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Julian Assange could be locked up until 2020

by on21 August 2015


But at least he is not in prison

Julian Assange, the man who managed to make other people's leaks all about him, could be locked up in the Ecuadorean Embassy until 2020.

Assange has refused to be extradited to Sweden to answer some embarrassing questions about a couple of sexual assaults on women, or dates as they call them in his native Australia.

He has said to anyone who listens that the sexual assault charges are all part of a cunningly plan by the US to get him extradited. The only problem there is that if the US had a cunning plan the UK would have been happy to send extradite him, whereas Sweden would have been more cautious.

Assange did what all innocent people would have done. He jumped bail and hid in an Embassy confident that world opinion would demand his presence and overlook his tendency to have sex in any way he liked.

Some Swedish charges against Assange have expired, but a rape charge will be open until August 17, 2020.

Assange's defence coordinator, Baltasar Garzon, said his client's aim is to clarify that his persecution is for political reasons.

Ecuador's Foreign Ministry says Quito has regularly shown it is willing to facilitate an open and legal process with Sweden.

However it is fairly clear that is not going to happen. The UK is not going to let Assange go anywhere other than Sweden and the Swedes are not going to interview him on his terms.

The net result of all this is that Assange has been side-lined, his organisation has his sexual abuse case hanging over it and he will end up doing three times more time than he would have done if he had been found guilty.  

He has jailed himself and given himself an even longer sentence than he would have gotten going to Sweden.   His paranoid dogma has locked itself into his karma without leaving the windows open a small gap.

Apparently conditions in the embassy, which is not really designed for this sort of thing, are not much better than a Swedish prison. At least there you get a bit of exercise. One has to wonder if Assange's own paranoia and arrogance painted him into a corner. If he had gone to Sweden the case would likely have gone his way and he would have been home and hosed.

If it hadn't he would have been out in a year at the most. He might have had a few reputation problems, but at the moment he has those anyway.

Sweden would have been unlikely to allow a US extradition (in fact it never asked the UK for one). While the US wanted Bradley Manning banged up, the thought of having Assange in the country, even if it was in one of its prisons, probably filled the US with dread.

Last modified on 21 August 2015
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