Biden considering Australian request to drop Assange charges
www.bbc.com
Australia wants the US president to end attempts to extradite the Wikileaks founder from the UK.

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13074556

The country’s parliament recently passed a measure - backed by PM Anthony Albanese - calling for the return of Mr Assange to his native Australia.

The US wants to extradite the 52-year-old from the UK on criminal charges over the leaking of military records.

Mr Assange denies the charges, saying the leaks were an act of journalism.

The president was asked about Australia’s request on Wednesday and said: “We’re considering it.”

  • quindraco
    10·
    3 months ago

    This thread is a garbage fire - a bunch of people who didn’t look anything up (or if they did, they cite no sources, so there’s no evidence they did) spouting a bunch of mutually contradictory shit, all of it upvoted. I will never understand why anyone engages with Lemmy this way.

    Here is the list of US charges against Assange, from the actual paperwork charging him.

    As you can see here, each of the first 17 charges has a maximum penalty of 10 years (not including fines).

    Charge 18 is messier. Under USC 371 the max is 5 years. I believe USC 1030 is also capped at 5 years.

    So roughly a 175 year sentence, at cap.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      So roughly a 175 year sentence, at cap.

      Sentencing guidelines usually have specific rules for whether sentences would be run concurrently or consecutively. Charges are grouped if:

      (a) Counts involve the same victim and the same act or transaction.
      (b) Counts involve the same victim and two or more acts or transactions connected by a common criminal objective or constituting part of a common scheme or plan. © One of the counts embodies conduct that is treated as a specific offense characteristic in, or Chapter 3 adjustment to, the guideline applicable to another count. (d) Counts use the same guideline and are included for grouping under [subsection §3D1.2].

      A group’s value is then determined by the most serious count in that group. Then, separate groups are combined in a way that is not as simple as adding the groups together. This United States Sentencing Commission PDF document explains how that combining is done. And this YouTube video explains more about how the severity of each charge is calculated and what that means in terms of time in prison, through the lens of explaining what it would mean if Trump were to be found guilty of all the charges laid on him in relation to the retention of classified documents.

      I’m not even going to begin to try to work out how that would be applied here, because I am woefully unqualified. But I doubt it would actually be anywhere near 175 years for Assange even if found guilty on all charges and given the harshest interpretation of the sentencing guidelines.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
      3·
      3 months ago

      That’s nice, but it’s only a list of “currently presented” charges, with none of the “potentially other” charges.

      Keep in mind that federal felony charges involving the death penalty, like treason (¹), have no statute of limitations. He could easily get extradited, found either not guilty, or that the crimes have prescribed, or pardoned… then charged with treason and executed.

      (¹: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_States )

      • ebc@lemmy.ca
        2·
        3 months ago

        Treason is a crime you can only commit against your own country. The US can’t accuse a non-US citizen of treason…