The Guardian reports:
The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange will appeal, his legal team has confirmed. If they lose he will be sent to Sweden in 10 days.
Speaking outside Belmarsh magistrates court in south-east London after the judgment, Assange attacked the European arrest warrant system.
He dismissed the decision to extradite him as a “rubber-stamping process”. He said: “It comes as no surprise but is nevertheless wrong. It comes as the result of a European arrest warrant system amok.”
There had been no consideration of the allegations against him, Assange said. His extradition would thrust him into a legal system he did not understand using a language he did not speak.
Assange said the US government by its own admission had been waiting to see the British court verdict before determining what action it could take against him.
Glenn Greenwald on the Assange extradition ruling, the jailing of Bradley Manning, and the campaign to target WikiLeaks supporters
All this dirty laundry. What a black eye this is casting upon the American people by its Government. It show where the priorities are. I do believe that the Bush years will go down as the push that began the downfall of the U.S.A., that the Obama years increased that downward thrust, but, it just may turn out the the M.E. becomes a Democratic powerhouse without the plutocracy, while the U.S.A. becomes a failed state. What a reversal of fortune’s. If Assange is exported to the U.S. to stand trial, then I’ll have to agree with Cheney that “O” didn’t, doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.