Julian Assange: "Hero or Helmet?"

blackpool72 said:

Dansk_Red said:

Been freed today, taken a plea bargain with USA. Extedidted to a US island in the Pacific where he will be freed as he has served his time in UK jail. He will then be deported to Australia. 

I wouldn't be surprised if when arriving in Australia he never leaves. 
All the while remains in Australia he will probably remain a free man.
If he leaves to go elsewhere he runs the risk of being arrested for whatever crime other counties believe he has committed. 

He will also be barred from entering a lot of countries because, notwithstanding the plea bargain means avoiding US prison, he will have be a convicted criminal.

charltonkeston said:

Leuth said:

One of my cricket teammates is a Belmarsh warden. Says Assange is quite nice, fwiw

A relation of mine says he was always polite to her but a little strange.

Not exactly a surprise 

Stig said:

I'm not convinced he's either a hero or a helmet; as far as I know, he could be neither or both. But I do think it's outrageous how long he was held without trial. I've some admiration for those who protested his case for so long outside Belmarsh, though I do wish they'd kept it a little tidier. 

I think that's an "interesting" interpretation.

He skipped bail on possible extradition to Sweden for alleged sexual assaults on two women (the Swedes eventually gave up, I think, because his time in the Ecuadorian Embassy meant that their statute of limitations meant that they could no longer bring the prosecution).

When he was in the Embassy, the US Government made an extradition request.

When the Ecuadorians got tired of him, he was arrested on foot of that request.  He was held in custody because he had previously shown that he was a flight risk if granted bail.  The years actually spent in prison (though his fanboys will probably also describe the time he chose to spend in the Ecuadorian Embassy as incarceration) were a result of his choice, not unreasonable I admit, to fight the extradition request.

He took full advantage of the legal avenues open to him in recent years, as he was entitled to do, but that is what took the time.

There was never going to be a trial in the UK, his time in prison has been all about his efforts to avoid being extradited.

I'm ambivalent about his motivations and actions with Wikileaks (he did disclose some interesting information, but he was very happy to drop sources in it at a moments notice, in a way that undermines his claims to have been a journalist, while there are convincing arguments that he also willingly colluded in a Russian military intelligence election influence operation in 2016), and I freely admit that I think he is a narcissist (so a helmet in my view in any event), but his choices have determined how his life has turned out over the last 10-15 years. 

Late to the discussion, but helmet!

.

 Whistleblowers are very often the only way the public learn the truth about situations. 

I've always thought he was a helmet.

But they've just shown on the news the footage he leaked when the American Apache helicopter opens fire on a group of unarmed men in Iraq - including two Reuteurs workers - and it still made me angry after all this time. 

There's no doubt in my mind it was absolutely right to have leaked that footage. It's appalling.

Hero. He was brave enough to expose the hypocrisy and war crimes of the Americans.