Julian Assange: Extradition to Sweden just a stop en route to US?

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face questioning and a possible trial on sexual assault charges, a British judge ruled on Thursday.

Assange, currently under house arrest in Britain, isn’t in immediate danger of being hustled onto a plane for Stockholm. He’ll appeal the ruling, and that will hold things up for weeks, if not months. But the judge’s decision makes it much more likely that he will end up in Sweden eventually.

If that happens, will it be only a matter of time before Swedish authorities send him on to the US, as his lawyers have argued?

Well, we don’t know. That depends on whether the US Department of Justice decides it can make some a case against Assange for leaking thousands of classified US documents – and whether he is extradited to face those charges. But Thursday’s ruling probably makes no difference as to whether he eventually stands in an American court. He could as easily be sent to the US from Britain as from Sweden. The US has extradition treaties with both countries, after all.

“I’m not sure Sweden would be any more interested in extraditing him than Great Britain would be,” says Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. “You can’t fault his lawyers for making the argument, though.”

Assange has also claimed that he might end up in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center, or be subject to the US death penalty. US officials have denied these charges. However, some US politicians – among them Sarah Palin – have called for Assange to be neutralized by the US as if he were himself a terrorist.

Assange has been in the international spotlight for months since his website released documents dealing with the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as US diplomatic efforts around the world.

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