Julian Assange bail decision made by UK authorities, not Sweden

[IScreamSundays]

Source: guardian

The decision to have Julian Assange sent to a London jail and kept there was taken by the British authorities and not by prosecutors in Sweden, as previously thought, the Guardian has learned.

The Crown Prosecution Service will go to the high court tomorrow to seek the reversal of a decision to free the WikiLeaks founder on bail, made yesterday by a judge at City of Westminster magistrates court.

It had been widely thought Sweden had made the decision to oppose bail, with the CPS acting merely as its representative. But today the Swedish prosecutor's office told the Guardian it had "not got a view at all on bail" and that Britain had made the decision to oppose bail.

Lawyers for Assange reacted to the news with shock and said CPS officials had told them this week it was Sweden which had asked them to ensure he was kept in prison.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/15/julian-assange-bail-decision-uk

[mainer]

1. Someone is lying. No one wants to be the bad guy.

Stranger and stranger.

Maybe Sweden's upset that their prosecution website was attacked?

[bemildred]

16. Yep, nobody wants to be the guy left holding the bag.

Sound judgement, that.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Trumped charges are falling apart?

Looks like everyone is running for cover. I would guess all involved will go into full CYA mode in the next 24 hrs.

[redirish28]

3. Sweden and UK know they don't have a leg to stand on with the World

Population (for the most part) But unfortunately the U.S. Government is pulling the strings placing them between a rock and a hard place.

[Bette Noir]

4. In the meantime, one of the guys who provided the leaks Assange published

has been in solitary confinement, without trial, for 7 months.

http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/12/14/manning

[BenzoDia]

6. This man has been forgotten in all this.

[EFerrari]

15. Write to Amnesty International and ask them to look into Manning's detention.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/contact

[fascisthunter]

9. sick

[Poll_Blind]

5. The Crown Prosecution Service is doing this on their own, another indication of the purely political

...nature of this rolling sham.

There is very little about this case that holds any water and the behavior of all the prosecuting elements involved (except for Interpol, I suppose, which was just going along with requests made of it) are beyond "fishy".

America doesn't have any kind of real case against Assange but I don't think that's going to stop them from using all the pressure they can to have the British hold him until they can work out some cozy agreement to extradite him directly to the United States. This is just my thinking given how far down the tubes the Swedish case is.

PB

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. I vote for "neither". -nt

[dipsydoodle]

8. If they do keep him banged up

I think we can reasonably expect some really startling stuff to be released by Wikileaks in retaliation.

I'd have been surprised if Sweden could've got the oar in with our CPS on the bail issue.

If they fail to be release him on bail I thnk the next step is the European Court of Human Rights.

[Matilda]

10. I would hope that the decision to oppose bail will be treated with the contempt it deserves,

but I'm not holding my breath.

There is so much injustice in this case, from Manning to Assange to the right of Wikileaks to exist, it makes you realise that nothing has changed since the worst excesses of the Bush-Blair era.

[CHIMO]

11. What A Tangled

Web!

[Blacksheep214]

12. All because of a broken condom

You must be shitting me!

[lovuian]

13. I heard Sweden was a Nazi country...this kinda says it

they are really showing their colors bowing to America

[EFerrari]

14. This story shows Britain is just as actively working to deny Assange his rights

as Sweden is.

Sick.

[Swagman]

17. So the British CPS is appealing a case that involves a man not charged with any crime,

.... having seen no so-called evidence of a crime and who is wanted for alleged 'crimes' that are not crimes under British law.:puke:

Britain.. on the slide to fascism

[Turborama]

18. Yep, how can a Brit who has been implicated in the murder of his wife in South Africa get bail...

...and at the same time a man who hasn't actually been charged with having sex without a condom in Sweden (or anything else, anywhere else) has his bail refused and is held in solitary confinement in remand in a British jail?

:shrug:

The case in the subject line I'm referring to:

Shrien Dewani granted bail over honeymoon death
Judge says British newlywed unlikely to skip extradition hearing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/10/shrien-dewani-bail-honeymoon-death

[Turborama]

19. Self delete of dupe n/t

[kgnu_fan]

20. So who is ordering The Crown Prosecution Service, if they are not advocating Sweden?

[denem]

21. Britain - not Sweden - (Opposed) Assange bail

Source: The Age

AUTHORITIES in Britain - not Sweden - made the decision to keep Julian Assange in jail, appealing a magistrate's decision to grant him bail if he wears electronic tags.

The Crown Prosecution Service was to argue in the High Court overnight that the 39-year-old WikiLeaks founder should be held in London's Wandsworth Prison until the case for extradition to Sweden can be prepared and heard.

Until yesterday, it had been widely believed that it was Sweden and its prosecutors who considered Assange to be a flight risk despite requirements of £240,000 in bail and surety, strict curfews, surrender of passport and his confinement to the country estate of supporter Henry Vaughan Smith.

But the Swedish prosecutors have now confirmed that Sweden ''does not have a view at all on bail'' and it was Britain that opposed it.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/britain--not-sweden--opposing-assange-bail-20101216-18zli.html

---

Sweden did not ask for imprisonment at any time.

CONFIRMED BBC World Service: Swedish prosecution officials deny, point blank, that any request was made for Julian Assange to be held on remand. They quote a Crown Prosecution service letter acknowledging that the actions were being taken by the British Government.

[LaurenG]

22. I am sure it was the US. nt

[gateley]

23. Gee, I wonder who did? USA! USA! USA! nt

[gateley]

24. I am so disgusted by how we're handling this (and by "we're" I mean our government).

Bushco may have been worse, but not much.

And what we're doing with the kid who released the info to WikiLeaks ... Unconscionable .

[Pavulon]

25. The kid is an adult with an Intelligence MOS

who committed a felony for each document he disclosed. The real interesting part is when the kid takes the stand against assange in a conspiracy trial.

[kgnu_fan]

26. Pavulon, I know you are for Military Industrial Complex but our government commited the war crime

and he exposed them. So you have to take everything in moral context. If that makes any sense to you.

[Pavulon]

29. So all those cables are about war crimes? the ones about securing nuclear material

and relations with china and n korea? really. Morality has nothing to do with the non war crimes cables he splattered because of his hacker ethos.

[kgnu_fan]

33. I still think you have ability to see a bigger picture

I think you are victim of your current master. There is another way of being....

US can be a part of the world, not to be so scared of everything. It is a childish solution, immature way of thinking to just destroy others to get what you want.

Instead of dominating everyone by selling weapons and killing everyone, USA can actually start exercising its democratic aspiration. I think we all need to wake up and grow up.

[Pavulon]

41. So working a diplomatic solution with china to make a N Korean collapse

a controlled event and avoid a massive war is bad? You see what you want, AmeriKKKa is evviill.

There are plenty of cables (Diplomatic data was compromise) showing the US trying to prevent conflict.

[OnyxCollie]

31. Given my research in belief systems,

I doubt that makes any sense to him.

As far as authoritarian personalities go, he might be more of a Right Wing Authoritarian ("Society will collapse if we don't stop these troublemakers") than a Social Dominance Order Authoritarian ("Society has collapsed. It's every man for himself").

Either way, it's undemocratic behavior aligned with conservative thought, and for some reason it's tolerated in the "big tent." :eyes:

[Pavulon]

38. Probably because the assange people are calling for the POTUS to resign

and since when is accepting espionage a progressive value? So the POTUS is a conservative for expressing major concerns over the events?

[OnyxCollie]

43. No.

The POTUS (acts like) a conservative for continuing (and expanding) his predecessor's policies, while collaborating with the GOP to squelch investigations by Spain of war crimes.

And you (act like) a conservative by belittling and calling for punishment for those who refuse to bow before authority, be it governmental, military, or capitalistic, even in the face of imperialistic actions.

Can't allow that to happen. THE WORLD MIGHT END.

[liberation]

28. LOL...

Will the trial be equally interesting to you once the defense starts using the actual conspiracies described in the content of the leaks to bargain with prosecutors?

[Pavulon]

30. Thats the funny thing. In traditional espionage that is a concern, so no death penalty

here the information is already loose. Manning is facing a death penalty choice.

[liberation]

32. LOL^2 "traditional espionage"

I guess this is a case of "new age espionage" Oh man, that actually rhymes... better patent it pronto!

You crack me up.

[Pavulon]

36. Yep it is, ames and pollard stole for money and nations

bradley stole for lulz, does not matter why, the charge still stands.

[gateley]

34. Okay, how they're treating the adult with an Intelligence MOS who created a felony

for each document he disclosed is unconscionable.

I don't like treatment like that of anybody, much less an American citizen.

[Pavulon]

39. Citizens are subject to federal prosecution for breaking federal laws

it is just that simple.

[gateley]

42. But we get a trial. This guy hasn't yet. Maybe because it's Military, but we're

throwing rights out the window - and human rights, too. I read the other day (maybe in that Salon article?) that some experts feel solitary is a form of torture. It sure would be for me!

And edit to add -- Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, et al, are citizens, too. :shrug:

[sirthomas66]

27. The kid is an American Hero to have revealed what the USA has

become. He should be revered.

[Hestia]

35. They are waiting for the US to make some sort of charge against him, it has nothing to do with the

Cold War tactics of sexual assault - "we" are denying his bail, and "we" are keeping him has a felon on parole. I wonder how long Britain will allow it? Shall we start a countdown of how many days he is on bail?

[EFerrari]

37. Yes, that's probably right. A man who has been charged with no crime

is being treated as a convict while the world watches.

[Pavulon]

40. He has been charged with crimes that carry 50 year term, additional

charges that can carry the death penalty will probably be added at some point. He confessed in public, so its a pretty easy call.