[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TarJak

This is where we disagree. As a journalist he should have the ability to publish freely what is made available to him, regardless of whom it embarrasses. On the other hand he does need to answer the questions of the Swedish authorities as the courts in the UK have ruled.

Could have been done long time ago, if questioning him really would have been Sweden's priority. Questioning witnesses in diplomatic or international distorted cases like this one in a neutral setting and under dipomatic protection, has been done before, and if you go back to the beginning of thios, Assange had offered this by his own initiative. But Sweden did not show much interest in that, but put priority on getting him in its hands. Due to the dubious and highly suspicious nature of this case, the question is why. If it is a plot, a conspiracy - and secret services and foreign ministries plan such plots, don't they, this case now would in no way be a first - then Assange has all reasons to worry that the US is behind it and wants to either put him on ice eternally by putting the current pressure in him, or to get him in their own hands. The women filing the charges are dubious themselves, and not really beyond doubt about their "innocence". Sex, and claims about it, true or false, are a weapon in the arsenal of secret services and foreign ministries.

The motive and interest of the US is beyond doubt. It wants revenge for having been exposed in many things that qualify for crime and treason at highest offices. The scandal is not that these dirt was revealed - the scandal is that the dirt was done in the first, stockpiled up high, and then tried to be hidden from the American people. Instead of hating Assange, they should hate their own criminal, lying politicians right up to the ranks of the White House.

AFAIK the US has not made any movement to arrest or extradite Assange for any offence against US laws.

That means nothing, and to reapte it so often on this board is opportunistic, acted naivety. They could file and request once Assange is in a Swedish prison, and some months ago there was a short news in some papers that the Swedish have deliberatly refused to guarantee that he would not be extradited to the US. The Us knows that it would raise public opinion against itself it it files a request in advance, saying that if the swedes get Assange the Us would like to get him - the poublic outcry would be tremendous and helping Assange.

If they choose to do so then your comments may have some relevance to his case. It was Bradley Manning who leaked the information NOT Assange as he was merely the publisher. In essence his actions are no different to other journalists who have published embarrassing facts leaked to them by members of government or their agencies.

The US so I read earlier thisw years, considers to sue Assange for having hired Manning to commit acts of illegal information gathering, which then would fall under espionage laws, if I recall it correctly.

Legally, that may even be true. But the argument still stands that if politicians would not have lied in the first and get their hands deep into the dirt and betrayed the Americna people over certain issues, Manning would not have been able to collect data to give it to assange who then could uncover the faces behind the masks in a great coup.

I do not like Assange as a person, I am about the function of Wikileaks or acording organisation. I do not claim Assange has not committed rape, becasue I simply do not know the truth. But I know that the Swedish laws have some very - strange laws on what can be defined as rape under certain circumstances, which is something that has gotten international attention already before the Assange case. What I do for sure is to list why the doubts about the honest intention of the Swedes must be put into doubt, and that Assange indeed has very, very good reasons to fear that it is just an plot to get him into US custody one day, or into a prison in another country for eons to come, so that he cannot rebuild Wikileaks and start working on the funding basis of it again. Right now, it is a dead body floating in the waster - and that is definitely not to the displeasure of the US. I am sure they take grim satisfaction from it.

One thing also is clear. If one day it becomes clear that he indeed committed a rape worth the term not only by Swedish but also by international law standards, he should be serving the penalty according to Swedish laws then. And without him being extradited to the US afterwards. But until his guilt is proven and the possibility that it all is a plot, a conspiracy, is being ruled out beyond all doubt., he has to be seen as innocent. A basic principle, a pillar of Western law philosophy that is. Guild must not be assumed - it must be proven.

And when questioning him is what the Swedish police claims would help to decide whether to continue with the case or not, then one must ask why they are not interested as much in questioning him indeed as they are interested in getting him under their control and in their custody.

And one thing is clear: with so powerful enemies with long reach, like Assange has made himself, he has all reasons one could imagine to be worrying about a plot, and to be a bit paranoid.