WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was scheduled to appear in a London court Tuesday seeking to fight his extradition to Sweden in a sex-crimes investigation and trying to secure bail after being held for a week in a British prison cell.
Unless more facts come out in the press, what I've read so far indicates to me that everything was consensual. If one or both of the women later had regrets, that should not be grounds for claiming they did not give consent.
As much as I'd like to see Assange cooling his heels in an orange jump suit in Guantanamo Bay over his private war against America, compelling him to spend money to defend against bogus charges is wrong.
In one sense, it might seem like fair is fair considering that he is trying to do harm to the United States, but the collateral damage that would result from successfully prosecuting the man on these charges (or even just forcing him to pay up to end flimsy charges) does damage to the Western concept of rule of law.
I hate it when my sense of fair play interferes with a good lawfare strike, even if it isn't one we are deploying.
Of course, if we can nail him on espionage charges (not treason, of course, since he is not American), I'll be all for that. Let's put him in Gitmo for the right reasons, huh? And let him rub elbows with the poor lost poetic souls we've stored down their to keep them from becoming active jihadis again.
