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http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/30/divided_british_court_upholds_extradition_of

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Divided British Court Upholds Extradition of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange to Sweden

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GLENN GREENWALD: I think there’s two issues of concern with being extradited to Sweden. One is that, although we don’t think about Sweden this way, it is none the less the case that they have a very oppressive — I would even say borderline barbaric system — of pretrial detention where when somebody is charged with a crime, they are almost — especially in Assange’s case where he’s not a Swedish citizen — automatically, more or less, consigned to prison, not released on bail, even though he’s proven over the course of the last two years that his appearances can be secured. And not only would he likely be imprisoned pending trial, but he would be imprisoned under very oppressive conditions, where he could be held incommunicato, denied all contact or communication with the outside world. The hearings , pretrial hearings in Sweden, are not public. They are entirely private. The media, the public has no idea what takes place within these hearings. And given how sensitive this case is, the idea that judicial decisions in Sweden will be made privately and secretly is very alarming. But, I think the broader concern is the one you just raised, which is clearly in the U.S. efforts underway, not just to investigate but to convene a grand jury, and there are reports that he had already been indicted with a sealed indictment. There are certainly efforts by the U.S. government to do so, and the real concern is that Sweden, which in the past has demonstrated subservience to the United States with rendition and other things, will hand him over without much of a fight and he will face life in prison under espionage statutes for doing nothing more than what newspapers do every day, which is publishing classified information in the public interest.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, going to Sweden? It is the first time in a very long time that a U.S. Secretary of State is going to Sweden. First, it was announced the high court would be making its decision today, Glenn. Then, Sweden tweeted out that Hillary Clinton would be coming there on Sunday.

GLENN GREENWALD: Right. I mean, one of the causes for concern is that there has been a flurry of activity recently with FBI agents harassing people who are alleged to have communication or contact or association with WikiLeaks. A French citizen and an Icelandic citizen both in the past couple of weeks have been very aggressively accosted by FBI agents on foreign soil. And now you have what looks to be high-level meetings between the State Department, Secretary of State, and Swedish officials. There really is not much of a secret that the Obama administration is busting at the seams to punish Assange. Remember, this is an administration that has more aggressively than any prior president has punished people who are government employees who have been whistleblowers, and yet here is a someone who is not a government employee, has no duty to safeguard classified information, and yet it looks very much like the U.S. government is eager to get their hands on Julian Assange. That has been the concern all along going to Sweden. He has never been worried about facing these charges. He feels very confident that he will be ultimately vindicated, that there is nothing to them. I have no opinion one way or the other on that. He has always been willing to face these accusations. The issue has always been because he is not charged, there has been this extraordinary and unusual effort to get him onto Swedish soil. The fear has always been that is just a pretext for turning him over to the United States, something that Britain would have a very hard time doing for a variety of reasons, but that Sweden, as they have proven, can be coerced and bullied and pressured into doing it fairly easily. Once he’s in the grip of the U.S., it is really hard to imagine how he will ever secure his freedom or liberty again, given what the U.S. has demonstrated it is willing to do in terms of flouting conventions of justice and other things when it comes to people accused of harming national security.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Why is that though Glenn? Can you explain why would Sweden be more amenable to extradition to the U.S. and not the U.K., which is a very close ally of the U.S.?

GLENN GREENWALD: For one thing, just a matter of basic international relations it is much easier for a country like the U.S. to pressure and coerce smaller countries than it is larger countries. I think there would be a big outcry — [NO AUDIO]

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn, you were finishing up saying?

GLENN GREENWALD: ...and where Sweden is a small country, much more susceptible to that pressure — and again they’ve demonstrated in the past to be willing — the U.N. Commission found they actually violated international law and prohibitions on oppressive treatment in the way that they allowed CIA agents to basically abduct Egyptian nationals on their soil and render them to Egypt. So, I think there’s a real concern when you add on to that the secrecy behind these pre-trial proceedings that there’s a much higher risk that Sweden will be complicit in turning over Assange to the United States.