> In May, two judges on the High Court said he could have a full hearing on whether he would be discriminated against in the U.S. because he is a foreign national. A hearing on the issue of Assange's free speech rights had been scheduled for July 9-10.
At the risk of sounding a tad conspiratorial, it's possible the U.S. agreed to this deal specifically to avoid the upcoming trial. As I understand it, there remains an open question of whether (or to what extent) the US constitution applies to non-citizens and it's conceivably in the government's interests if that thread isn't pulled by foreign courts and in such a public fashion.
To clarify: I don't believe the US was ever going to "disappear" him or whatever he and others hypothesized. Even outside that context, there's an interesting question of why the US suddenly decided to wrap this up after a decade of seemingly-relentless pursuit.
I like how you think!
I think it’s some combination of this and very recent bipartisan Australian sentiment to end it that combined into enough people having a slight shift culminating in “the system” deciding to let him go
It makes more sense that they agreed to the deal because Assange has spent 5 years in prison, which approaches or exceeds the likely sentence he would have received (even after applying the "TOP SECRET" sentence modifier) for a conspiracy liability charge. At some point there's no longer any purpose in pursuing the case.
Later
Moreso: assume Assange spends another year or two in UK prison, and then is extradited; the trial is complicated (for the same reason the Florida documents trial is complicated: because it involves evidence that has to be cleared for and during trial) and could easily run over a year, longer if Assange wanted to --- you're now running up to the maximum possible guideline sentence even if the prosecution could establish that he led the conspiracy, rather than just participating.
At the risk of sounding a tad conspiratorial, it's possible the U.S. agreed to this deal specifically to avoid the upcoming trial. As I understand it, there remains an open question of whether (or to what extent) the US constitution applies to non-citizens and it's conceivably in the government's interests if that thread isn't pulled by foreign courts and in such a public fashion.
To clarify: I don't believe the US was ever going to "disappear" him or whatever he and others hypothesized. Even outside that context, there's an interesting question of why the US suddenly decided to wrap this up after a decade of seemingly-relentless pursuit.