There are a range of opinions in this piece masquerading as 'facts'.

For example: the reason why it would be easier to extradite Assange to the US from Sweden is because of the weight of public opinion. In the UK there would likely be a massive protest; not so in Sweden. Whatever the legal position (and I don't in fact believe the claim that the Swedes would have to ask the UK - this depends I think on that extradition being seen as part of the same EAW process; quite likely there are ways round that e.g. release him after his short jail term then re-arrest him on his way to the airport) this is the reason why an extradition from Sweden might be preferred. This is so even if the Swedes do ask the UK. It is still much easier for the UK to agree if he is out of the country. There will be less public protest and it will be easier to manage.

The claim is made the extradition from Sweden to the US is a matter for the Supreme Court. I have not read the treaty but the Assange camp is claiming that the Executive is empowered by the treaty to block political extraditions.

Based on the above Sweden clearly can issue a guarantee in advance that it would not accede to the extradition request.

'The Swedes should interview Assange in London". David Green (deliberately one imagines) confuses two points here. Yes; it is a valid argument that the process in Sweden is different and there is an intent to charge which the British courts have accepted. However no convincing reasons are given by the Swedish prosecutor for not doing a video interview and the British courts have just accepted this.

Whether Ecuador is a bastion of press freedom is not relevant to the legal merits of the case.

So out of 5 'myths' which Mr Green claimed to be busting we find that he has busted 1 1/2 and made up the rest. Who is he working for?

Never have I seen so much baloney bartered between the deaf!! It is all set at nought by one simple fact - neither the UK or Sweden will extradite if the party concerned may be charged with an offence carrying the death penalty. So vis-a-vis his risk of a capital charge in the USA Asange is in no different postion whether he is in the UK or Sweden. That leaves him with just one reason to avoid going back to Sweden - to avoid trial on rape charges.

Having said that, what horrifies me is a British government prepared to break the oldest of agreements between nations which even at the height of the cold war and in terrorist stuations no government has ever previously threatened: To revoke international law on the protection of diplomatic prescence and asylum in foreign lands. Now there is a real threat to accepted norms of international behaviourand to the upholding of civilised standards.

#3: "It would not be legally possible for Swedish government to give any guarantee about a future extradition, and nor would it have any binding effect on the Swedish legal system in the event of a future extradition request."

It would not be LEGALLY possible but it is POLITICALLY possible. If the Swedish prosecutor is serious about getting Assange for the rape charges, and the rape charges only, it should get the government to guarantee that Assange will not be extradited to the US.

The government cannot control the judiciary of Sweden, which may well agree to extradite Assange, but it is the Swedish police/ prison/ law enforcement authorities that will eventually physically coordinate the extradition with the American authorities. The Swedish government can tell them not to obey a court order.

Yes this would be an extraordinary and illegal measure, but this is an extraordinary situation with an alleged rapist hiding out in an embassy, and Sweden must be prepared to take extraordinary steps if it is sincere about bringing Assange to justice and it this is really not a "witch hunt."

how does discussion of press freedom in Ecuador rate as a 'legal myth' - this makes the whole article taste of a job done by a tired home journo on a freedom hacker from down under

HOW TO BRING THE WHOLE THING TO AN END NOW: LET OFF THE BLOODY FIRE ALARM IN THE EMBASSY - FLUSH HIM OUT.

The major problem with extradition is that innocence is not considered a valid defence. The legal theory is that, provided that due process is followed, there is no harm done to the defendant: it fails to realise that extradition is itself a de-facto punishment rather than merely a process.

I'd like to see Assange face down his accusers - but if it were your name on the list at peopleokwithmurderingassange.com, would you take the chance?

Assange has evolved into a megalomaniac rhetorician, who seems to have very little contact left with reality. Assange's speech from the embassy balcony focused on what he saw as his persecution by the United States, but did not mention the allegations against him.

Thank you fro the wide ranging and interesting article and subsequent responses.

The rape allegation seems on the available evidence one that would be extremely hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt (unless there is a different burden of proof in suchcases in the Swedish justice system of which I confess to knowing very little) given that it seems solely to rest on 'he said she said' competing testimony.

Rape is a notoriously difficult charge to convict in the UK, and on such evidence it would surely be unlikely to even reach a court room, were these alleged offenses to have taken place here - whether or not it's true that sex with someone who is asleep can constitute rape in both jurisdictions - simply because it would be unlikely thatthe evidence as stated would support a sound conviction in this country.

I'm more than happy to concede that I may not be correct in this opinion, as I'm no legal expert - but it does seem to me that the response of the UK government appears to be massively disproportional for a case that would be unlikely to be prosecuted in this country.

i agree with almost everything in this article, except
"It will only be concluded when Julian Assange is surrendered to Sweden and has been interrogated."

considering they let him go, and told him he could go, why do they need him in person? strange that they would do that, if his being there was so important.

if the preliminary investigation is completed on interrogation, as would be suggested by the comment from the prosecutor, that interrogation could be completed in the UK.

in an opinion submitted to the high court, it was given that the interrogation could be done in the UK.

it seems odd to say that he doesn't need more questioning, considering they said he needs more questioning. it seems odd that he needs to be there for that questioning considering they said he could leave the country.

this is a legal opinion she gives. it goes against other legal opinion. i suppose, as is often the case, that this is a matter of interpretation. to present what she has said as fact, as opposed to opinion, is misleading. i do not believe her interpretation, largely because of her previous conduct in the case.

people may want to look up "assange case opinion sven erik scribd" on the internet for an alternative opinion

Since, in the opinion of the author, the accused is under no threat, I suggest that he read pages 138 to 143 of Tom Bigham's "The Rule of Law " to bring himself into the real world.

The following article gives a somewhat different perspective.

Something Rotten in the State of Sweden: 8 Big Problems with the ‘Case’ Against Assange
by Naomi Wolf

Exclusive to News from Underground

Now that Andrew Kreig, of the Justice Integrity Project, has confirmed Karl Rove’s role as an advisor to the Swedish government in its prosecution of Julian Assange on sexual misconduct charges, it is important that we note the many glaring aberrations in the handling of Assange’s case by the authorities in Sweden.

Dr. Brian Palmer, a social anthropologist at Uppsala University, explained on Kreig’s radio show last month that Karl Rove has been working directly as an advisor to the governing Moderate Party. Kreig also reported, in Connecticut Watchdog, that the Assange accusers’ lawyer is a partner in the law firm Borgström and Bodström, whose other name partner, Thomas Bodström, is a former Swedish Minister of Justice. In that office, Bodström helped approve a 2001 CIA rendition request to Sweden, to allow the CIA to fly two asylum-seekers from Sweden to Egypt, where they were tortured. This background compels us to review the case against Assange with extreme care.

Based on my 23 years of reporting on global rape law, and my five years of supporting women at rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters, I can say with certainty that this case is not being treated as a normal rape or sexual assault case. New details from the Swedish police make this quite clear. Their transcript of the complaints against Assange is strikingly unlike the dozens of such transcripts that I have read throughout the years as an advocate for victims of sex crimes.

Specifically, there are eight ways in which this transcript is unusual:

1) Police never pursue complaints in which there is no indication of lack of consent.

Ask Sweden to produce ANY other police report in which any action was taken in a situation in which there is no stated lack of consent or threat of force. Police simply won’t act on a complaint if there is no indication of a lack of consent, or of consent in the face of violence. The Assange transcripts, in contrast to any typical sex crime report, are a set of transcripts in which neither of the women has indicated a lack of consent. (There is one point at which Miss W asserts she was asleep – in which case it would indeed have been illegal to have sex with her – but her deleted tweets show that she was not asleep, and subsequent discussion indicates consent.)

The Assange transcript is therefore anomalous, as it does not suggest in any way that either woman was unconsenting, or felt threatened. On this basis alone, therefore, the Assange transcript is completely aberrant.

2) Police do not let two women report an accusation about one man together.

The transcripts seem to indicate that the police processed the two accusers’ complaints together.

This is completely unheard-of in sex crime procedures; and the burden should be on Clare Mongomery, QC, or Marianne Ny, to produce a single other example of this being permitted.

Never will two victims be allowed by police to come in and tell their stories together–even, or especially, if the stories are about one man.

Indeed, this is a great frustration to those who advocate for rape victims. You can have seven alleged victims all accusing the same guy — and none will be permitted to tell their stories together.

It doesn’t matter if they coordinated in advance as the Assange accusers did, or if they are close friends and came in together: the police simply will not take their complaints together or even in the same room. No matter how much they may wish to file a report together, their wishes won’t matter: the women will be separated, given separate interview times and even locations, and their cases will be processed completely separately.

The prosecutor, rather than being able to draw on both women’s testimony, will actually have to struggle to get the judge to allow a second or additional accusation or evidence from another case.

Usually other such evidence will NOT be allowed. Miss A would have her case processed and then Miss W — with absolutely no ability for the prosecutor to draw form one set of testimony to the next.

The reason for this is sound: it is to keep testimony from contaminating separate trials–a source of great frustration to prosecutors and rape victim advocates.

Thus the dual testimonies taken in this case are utterly atypical and against all Western and especially Swedish rape law practice and policy.

3) Police never take testimony from former boyfriends.

There’s another remarkable aberration in this transcript: the report of a former boyfriend of “Miss A,” testifying that she’d always used a condom in their relationship.

Now, as one who has supported many rape victims through the reporting process, I have to say that the inclusion of this utterly atypical–and, in fact, illegal–note will make anyone who has counselled rape victims through the legal process’ feel as though her head might explode.

There’s a rape shield law in Sweden (as there is throughout Europe) that prevents anyone not involved in the case to say anything to the police, whether it be positive or negative, about the prior sexual habits of the complainant. No matter how much a former or current boyfriend may want to testify about his girlfriends’ sex practices — even if that woman wants him to — the courts will, rightly, refused to hear it, or record it, or otherwise allow it in the record.

4) Prosecutors never let two alleged victims have the same lawyer.

Both women are being advised by the same high-powered, politically connected lawyer. That would never happen under normal circumstances because the prosecutor would not permit the risk of losing the case because of contamination of evidence and the risk of the judge objecting to possible coaching or shared testimony in the context of a shared attorney.

So why would the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, allow such a thing in this case? Perhaps — bearing in mind the threat that Assange will be extradited to the US once he is in Sweden — because she does not expect to have a trial, let alone have to try to win one.

5) A lawyer never typically takes on two alleged rape victims as clients.

No attorney–and certainly no high-powered attorney– would want to represent two women claiming to have been victimized by the same man, for the reasons above: the second woman’s testimony could be weaker than the other one’s, thus lessening the lawyer’s chances of success.

There also is a danger that the judge may well object to the potential cross-contamination of the women’s stories.

Again, the only reason why a lawyer would thus weaken his own clients’ cases us that s/he does not expect the case to come to trial.

6) A rape victim never uses a corporate attorney.

Typically, if a woman needs a lawyer in addition to the prosecutor who is pursuing her case (as in the Swedish system) she will be advised by rape victim advocates, the prosecutor and the police to use a criminal attorney — someone who handles rape cases or other kinds of assault, who is familiar with the judges and the courts in these cases. She will never hire a high-powered corporate attorney who does not specialize in these cases or work with the local court that would be hearing her sex crime case if it ever got to trial. Given that a law firm such as this one charges about four hundred euros an hour, and a typical rape case takes eight months to a year to get through the courts – given that legal advice will cost tens of thousands of euros, which young women victims usually do not have access to – it is reasonable to ask: who is paying the legal bills?

7) A rape victim is never encouraged to make any kind of contact with her assailant and she may never use police to compel her alleged assailant to take medical tests.

The two women went to police to ask if they could get Assange to take an HIV test.

Sources close to the investigation confirm that indeed Assange was asked by police to take an HIV test, which came back negative. This is utterly unheard of and against standard sex crime policy. The Police do not act as medical mediators for STD testing, since rapists are dangerous and vindictive. A victim is NEVER advised to manage, even with police guidance, any further communication with her assailant that is not through formal judicial channels. Under ordinary procedures, the women’s wishes for the alleged assailant to take medical tests would be discouraged by rape victim advocates and deterred and disregarded by police.

First, the State normally has no power to compel a man who has not been convicted, let alone formally charged, to take any medical tests whatsoever. Secondly, rape victims usually fear STD’s or AIDS infection, naturally enough, and the normal police and prosecutorial guidance is for them to take their own battery of tests – you don’t need the man’s test results to know if you have contracted a disease. Normal rape kit processing–in Sweden as elsewhere–includes such tests for the alleged victim as a matter of course, partly to help prevent any contact between the victim and the assailant outside legal channels.

8) Police and prosecutors never leak police transcripts during an active investigation because they face punishment for doing so.

The full transcripts of the women’s complaints have been leaked to the US media. The only people who have access to those documents are police, prosecutors and the attorneys. Often, frustratingly, rape victims themselves cannot get their own full set of records related to their cases. In normal circumstances, the leaking of those transcripts would be grounds for an immediate investigation of the police and prosecutors who had access to them. Any official who leaks such confidential papers faces serious penalties; lawyers who do so can be disbarred. And yet no one in this case is being investigated or facing any consequences. It seems quite likely that the Assange documents were leaked by the police or prosecutors because they got a signal from higher-ups that they could do so with impunity.

Indeed, these are all major aberrations–suggesting that somebody at the top has interfered.

And who is at the very top in Sweden? Players working with Karl Rove, who was a party to the Swedish government’s collusion in the Bush regime’s rendition/torture program. As Britain holds its hearings into Julian Assange’s fate, we must take careful note of that connection.

I really was hoping for some clarity from this article – it has failed to deliver, seeming to dwell on, frankly, opinionated understanding of black & white due process, ignoring the hugely important nuances of this particular case.

I don't know Julian Assange. I’m certainly not an apologist for him and I don't know if I'd like the bloke that much either. I'm unsure of whether it was courage, or ego that motivated him to whistle blow on the US. Either way, he put his neck on the line to expose and embarrass the biggest and most powerful nation on earth for being less than forthright, or honest.

Like a lot of people, I am cognizant that the USA increasingly seems to be able to do what it likes, regardless of international law and convention. I, like so many Europeans, had rather hoped that Obama would be so much more of a common sense, pragmatic and even-handed leader than he seems to have become. The US appear to be morphing into the kind of authority that it professes to be ‘at war’ with. The most disappointing aspect of this is the apparent willingness of our country’s government, alongside others, to either ignore, or be complicit in its wayward and escalating disregard for human rights.

So, with regard to the case in point; I'm unsure about the allegations coming from two women who, whilst previously unknown to each other, somehow got together to corroborate an allegation of sexual abuse, (or rape, dependent upon which news media you digest), followed by the confusion as to whether one of them actually wants to continue to press charges. The waters are indeed muddy, to say the least.

Mr. Assange, as far as I can make out, could have legally been questioned by the Swedish law courts via video link, whilst in the UK – It appears that the Swedish prosecutors objected to this process for reasons that are anything but transparent.

Moreover, I'm confounded as to why the UK Government would countenance causing a diplomatic storm, and threaten to invoke an act of parliament contrary to the Vienna Convention, a ridiculous intimidation from which William Hague was forced to back-peddle. Then there is the ongoing cost of surveillance, over a mere bail skipper who is required in Sweden to answer local, albeit serious, allegations. The intimation being that there is possibly much more at stake for the UK than is immediately obvious.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, or ‘zombie facts’, but, in the absence of any reportage uncluttered by opinion, I do sense the probability of a rather larger agenda here. Those who can’t recognise this are surely being more than just a little disingenuous, preferring to take the rather lazy view that Assange is ‘on the run’, therefore, he’s guilty of something. Just because their decision is based upon putting the bigger picture into the ‘just too difficult’ box, certainly doesn’t make their case any more valid, or plausible than those who blindly support Assange, without question.