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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it is that simple. You thumb your nose at a judge at your own peril, regardless of how much merit there was to the original case and regardless of where your sympathies lie with respect to WL and Assange the fact is that there is absolutely no way the UK govt/judicial branch would let a known fugitive skip like this even after the original case was dropped.

It is bordering on the farcical how much money they have spent on this and just because of that they eventually have to show a result. The only other alternative is that Assange leaves the embassy in a coffin.

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There’s the third option of him leaving in a diplomatic bag: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_bag

Assange isn't a document or an article.

Diplomatic bags have, in various instances, been used to transport people. The bag can essentially be any sort of container. This was usually against their will, but Assange may find it agreeable.

Please cite a believable example in modern times.

I'm pretty sure that if this was an actual option that the Ecuadorians would have jumped at it.

These are from the Wikipedia article in the comment you replied to:

---

> In 1964, a Moroccan-born Israeli double agent named Mordechai Ben Masoud Louk (also known as Josef Dahan) was drugged, bound, and placed in a diplomatic mailing crate at the Egyptian Embassy in Rome, but was rescued by Italian authorities.[4] The box that he had been sealed into "had almost certainly been used before for human cargo,"[5] including possibly for an Egyptian military official who had defected to Italy several years before but then disappeared without a trace before reappearing under Egyptian custody and facing trial.

> In the 1984 Dikko Affair, a former Nigerian government minister, Umaru Dikko, was kidnapped and placed in a shipping crate in an attempt to transport him from the United Kingdom back to Nigeria for trial.[4] However, it was not marked as a diplomatic bag, which allowed British customs to open it.[4]

---

The Egyptian diplomatic box "almost certainly" worked as intended, and it is quite believable that the Nigerian diplomatic crate would have worked without the obvious omission.

Ok, so, the first example makes it plain that the host country can and will open diplomatic cargo, the second is not really evidence because it did not work for different reasons.

Either way, I strongly suspect the UK government not to be so stupid not to check any container large enough to contain an Assange shaped object that is marked as diplomatic mail from the embassy in London to the home country.

It makes for a nice movie plot but it would be pretty shoddy if they went for it.

This isn't even a UK case. What do they care if Sweden wants to drop it?

Loss of face. They put so much money (10M+!) in they would look like idiots if they eventually decided to drop it and Assange gets to make a victory lap on the way to Paddington Station to catch the Express to Heathrow.

They already look like idiots.

There was a warrant out for the guys arrest as far as I'm aware. IYO should we simply let people with arrest warrants walk free?

The correct place to answer the justice question is in a law court.

Basically you're asking the UK to [publicly and openly] forgo the rule of law.

Yes, it's highly annoying that Assange's actions have led to this cost in seeking to fulfil the warrant to have him answer for this alleged crime. But I can't see how we can maintain rule of law if we let people who have allegations to answer in court simply hunker down for a bit and avoid having to do so.

The British legal system may look like idiots to you, but that's immaterial. What they look like if the let Assange walk free is a system in which the rule of law doesn't apply to people who can muster the right social supporters.

I'm not asking for anything merely giving a possible explanation of what drives the continued stand-off.

It should be clear to all parties by now that nothing is to be gained from continuing it and yet it is continued.

I totally understand the British governments perspective.

All part of government should operate to maximize their appointed goals within a specified budget.

Should we let all departments operate without budget considerations? For road and rail maintenance, is it acceptable to simply let some problems be left alone if the cost goes beyond budget?

Police do not spend infinitive amount of resources on all crimes. Those 10M+ represent assaults that don't get investigated, ironically also sexual assaults. How many future crimes, murders, rapes, or theft is the UK allowing because funding to stop those criminals are being spent on this single case?

The Assange case is like the government building a hospital in the middle of London, employing thousands of employees and treating exactly 1 patient. Telling them to not do so is not to forgo having health care or telling them to disband government, but rather demanding that government funding is held to some minimal standard.

Can we have a rule of law while accused criminals of crimes that has a maximum of 4 years jail time, who then can run to a embassy, be granted asylum, and 8 years later have the case dropped? Is that such an massive loophole? How many potential criminals should we expect to use such loophole over the next 100 years? My prediction: 1 if we count this case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-5zEb1oS9A

Him skipping bail is a UK crime he has committed and is wanted for.

How many other wanted criminals or bail-runners could the UK police have caught for 10M+£?

The resource-usage is wasteful to the point of irresponsible.

> The resource-usage is wasteful to the point of irresponsible.

Agreed, but that's not how the law works. The law should prosecute everybody they have on their lists, regardless of the economics, it should be a matter of principle rather than one of cost-benefit analysis.

Not saying that this isn't how it often turns out to be, but that's how it should be.

This[0] from 2016 shows 13,500 outstanding cases of those "who skipped court bail while facing charges including murder, child sex offences and rape" in the UK.

It appears that Assange can be tried for "Bail, failure to surrender"[1][2]. (Maximum 3 months sentence unless sent for trial.) I'm not aware that he's be charged with anything else, so, on the face of it, the money could have been more usefully dispersed to protect the public.

[0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36024690

[1] https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/item/bail-fail...

[2] https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/bail

I think 'farcical' appeared in the rear-view mirror years ago. The word that springs to my mind more closely resembles 'Dreyfus'.

Another alternative (to a coffin) is the expiration of the statute of limitations on the charges against Assange. Britain may choose to refile/renew them indefinitely, but it now appears that they'll do so alone, without collaboration from Sweden. I think eventually the political odor of this will sufficiently embarrass the Brit electorate and the CPS' charges will finally expire, with more whimper than bang.

I thought that the statue of limitations requires you to not leave or flee. Since he's in the embassy, isn't he technically on foreign soil?

I'm not familiar with the UK system, but this is certainly not the norm for western legal systems.

There are some caveats, I believe.

Go to an extradition treaty country? Clock keeps running.

Go somewhere that you "can't be reached"? Clock is paused.

Again, similar reasoning. At least in the UK.

It's not foreign soil, but it is inviolable.

Dreyfus was an army officer who was tried and convicted for treason, sentenced to life and sent to Devil's Island to be imprisoned and tortured, for the sole reason that he was a Jew (and a convenient scapegoat for a crime obviously committed by someone else). It was a disgusting display of virulent anti-Semitism that prefigured the Vichy Regime and one of the most shameful events in French history.

Comparing Assange to Dreyfus is obscene.

UK does not generally have a "statute of limitations"; civil litigation and minor offences do, but serious crimes can be prosecuted after any time period.

The longer the investigation into Russian involvement in the US elections goes on the less Assange looks like a brave leaker and more like a (voluntary or otherwise) Russia apologist.

"Unlike other European countries, the United Kingdom has no statute of limitations for serious sexual crimes."

Indeed they don't, but Assange isn't being charged wit those in the UK. He's charged - rightfully so - with skipping bail.

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