The charges against Julian Assange were dropped

The argument

The argument concerns the legal status of the Swedish request specifically, and proceeds in three steps. The first is that the underlying cases no longer exist. The cases against him in Sweden have been dropped or expired under Sweden's statute of limitations laws. A statute of limitations does not suspend a prosecution; it extinguishes the possibility of bringing one, which means there is no longer a live proceeding for which his presence could be required. The second step follows from that. An extradition request is instrumental: it exists to deliver a person to a prosecution, and it has no independent purpose once the prosecution it served is gone. The original extradition request therefore no longer applies. For extradition to Sweden to proceed at all, Swedish authorities would first have to reopen the case and then reissue an extradition request, neither of which has happened. The third step concerns what would follow even if they did. Competing requests from different states are ordinarily resolved partly by sequence, and any new Swedish request would necessarily come after the US indictment. On that basis the US cases would likely take precedent, which means that reopening the Swedish matter would not in practice result in extradition to Sweden either. Taken together the three steps leave nothing standing. There is no live Swedish case, no valid request arising from one, and no realistic prospect that a revived request would prevail against the one already made. Because the charges against Julian Assange were dropped, proponents conclude, he should not be extradited to Sweden.

Context

In 2010, a UK court ruled that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face rape and sexual assault charges. One of the allegations has since been dropped. Prosecutors concluded that "at this point, all possibilities to conduct the investigation are exhausted." The statute of limitations expired on the other sexual assault allegation.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The charges were only dropped on a technicality because prosecutors were unable to formally notify him of the criminal allegations against him. It was not because the victim changed her mind, or because the prosecution did not find the claims credible. As a result, when announcing the decision to drop the case in 2017, the Swedish Director of Public Prosecutions Marianne Ny deliberately reminded the public that she would be able to reopen the case as soon as Assange " makes himself available." Now he has left the embassy and is in custody in Britain, the Swedish authorities could very easily notify him of the allegations against him. They have already received a request to reopen the case and will likely do so. The Swedish case was opened before the US case. Therefore, it should take precedent should Swedish prosecutors decide to reopen it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] It was dropped on a technicality. It will likely be reopened. [Rejecting P2] There are still credible allegations against him that he should face. [Rejecting P3] Therefore, he should be extradited to Sweden.