In the normal course of events, I would support the case where a man accused of sexual abuse crimes is returned to Sweden (by Britain) to face the due process of the Law.
But……Julian Assange….the Wikileaks man? There is no reason why he should not be returned to Sweden….except of course for the nagging doubt that this is all a bit too convenient. And that Mr Assange will be held in Sweden just long enough to be bundled off to the United States of America to face (in their view) more serious charges relating to the security of the United States.
You might well take the view… as I do……that Wikileaks did us all a favour. And you might take the view …as I do….that Sweden seems a decent enough neutral country and that the women Assange is accused of abusing deserve their day in a Swedish court.
And you may also take the view that Assange did himself few favours by seeking sanctuary in the London embassy of Ecuador, a country with a lesser record on civil rights than Sweden…….(or for that matter Britain and the United States).
Yet it strikes me that diplomatic immunity and the nature of an Embassy is one of the most civilising things in the World. Of course all countries abuse their Embassy and their rights…..just walk around London and see traffic wardens stick parking tickets on large cars with “CD” plates..the tickets will never be paid. And of course the embassies of the bigger nations all contain a share of “spooks”…it is taken for granted.
I would be surprised if the London embassy of Ecuador gathered serious intelligence about the British. Id be surprised if the Quito embassy of Britain did not gather intelligence about the Ecuadorians.
What does surprise me is….that even in the three decades after the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher……shot dead by a person within the Libyan embassy, the British police would be so crass as to threaten to go inside the Ecauadorian embassy to arrest Julian Assange. It seems like an over-reaction.
I get the impression that Britain would rather not be involved. Sweden has issued a warrant and Britain has complied. And USA has refused to guarantee that it will not press for Assange’s further extradition.
Yet the big mistake Julian Assange has made is to choose Ecuador. Of course Wikileaks has tweaked the tail of all of the worlds major nations so he was never likely to seek refuge in the embassy of (say) Russia. Or China. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Israel. But if he had, I think it extremely unlikely that the British police would be talking about going inside an embassy.
The Ecuadorians who in the last half hour have granted Assange assylum. It seems they too have missed a trick. It is extremely unlikely that Assange will leave their London embassy and be driven to Heathrow and fly to his “new” country.
But why didnt Ecuador grant asylum ten days ago………during the Olympic Games? It seems highly likely that London police would have wished a diplomatic incident to occur.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
Frankly, if the Ecuadorians had threatened to invade the British Embassy I imagine the reaction in the British press might have been a little different……
Exactly. Gunboats would be on full alert.
The Wikileaks thing is impossible to consider…..without thinking that Assange has serious charges to answer.
The sex abuse cases impossible to consider …without thinking that Assange is the man from Wikileaks.
The bigger problem is that European arrest warrants are not considered on the merits of the case but rather granted on the basis that it is “European”.
But the legislation to prevent mis-use of an embassy building was never meant to cover a case like Assange.
And Britains stock in Central and South America is not high.
One could argue that it is the Ecuadorians who have compromised the concept of diplomatic immunity, as the poster above mentioned, it was never meant to cover a situation like the one Assange finds himself in.
I do hope , however, that the Brits do not take the embassy and set an unwelcome precedent that could be followed around the world.
Yes but that would mean that the Americans compromised this principle when they allowed a Hungarian Cardinal to seek refuge in their Budapest embassy for about 12 years. Or that the Americans compromised it by giving refuge to a Chinese dissident earlier this year.