Nytt om extradition på SwedenVsAssange.com. Till skillnad från Wild Tom som hade David Leigh, the Guardian, som sin utlämningsexpert, grundar sig artikeln på riktiga advokater i internationell rätt och utlämning.
http://www.swedenversusassange.com/US-Extradition.html
US Extradition
Extradition to the United States
Sweden is bound by different extradition agreements. It is not meant to grant onwards extradition to a third country without agreement from the extraditing country. But at the same level of the legal hierarchy there is a bilateral treaty between the US and Sweden that allows for extradition without consent from the UK or minimum tests. This is the ’conditional release’ regime - a legal fiction that allows for automatic extradition - on a loan basis. It is highly likely that the United States will soon request Julian Assange’s extradition and this legal fiction will be used.
Julian Assange’s Extradition to the United States
There are several main reasons for Julian Assange’s challenge to Sweden’s extradition order. Relevant to this topic, they are:
1) Julian Assange has not been charged with any offense.
2) Sweden has a bilateral agreement with the United States which would allow it to surrender Julian Assange without going through the traditional tests and standards of regular ’extradition’ procedures.
3) There are standard EU mechanisms (such as Mutual Legal Assistance) for Julian Assange to answer any questions the Swedish government may have. It is disproportionate, and an abuse, to use extradition proceedings in this manner.
4) Extradition law requires a "judicial authority" (e.g a judge or other independent body) to issue an extradition warrant, in order to keep the separation between the executive and the judiciary. It is an abuse to permit prosecutors, intelligence agents or other officials who are not independent to issue proceedings.
Temporary surrender - "Conditional Release" under the US-Sweden Extradition Treaty
Most of the attention regarding Julian Assange’s possible extradition to the US has focused on the EU agreements that are meant to prevent onward extradition - namely that the UK Home Office would have to consent to his onward extradition. Little or no attention has been given in Europe to the temporary surrender (called ’conditional release’) regime that Sweden has established bilaterally with the United States. The US has put this de facto extradition in place that sidesteps extradition safeguards in place with several strong allies.
One of the strategic allies that have this agreement is Panama - a
recently released US embassy cable described the "conditional release" regime:
use of Conditional Release, under which the GOP [Government of Panama] releases to the U.S. a suspect already under arrest in Panama on other charges. Under this procedure, the suspect is "lent" to the U.S. for prosecution on the condition that they will be returned for prosecution in Panama at the end of their sentence. This procedure is much faster than a formal extradition, and has proven so successful, that DEA sometimes designs operations to bring suspects to Panama so they can be arrested in Panama and turned over to U.S. authorities quickly. - US Embassy Panama Cable, 2008
How likely is it that Sweden will extradite Julian Assange to the US?
Both the UK and Sweden refuse to guarantee that they will not extradite Julian Assange to the United States. Political and military extraditions are expressly prohibited under the extradition treaty between Sweden and the United States, so this refusal is unusual. Moreover, it is likely that the US will request extradition on charges that are not overtly political (see below).
Shortly after issuing the EAW and Interpol Red Notice to 188 countries, the prosecutor Marianne Ny originally stated that extradition to the United States was ’out of the question’ (05 December 2010) - but her statements were later redacted (see
Prosecution).
The Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has adopted several strategies in order to lessen the pressure on him to provide assurances that Julian Assange will not be extradited to the United States:
1. Reinfeldt claims that the decision to extradite Julian Assange is up to the courts, not the executive.
This is false. Sweden’s extradition treaty with the United States explicitly prohibits political and military extraditions. The final decision lies in the hands of the executive, who can block an extradition if it believes that political/military motivations underlie the extradition order. However, it it difficult to prove the underlying motivations of an extradition order. The US is likely to issue an order under charges that are not overtly political (see below).
It is likely that the United States will decide to charge Julian Assange with a number of offences (whether or not in conjunction with espionage) that are seemingly not political offences. The US Department of Justice has broadened its attack to include a possible indictment under the federal computer crimes statute, which it would argue was a non-political offence. Sweden is likely to consent to such an extradition given its close relationship with the US and the argument that the offences he is being sought for are not political in nature.
It is very difficult for an individual to prove that the underlying motivations for an extradition are political, especially where the requesting state is a close political ally, which is the case of the United States both for Sweden and for the UK. Swedish troops are under NATO-U.S. command in Afghanistan. Sweden was one of the first countries to send fighter jets to Libya at the request of the U.S. and, in June, the Swedish parliament voted to send marines to Libya together with more fighter jets (See
Political Interference).
2. Reinfeldt claims that it is not up to Sweden, but up to the UK, whether or not Julian Assange is extradited to the United States.
Sweden is shifting attention away from the fact that the final decision of whether to extradite a Julian Assange to the United States or to block it is an executive decision. Under EU law, Sweden should only initiate Julian Assange’s onward extradition if and when the UK gives its agreement, but the UK has little incentive to block an extradition order if Sweden does not take the step to do so first. Moreover, legal commentators in the UK have stated that it is likely that the UK would consent to Julian Assange’s extradition from Sweden (this is likely to raise less criticism and mobilisation if Julian Assange is not physically under UK custody).
Sweden has in the recent past violated international treaties in relation to surrendering foreign nationals into US custody to be interrogated and tortured (case of extraordinary rendition, Agiza v. Sweden at the European Court of Human Rights). Furthermore, Amnesty International and the UN Committee against Torture criticised Sweden because it rendered two refugees to the CIA who were then tortured under the Egyptian regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Diplomatic assurances that the person extradited will not be subjected to torture or other inhumane and degrading treatment are not a sufficient guarantee to prevent Julian Assange Julian Assange from suffering such treatment while in U.S. custody, or to realize a fail trial in the United States, given the politicization of the allegations against him.
The UK and Swedish governments can choose to allege that Julian Assange is not wanted for political offences, and will not interfere with a judicial decision (despite the fact that this ’judicial decision’ would be taken by the secret grand jury in Virginia where there is no judge nor defence counsel). Given that Julian Assange is neither a citizen nor permanent resident in Sweden or the UK, these countries have little incentive to afford him the type of protection that it would afford one of its own citizens or permanent residents. Moreover, it is safe to assume that both the UK and Swedish government have come under pressure to comply with the United States’ upcoming request for Julian Assange’s extradition (these pressures by the US government proved effective in the extra-judicial and arbitrary denial of service by Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, Western Union & Bank of America of Wikileaks donations).
