you are right the guardian is only a half decent news source, its also half shit.

>Let me be more specific then, in the Guardian reporting we don't only hear from the defence lawyer - we hear the judge's response:.

from the guardian article:
"Explaining the short delay to the start of proceedings, Fitzgerald said this had been the first time in six months he had managed to see his client."

no one contested this.

>Again, because there's not great reporting, I don't know a certain answer to this, but it has been mentioned that he was put in solitary because there were fears over his safety in general population. He has since been moved out of solitary.

so skipping over the max security part and making something up about his own safety.. i mean safety from who? the people who dont like him are governments - you saying he might have been epstiened? or are you saying he is a nonce? in which case why not just put him with the other nonces?

>Oh come on now, he's got a history of absconding.

"
Where did the story come from that Assange was seeking to avoid Swedish justice officials?
This version was manufactured, but it is not consistent with the facts. Had he been trying to hide, he would not have appeared at the police station of his own free will. On the basis of the revised statement from S.W., an appeal was filed against the public prosecutor’s attempt to suspend the investigation, and on Sept. 2, 2010, the rape proceedings were resumed. A legal representative by the name of Claes Borgström was appointed to the two women at public cost. The man was a law firm partner to the previous justice minister, Thomas Bodström, under whose supervision Swedish security personnel had seized two men who the U.S. found suspicious in the middle of Stockholm. The men were seized without any kind of legal proceedings and then handed over to the CIA, who proceeded to torture them. That shows the trans-Atlantic backdrop to this affair more clearly. After the resumption of the rape investigation, Assange repeatedly indicated through his lawyer that he wished to respond to the accusations. The public prosecutor responsible kept delaying. On one occasion, it didn’t fit with the public prosecutor’s schedule, on another, the police official responsible was sick. Three weeks later, his lawyer finally wrote that Assange really had to go to Berlin for a conference and asked if he was allowed to leave the country. The public prosecutor’s office gave him written permission to leave Sweden for short periods of time.

And then?
The point is: On the day that Julian Assange left Sweden, at a point in time when it wasn’t clear if he was leaving for a short time or a long time, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He flew with Scandinavian Airlines from Stockholm to Berlin. During the flight, his laptops disappeared from his checked baggage. When he arrived in Berlin, Lufthansa requested an investigation from SAS, but the airline apparently declined to provide any information at all.

"
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...

>See, this is another of those one-sided stories you hear from Assange's defenders. It's more complicated than that, Sweden wanted him to return so they can interview him (and possibly charge him) and he refused, instead saying he would be willing to let them come to the UK to question him. Suspects in crimes don't get to make those demands.

"
But is it normal, or even legally acceptable, for Swedish authorities to travel to a different country for such an interrogation?
That is a further indication that Sweden was never interested in finding the truth. For exactly these kinds of judiciary issues, there is a cooperation treaty between the United Kingdom and Sweden, which foresees that Swedish officials can travel to the UK, or vice versa, to conduct interrogations or that such questioning can take place via video link. During the period of time in question, such questioning between Sweden and England took place in 44 other cases. It was only in Julian Assange’s case that Sweden insisted that it was essential for him to appear in person.

"
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...

>The law doesn't work like that, Sweden can't just discard their international extradition treaties because Assange wants them to. By making that demand he has basically said there is no possibility of him complying. It's interesting though because there is literally no reason to think that Sweden would be more willing to extradite Assange than the UK.

"
Was that even a realistic scenario?
Absolutely. Some years previously, as I already mentioned, Swedish security personnel had handed over two asylum applicants, both of whom were registered in Sweden, to the CIA without any legal proceedings. The abuse already started at the Stockholm airport, where they were mistreated, drugged and flown to Egypt, where they were tortured. We don’t know if they were the only such cases. But we are aware of these cases because the men survived. Both later filed complaints with UN human rights agencies and won their case. Sweden was forced to pay each of them half a million dollars in damages.
"

https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...

"
What is your view of the demand made by Assange’s lawyers?
Such diplomatic assurances are a routine international practice. People request assurances that they won’t be extradited to places where there is a danger of serious human rights violations, completely irrespective of whether an extradition request has been filed by the country in question or not. It is a political procedure, not a legal one. Here’s an example: Say France demands that Switzerland extradite a Kazakh businessman who lives in Switzerland but who is wanted by both France and Kazakhstan on tax fraud allegations. Switzerland sees no danger of torture in France, but does believe such a danger exists in Kazakhstan. So, Switzerland tells France: We’ll extradite the man to you, but we want a diplomatic assurance that he won’t be extradited onward to Kazakhstan. The French response is not: «Kazakhstan hasn’t even filed a request!» Rather, they would, of course, grant such an assurance. The arguments coming from Sweden were tenuous at best. That is one part of it. The other, and I say this on the strength of all of my experience behind the scenes of standard international practice: If a country refuses to provide such a diplomatic assurance, then all doubts about the good intentions of the country in question are justified. Why shouldn’t Sweden provide such assurances? From a legal perspective, after all, the U.S. has absolutely nothing to do with Swedish sex offense proceedings.

"
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...