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Comment by eof | Hacker News Reader

Nothing against the OP since s/he just copied the title from the article; but that title is really misleading.

A prosecutor requesting a court order to detain someone for questioning simply does not mean 'Sweden' proper wants to detain Assange.

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It's an official of the Swedish government, acting officially on behalf of the country. Maybe it's an American thing, but this is pretty standard headline writing.

I was under the impression that this was not a mere formality; but rather a request from a lawyer that may or may not be granted. Reading roel_v's comment though I may be mistaken.

Over here, such headlines are usually reserved for statements from various ministers of the government. The way I read that headline is as if our minister of justice made a statement about Assange, and it would be a big surprise to me if she had done that.

So from this perspective it's misleading.

It doesn't work like that in the USA either, does it? If a official of the government, say a judge in a city, does something do you have headlines saying USA did it?

Sure it does, if regards foreign citizens.

"The US demands extradition of so-and-so", for example, would be a typical headline in many places.

Here we reserve that for when the president, secretary of state or someone relevant in foreign affairs says or does something, not a prosecutor.

Could you clarify:

Are you saying that a country cannot have actions of its own and cannot detain anyone? In that case, yes obviously, but it's common use and nobody will misunderstand. I don't see how it's misleading, what do you feel people are lead to think?

Or are you saying that just because the prosecutor has requested it, doesn't mean that it will be granted or that he's wanted at all? In that case, keep in mind that in several countries the request is a mere formality and is (save for exceptional cases) always granted. If that is the case in Sweden, as I suspect, it's not that much of a stretch to write that he's already wanted.

(to contract with the US/other common law penal systems and the way people see it happen on Law & Order, those systems are accusatory, meaning that the public prosecutor builds his case against the defendant who get to defend himself, with the whole process being watched by a judge. Most Western European system are inquisitory, meaning that the prosecutor looks for the truth and is not antagonistic against the defendant from the start. This whole process is also supervised by a judge, but that judge is much less strict and will assume more the role of a 'backstop' for egregious violations of procedure. This judge is this type of system is much looser in granting requests for warrants, searches etc. to the point where they are routinely granted, under the assumption that the prosecutor has already thought the request through and wouldn't request it if it weren't necessary.).

Then again maybe someone who actually knows something about Swedish criminal procedure could fill me in here rather than me reasoning from generalities ;)

I see I might have just been mistaken about the process. I was lead to believe, from reading the title, that there was some court action that ruled that Assange be detained.

After reading the article I was more under the impression it was just a request for a subpoena from a lawyer.

After reading your comment I am under the impression that they are basically the same thing.

As I understand, there is a request from the public prosecutor of a Swedish city/district for him to brought before the prosecutor for interrogation. This prosecutor is a government official, prosecuting suspected criminals in name of the state. If by 'a lawyer' you mean someone who works as legal counsel for a private party, then no, they are not the same. What I meant was that a 'subpoena' (to use the in this context more or less equivalent concept in common law system) from a public prosecutor in many Western European countries is usually granted, and as such the headline is not as premature as it may seem.

Anyway, if the confusion is over the word detain then yes I agree that that may not be quite what is happening; I hadn't looked at it that way. It's not like they're going to throw him in jail (for a longer time than it takes to arrange the interrogation), it's just that they want him to be picked up by the police to be interrogated in order to determine the merits of the case.

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