your business, we're all about transparency, here is that correspondence."? Or do you suppose they would be less forthcoming?