'He might be a rat bag, but he's our rat bag': Australian MPs call for Assange's extradition to US

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Two Australian MPs have called for Boris Johnson to intervene in the US extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and said it should be dropped as: “He might be a rat bag, but he’s our rat bag.”

Liberal National Party MPs George Christensen and Andrew Wilkie, who co-chair a parliamentary group called ‘Bring Julian Assange Home’, spoke to journalists in London on Tuesday ahead of the first day of the extradition hearing next week.

Mr Christensen said during a press conference on Tuesday the extradition process was a threat to journalism, free speech and democracy and Assange’s case was “inherently wrong”.

Assange faces 18 charges, including conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer and is accused of working with former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak classified documents.

https://news.yahoo.com/might-rat-bag-rat-bag-183540625.html

[Baitball Blogger]

1. Great. Now Boris Johnson has leverage to negotiate with Trump.

Remember the good ole days when our leaders weren't so corrupt? They had to be smart enough to work within the system in order to get things done. Nowadays it seems that blackmail is quicker and surer.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. (a) It's the Home Secretary, not the PM, who makes the decision

(b) it seems to me that Priti Patel will need specific grounds to refuse extradition, if the court says it's OK:

The Secretary of State must order extradition unless the surrender of a person is prohibited by certain statutory provisions in the 2003 Act. The requested person may make any representations as to why they should not be extradited within 4 weeks of the case being sent to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is not required to consider any representations received after the expiry of the 4 week period.

Extradition is prohibited by statute if:

the person could face the death penalty (unless the Secretary of State gets adequate written assurance that the death penalty will not be imposed or, if imposed, will not be carried out)
there are no speciality arrangements with the requesting country – ‘speciality’ requires that the person must be dealt with in the requesting state only for the offences for which they have been extradited (except in certain limited circumstances)
the person has already been extradited to the UK from a third state or transferred from the International Criminal Court and consent for onward extradition is required from that third state or that Court (unless the Secretary of State has received consent)
If none of these prohibitions apply, the Secretary of State must order extradition. Or, if surrender is prohibited, the person must be discharged.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review