And though I view the retraction as an important and under covered event, it does not collapse the case completely. The witness is only relevant to one of the eighteen charges against Assange, and even in that charge he was mostly used as a character witness to label Assange as a malicious hacker.
Seems a pretty good contradiction, unless I'm missing something.
It's possible that they would not say the US has valid reason to extradite after the retraction, but unless the refusal is overruled, that doesn't matter.
It's a strange argument, but, ok, I guess? Thanks for clearing it up.
I have no clue how you've reached that conclusion. I'm saying this article is just about the extradition appeal, a decision that is being made regardless of what the charges are.
If the appeal is successful, the retraction will be important in the resumed extradition hearing. Articles about that possible hearing should definitely mention the retraction.
"a decision that is being made regardless of what the charges are". Is the extradition not based on the charges? And is the appeal of the extradition then not also based on the charges?
If the charge was based on a staged witness, and the extradition was based on these charges. Is then not the appeal of extradition related to the staged witness?
The article is entirely about that appeal, not the entire Assange extradition hearing. The retracted testimony has no bearing on the appeal, so when only writing about the appeal it is one of the many facts about the entire hearing that does not need to be mentioned.
My argument is just that this article discusses one tiny part of the entire process, and the charges are not relevant to that tiny part.