Extradition cases rarely make the news but that's certainly not the case for Julian Assange, founder of the international whistleblower site WikiLeaks. He was detained in England and faces extradition to Sweden for questioning regarding possible sex crimes. He could face criminal charges for sexual molestation, unlawful coercion and rape.
Prosecutors hadn't talked about the controversial website in the case, but Assange, his legal team and his supporters have connected the Swedish prosecutor's pursuit of Assange with the release of information on his website when his defense first challenged the Swede's extradition request back in February 2011.
His defense attorneys said that a person who is the subject of an arrest warrant must be accused of a crime. Assange has not been charged with a crime.
Furthermore, the prosecutor has not granted access to all of the evidence in the Assange investigation. The defense attorneys have pointed out that timing and access to this information are directly linked to the decision to prosecute, which has not been made. For an investigation in its preliminary stages, Assange's attorney said, the issuance of an arrest warrant is "not proportional for the current stage of the case."
A judge approved Sweden's request for extradition in February, which his defense attorneys are now appealing.
They have characterized the arrest warrant as inaccurate and therefore invalid, in which case the judge erred when approving Assange's extradition. The inaccuracy is this: the arrest warrant describes the sexual encounters as non-consensual.
Assange maintains—and earlier news stories reported—that all of the sex acts were consensual. Indeed, Assange and one of the "victims" spent the night together, had sex more than once, and joked with each other. She had complained that he did not wear a condom when she wanted him to. The issue of consent, which is an essential element of a sex crime charge in England, is not a required element of a criminal complaint of rape in Sweden.
As is clear in this case, a defense lawyer in any extradition trial must have a good understanding of the laws within each country that define some actions as a crime, as well as the legal procedures in each country. In order to extradite, dual criminality must exist between the two nations. The alleged criminal conduct must be illegal in both places. This is one of the key questions in the case of Julian Assange.
