While the fight has gone on for a long time it was always likely that Julian Assange was going to get extradited from the UK to Sweden to face rape accusations. And that's what the Supreme Court has decided today, that there is no reason in law why he should not be extradited:
WikiLeaker-in-chief Julian Assange has lost his appeal against extradition to Sweden to face accusations of sexual harassment and rape, the UK Supreme Court ruled in the last hour.
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers said that Assange's "request for extradition has been lawfully made and his appeal against extradition is lawfully dismissed". He added that the majority members of the Supreme Court (5 to 2) concluded that the Swedish public prosecutor could be considered a judicial authority - enabling an extradition.
This does not, of course, mean that Assange is guilty of anything at all. Only that it is now possible to extradite him to Sweden where the law can then take its course.
Something that may surprise those used to different legal jurisdictions is that this also does not mean that there is a case for Assange to answer: no evidence either way as to even whether an offence has been committed or whether Assange has any connection with any offence that may or may not have happened is relevant here. For European Union law on extraditions within the EU itself is now governed by the European Arrest Warrant.
This, in simple form, simply states that if an arrest warrant has been properly completed in any EU state then any other EU state should deliver up that person to be dealt with by the law of that issuing state. It is entirely unlike the US system of extradition (even between US states) or what is usual in Common Law countries (which the UK used to be).
Take, for example, the Kim Dotcom/Megaupload case in New Zealand. The US authorities have to prove that an offence has been committed, and offence for which extradition has been agreed upon by treaty, and provide sufficient evidence that Dotcom himself is involved, should stand trial, for whatever this offence was.
None of this is relevant in the Assange case at all. Both Sweden and the UK are members of the European Union. So if a Swedish prosecutor issues a warrant for the arrest of Assange the the UK authorities are bound to deliver him up. Evidence of an actual offence having been committed, or of Assange's possible involvement, simply isn't relevant.
So it was always really rather likely that Assange was going to lose his appeal against extradition. Not because of anything at all about his guilt, involvement or the crime: but simply because current EU law deems all of that irrelevant. Prosecutors, somewhere in the EU, want him: thus he has to go.
As to whether the law should be this way that's another story. But it is and so he goes.
Not that this will be of any relevance to law abiding readers here of course. But crossing intra-EU barriers does not save you from the long arm of the law. You need to get outside of the EU to manage that.
