Ah – the part about “aren’t required to accept anyone” in your previous post made me think you were talking about their visa status. My mistake.
But in that case were the Austrian authorities trying to arrest her or otherwise interfere with her travel to the U.S. (or other countries through which she may have traveled)?
Don’t forget the Americans (or their toadies) forced down the aircraft of the Ecuadorian government - in outright violation of diplomatic and international law - and forced it to land in Vienna and be searched when they were looking for Snowden. There was word he was on board, so diplomatic niceties were off the table. Possession is 9/10th of the law, the other tenth is Guantanamo.
The article says this is used with B-17s. Where the heck did that come from?
Probably not, but Romania wasn’t too happy about it. Embassy people picked her up in the dark of night, squirreled her away, and then got her on a plane out the next night. Very few people knew about it until she was safely on her way.
Probably not, but so what? They could hardly ask for extradition since the “crime” has to be a crime in both countries in order to be subject to extradition and I hardly think defection is a crime in Austria. I know that a friend of mine left Romania illegally and went to England, from where he made his way to Canada and, eventually, to the US. At no time did he imagine that the local authorities would try to return him to Romania.
I think the worry was that Romanian agents might be on her trail, looking to scoop her up and return her to Romania. I didn’t travel in those circles, so that’s guesswork on my part.
That’s actually ok. It falls under the so called “Hollywood exception.”
10/10 defection.
It’s been tried but the participant was unwilling. Nigerian politician Umaro Dikko fled following a coup. He was kidnapped in London and an attempt made to smuggle him back to Nigeria in a diplomatic crate. There was a witness to the kidnap so authorities were on the alert for such and attempt and were able to rescue him just before they flew him out.
Project COLDFEET, wiki.
It would seem like that “in the performance of his functions” creates a nice big loophole for any country that wishes to exploit it. I can imagine the Foreign Secretary stating “Of course Mr. Assange will be allowed to go about his duties as a diplomatic courier. Just as soon as he serves his sentence for jumping bail, which of course is not a function of a diplomatic courier.”
Also, paragraph 4 of the article:
So putting a fugitive into a diplomatic bag is out.
For a fictional demonstration, watch the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets.
A real demonstration ends the Bond movie Thunderball.
They never got around to using this: http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/5080575_700b.jpg
Although, when the British closed the Libyan Embassy in London following the 1984 shooting death of a police officer by a shot fired from within the embassy, it was widely thought that weapon used had been removed from the UK via diplomatic bag: Murder of Yvonne Fletcher - Wikipedia
Love it!
Indeed, but they need some air holes drilled in that plywood. :dubious:
You’re assuming they want Julian in Ecuador …
It wouldn’t be considered Ecuadorian territory (neither is the embassy, that’s a myth), but British police wouldn’t be able to just stop & search a diplomatic vehicle. The problem is that the Ecuadorian Embassy in London is just a suite in an office building, not it’s own compound so there wouldn’t have been any way to get Assange from the embassy itself to the car without leaving the embassy (& thus subjecting himself to British jurisdiction).