Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-08-Speech-3-623-000"
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"en.20110608.25.3-623-000"2
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"Madam President, since 2004, I have warned that the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) could be used as an instrument of oppression against political dissidents. This is what is happening now in the case of Julian Assange. There are many irregularities in the Swedish case against him. Mr Assange has not yet been charged with any specific offence. A previous investigation against him, for what the Swedes designate as ‘minor rape’, was dropped by a senior prosecutor in Stockholm almost four months before the EAW was issued. The reinstated investigation leading to the EAW saw a failure of the prosecutor to interview witnesses that could clear Mr Assange.
Independent legal opinion in England has said that the allegations against Mr Assange would not constitute rape under English law. The complainant’s lawyer in Sweden has reportedly stated that the ladies themselves cannot tell if the acts in question constituted rapes, because they are not lawyers. Nevertheless, the tick box on the EAW marked rape contains no definition or explanation of what constitutes the crime.
Mr Assange remained in Sweden for five weeks to answer the allegations, but he was not questioned as the investigation was unduly delayed. Mr Assange arrived in Sweden less than a month after WikiLeaks leaked the Afghanistan war logs and announced it had many more revelations to come. Senior figures in the USA have called for Mr Assange to be assassinated or kidnapped, and for the US Government to act as if it were at war with WikiLeaks, which they describe as a terrorist organisation.
All this coincides with the convenient issuing of a European Arrest Warrant against him. Sweden has a close relationship with the USA in terms of intelligence sharing and cooperation, calling into question Sweden’s perceived neutrality. Why would the USA want Mr Assange to be extradited to Sweden? The Americans are still building a case against him and do not know what they can charge him with, if anything. Without a charge, the USA cannot extradite him from the UK, but they need him locked up somewhere while they work it out, preventing him from returning to Australia.
The European Arrest Warrant offers the perfect expedient. As I have said many times in this Chamber, under the European Arrest Warrant, extradition – or rather judicial surrender, to use the correct term – is now merely a bureaucratic formality. There are simply no real safeguards. Having said all that, my question to the Council and the Commission is not: is the EAW being abused for political purposes? It is: can it be abused? If the Council and Commission are honest, they will have to admit that it can. Will they please do so now? In my opinion, the evidence shows that it is most certainly happening in the case of Julian Assange."@en1
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