wiki bloke arrested

[old tree man]

Sorry i'm going to rant.....................................i have just watched the news about this wiki bloke who has been arrested for alleged rape and whistle blowing so he has a tag on his leg and has been told he must not leave the million pound mansion only to visit the local police station My goodness if that was a common person they would be locked up with no choice .............................what is going on is that justice for the rich, and us normal folk get the rest, it really infuriates me ......sorry......

[MKG]

Yeah - but if he'd been a common person, Russ, he wouldn't have been arrested in the first place on a trumped-up Swedish warrant for sex crimes.

Mike

[TheGoodEarth]

Agree MKG. He has decided to mess with the big boys and is now facing the consequences. Fortunately in my view he has some very wealthy people on his side who will help him keep these documents in the public eye. At the end of the day, what he is publishing is correspondence by officials appointed by the taxpayer (i.e us and US citizens). Why shouldn't we know about this? We elect and appoint these f*****s to represent us - of course they should be fully accountable.

It has turned into a them and us scenario, however we are all us because we pay for them through our taxes.

[MKG]

Indeed. Perhaps we ought to be reserving our "hot under the collar" reaction for the situation in which we are being told to accept that an Australian journalist (an award-winning one at that) who merely received US documents (someone else stole them) and who is currently living in the UK can possibly fall foul of a regurgitated "no case to answer" charge in Sweden just so that he can then be extradited to the US to face possible espionage charges.

If that goes through, it will prove that my marked dislike of politicians and diplomats really isn't cynicism after all.

That'll be a big surprise .

On the other hand, Russ, you're probably right - if that had been Joe Bloggs rather than Julian Assange, he'd still be in jail and the Swedish charge wouldn't be a necessity. Wasn't there a recent example of a British hacker with problems - and Gordon Brown trying to do a deal with the US which involved him pleading guilty? But then, what did Gordon Brown know about the law?

Mike

[oldjerry]

From what I heard on The World Service(another sleepless night)the blokes better off in Sweden(probably warmer as well),cos if the Shermans want someone extradited they only have to ask and the UK system says 'which plane would you like him on' '?
Strange situation when I feel sorry for some bloke who (as OTM says) has the chatteratti lined up behind him,but working on the pretext that we will only ever get, at best,a watered down version of the truth you wonder if things aren't even more dark than the stuff on Wikileaks.

[contadina]

Sorry i'm going to rant.....................................i have just watched the news about this wiki bloke who has been arrested for alleged rape and whistle blowing so he has a tag on his leg and has been told he must not leave the million pound mansion only to visit the local police station My goodness if that was a common person they would be locked up with no choice .............................what is going on is that justice for the rich, and us normal folk get the rest, it really infuriates me ......sorry......

Hmmm...interesting interpretation. Assange was set unprecedented bail demands, he has not been charged with any offense and in the same week a man accused of murder is granted bail with far less stringent requirements.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/de ... t-evidence

[old tree man]

Hmmm...interesting interpretation. Assange was set unprecedented bail demands, he has not been charged with any offense and in the same week a man accused of murder is granted bail with far less stringent requirements.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/de ... t-evidence[/quote]

I belive he was set £250,000 bail small change to a man like this
it just goes to prove that the justice system is archaic and out of tune with the 21st century, and that alone should be worrying

[pelmetman]

I wonder how much it is going to cost the British Taxpayer?

[Odsox]

Indeed. Perhaps we ought to be reserving our "hot under the collar" reaction for the situation in which we are being told to accept that an Australian journalist (an award-winning one at that) who merely received US documents (someone else stole them) and who is currently living in the UK can possibly fall foul of a regurgitated "no case to answer" charge in Sweden just so that he can then be extradited to the US to face possible espionage charges.

How strange is it that the US attorney general is trying to get him extradited from the UK via Sweden to Washington BEFORE the attorney general has even found a credible law to charge him with, and yet the Washington Post has copies of every document and presumably is within walking distance of said attorney general's office, and has seemingly not even received a mild rebuke.
What is the difference between an Australian journalist receiving classified documents and an American journalist receiving the same classified documents and a British Guardian journalist receiving the same classified documents ?

And one of the Swedish rape charges is for having sex with a woman while she was asleep .... really ?
Now that's one heavy sleeper.

[Green Aura]

I think everything has been said. I just wanted to add that I'm not sure how close these friends are he's been bailed to stay with. People like John Pilger and Michael Moore came to his aid because of the ludicrous nature of the whole thing, not because they're old pals. And a lot of others are stepping up too. At the end of the day he's still being locked up for god knows what even if it's in a mansion rather than prison.

The thing that reflects worst is that this is an Obama administration and nothing's altered from how W would have handled it from what I can see, other than they've passed an emergency "whistleblowers' protection act" through to make it seem like he'll get a fair trial - when they've decided what to charge him with. And Britain and now Sweden are falling over themselves to be the most helpful.

The other charge in Sweden is one of his partners wanted him to use a condom and he refused - obviously I know nothing about Swedish law (although an avid fan of Wallander - the original ) but if she'd said no to sex without a condom and they still had sex - isn't that rape? Yet he's not being charged with that.

This whole thing smells really bad!

[boboff]

This is my take.

The BBC etc started to say he was wanted for Rape in Sweeden.

It was pointed out that the most serious crime still being persued was the sex without a condom.

The BBC said we were right it was rape.

The BBC changed there description to Serious Sexual assualt charges.....

This morning the BBC were full of "coldest winer for 100 years" " no one having the flu Jab (its down 5%) Busiest traveling day in December ( its not its the 26th) Chaos at the Airports........ It's like the Daily Mail have suddenly got editorial rights at the BBC, and all reporters have been told to report in as sensational and "jeremy clarkson" way as possible.

I disagree with Rus that in any way this guy has been treated in a "posh" way, he has not, he has been the victim of some very high level arm twisting, and I feel for him.

He has gone on record now saying its the US that he is affraid of, Palin is calling for the Death Penalty for goodness sake.

I have no views on his web site, or him, but I think we are all in such a vacuum when it comes to the truth on this and many other matters. I don't like that.

[Ellendra]

I've seen several versions of the supposed charges against Mr. Wiki and what's being done with him, and none of those versions agree with each other. At this point, there is so much misinformation being passed off as "fact" that I'm inclined to disbelieve every word of it. I half expect someone to come out and admit there was never any Julian Assange and the whole thing was a cover-up for something else :p

[Jessiebean]

Our Prime Minister claimed he was doing somehing illegal so our Australian Federal police investigated it and have found he has broken no Australian law. PAlin is clearly a nutbag- it is a worry that people like her are embraced as being acceptable and worthy of the public eye-she rates about the asme as Peaches Geldof to me and therefore should not creep out of the pages of trashy magazines...
Not knowing anything but what the media tells us (big caveat there!) I would agree that they are trying to get him anyway they can (Al Capone tax evasion style) and are just annoyed about being embarrassed. On one of our news sites someone suggested he was giving our secrets to our enemies(what, like our recently de-throned PM is a workaholic control freak according to the US govt.? His own party knew it- that's why he has removed by them!) but I would suggest it has the power to let us know who our enemies really are...
arrrghlblah.. need coffee will re-read later to see if makes any sense!

[Big Al]

Agree MKG. He has decided to mess with the big boys and is now facing the consequences. Fortunately in my view he has some very wealthy people on his side who will help him keep these documents in the public eye. At the end of the day, what he is publishing is correspondence by officials appointed by the taxpayer (i.e us and US citizens). Why shouldn't we know about this? We elect and appoint these f*****s to represent us - of course they should be fully accountable.

It has turned into a them and us scenario, however we are all us because we pay for them through our taxes.

I would tend to disagree with this as "we", in my oppinion do not elect or appoint these people anymore than we elect or appoint civil servants or military generals etc. These documents were stolen from a computer system and given to a third party. My concern is that somewhere in the millions of documents, cables and emails etc there are some people, spys or "others" that we need to protect ther country getting named and thus are put at risk.

Why do we need to know if China doesn't like North Korea or that the saudi's wanted America to attack Iran. We as common folk have no power whatsoever to influence america and stop them attacking Iran or have China put pressure on North Korea to stop building a nuke etc. We certainly don't need to know what some ambasador thinks about what prince Andrew says over dinner. What we need to know is that the elected governments keep us safe, free and where possible healthy and free.

Julian Assange has bit off more than he can chew and will end up in a state pen somewhere in deepest Texas sometime in the next 10 years. If you stick your head over the parapet expect to get it shot at.