Alexei Navalny's lawyers are arrested
economist.comI have a huge respect for Navalny.
They tried to murder him and after spending time in a German hospital he decided to go back knowing that they'll imprison him or try to kill him again.
>knowing
I think the risk was huge (personally I thought 50-70% at the time), but not 99% or something. Also (in my opinion) people don't take into account that alternative was irrelevance in exile, just look at what happened with Kasparov's popularity inside Russia, and he was a prominent opposition activist in 2011-2012.
Still, people tend to value their life higher than their relevance - I mean, in the West he could have probably lived a comfortable life writing books and articles, working as a TV expert on Russia etc. I also respect his decision, but seeing that the powers that be already tried to kill him once, the chances of him returning to Russia and not being arrested were even lower than 1% I would say...
> Still, people tend to value their life higher than their relevance
That's exactly what sets rare individuals like Navalny apart: that what they believe in, what they stand for, weighs heavier than their personal well-being.
Yeah, he wants the same Russian empire as Putin, but with less corruption.
> he wants the same Russian empire as Putin, but with less corruption.
Exactly. I don't understand fascination of some westerners towards Navalny. He used to attend nazi rallies (literal sieg-heiling nazis, not "you are slightly right of Bernie"), then assumed veneer of political respectability without ever formally denouncing his previous talking points and started campaigning with the main premise of basically "I'll be better and less corrupt Czar of Russian empire". There is nothing liberal or democratic about this guy's political views.
> irrelevance in exile, just look at what happened with Kasparov's popularity inside Russia
Then again, Kasparov undermines Russia more efficiently while in exile than Navalny while inside (a prison no less). And Navalvy social media statements in exile might have been even more undermining Kasparov's.
Of course, undermining Russia with words might not help at all anyway...
Whatever Kasparov says or does in exile is quite irrelevant in Russia. This is how actual Russians think:
"He's not even in Russia, what does he know."
I don't know why Navalny returned to Russia after being poisoned and nearly killed by Putin's thugs, but it was a very brave thing to do. It makes no sense.
As close as I can tell, Russians tend to be very fatalistic. It's never been a happy place. It's cold, the state is corrupt, life is cheap. But people have a strong personal need for justice, to find those guilty and make them pay. But the state won't deliver justice, so you make a stand, and life is cheap so you take risks and double down. Hence Navalny, hence Litvinenko, hence all the journalists over the years who reported until they were thrown out windows or gunned down in public. Incredibly brave, I only wish the bravery led to real change rather than a neverending Greek tragedy.
It is because as a person you feel nothing else can be done. So you do the thing that you can do, knowing that probably it can't change much but... what else can you do? Doing nothing like everyone else? From the outside it looks like madness, but when you are that person it seems like keeping your integrity and being able to look in the mirror.
> So you do the thing that you can do, knowing that probably it can't change much but... what else can you do?
Russia has always fought tyranny with literature.
I'm not sure how "undermining Russia" is supposed to get you any votes (popular support, followers) in that Russia you are undermining.
Grant money that can yield all right.
That's my point. He had put everything at risk because he knew it was the right thing to do. When choosing between doing what you think is best and what keeps you safe, people often choose the later.
It also kept him on the map as a Russian politician. Even though his practical communication abilities are pretty limited because of that.
If you're going to infer from previous instances revolutionary Russian figures, why not look at Lenin? Or Trotsky?
At the day he returned, he released his grandest and most damning documentary about Putin's $1B palace and the ways it was financed. Maybe he hoped people would rise up and overturn Putin with him leading the masses.
I think he miscalculated the degree of cruelty he’ll experience. Also his move itself could be the trigger as if this cruelty would nit be there, then he would have been a hero winning, not a hero losing. Steps “had to be made”, sadly.
What has allowed the Russian state to treat him with such a degree of cruelty is the war with Ukraine. News of his arrest, imprisonment, and treatment in jail were overshadowed by those of another airstrike on a civilian population. Not to mention, it sent a clear message to internal opposition that those willing to act against the state would face not just legal hurdles but also tyranny and physical violence.
I don't know... they tried to kill him and they killed people before for less. Knowing some Russian and Soviet history it's pretty clear what mentality you're fighting.
While Navalny's courage in facing political persecution is commendable, it's important to contextualize his earlier views to understand him fully.
Before his imprisonment and prior to the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Navalny held positions that some might describe as nationalistic. For example, his stance on Crimea has been ambivalent, with statements that sometimes tacitly accept Russia's annexation of the region.
Navalny has a history of ethnocentric comments and has been involved in nationalist rallies in Russia. This complicates the narrative that he is solely a liberal figure fighting for democracy.
He opposes Putin's regime, but his political ideology doesn't necessarily align with values of international law, human rights, and economic freedoms.
As much as what you say is factually accurate, I think it's important to contextualize within the broader Russian consciousness.. the same could be said about almost any American. Just as Americans have certain exceptionalism all the way down to their bones, Russia is similar. The idea that a Russian politician wouldn't at times speak in ways that harken back to that core should not be used as something that dismisses a man of incredible courage who is truly exceptional within a body politic of others that are perennially silent. I've seen this trope before and believe it comes from a naive perspective. In order to have any chance of successfully rallying of people you do need to appeal to some of their base instincts
I understand your point about the role of nationalism in Russian politics. However, it's crucial for us in the proverbial "West" to have a nuanced understanding of Navalny, because it's too easy to equate "political victimhood" == "purity of intentions".> In order to have any chance of successfully rallying of people you do need > to appeal to some of their base instinctsI'm not questioning his courage or opposition to Putin; my aim is to highlight that his political ideology isn't straightforward.
Should he unexpectedly assume presidency, his past statements make it unclear whether he'd reverse Russia's actions in Ukraine, (but there would be a chance).
Same for me. I realize that he is also pro-imperialism and would probably be worse for Europe than Putin (Russia would be more efficient)
But him facing jail with an upright stance shows a lot of skin in the game, you cannot ignore that.
It might have been a practical decision too. I guess he calculated that if they want to get to him they'd get to him pretty much anywhere on the planet and still maintain deniability. So might as well go back.
I think it was incredibly indicative of his foolishness.
You do know his political stance, right? https://twitter.com/krides/status/1509841011295592450 Do you also have huge respect for Prigozhin for flying back to Moscow after agreeing to stop the revolt? Same energy.
My downstairs neighbour believes in crystals. Which is fine because she's not in a position to force me to use crystals, or the teaching of crystals as a healing method in schools (etc).
This argument might even work on people not living next to russia.
Pluralism can be valuable even if all the participants are reprehensible. Ideally they compete each other to a standstill, allowing separation of powers and human rights to gain a foothold.
That said western media does have the habit of glossing over the actual platform of any dictators opposition, see for instance the breathless adoration the Dalai Lama gets.
I support the rights of people in other places to fairly elect their leaders, even when I wouldn't agree with them.
The official version spread by the propaganda is that his lawyers did not only what lawyers should do, but also helped him pass letters from the jail to the outside world and thus control his "terrorist" organization (Anti-Corruption Foundation). This counts as complicity and direct participation in the deeds of a "terrorist" organization.
I'm surprised he was able to make such statements for this long.
I genuinely wonder why his captors even continue to let him live, when it seems like any post-2022 civil protest in Russia can and will be brutally repressed.
Have you seen pictures of him lately?
For some people that's worse than death. It's a clear message from Putin. Get in my way and you'll end up like him.
Not everybody is going to take that risk.
The clear message by putin was prigoshins end. There is no negotiations or civil due process, if you come at the King you best not miss.
Putin is 71 and doesn’t look particularly healthy. It’s not clear that he has any strong successor, nor that he would leave such a successor alive if there was one. His government is strained to the breaking point and couldn’t fight off an internal military attack by one of his lieutenants, to the point where they almost reached Moscow in a few hours. When he dies, it seems likely that the country will fall to pieces as different factions try to gain power. Because of the way Putin has suppressed the opposition, Navalny is one of the only people who has any popular legitimacy in that environment. I still think it’s very unlikely he makes it, but prisoner to leader isn’t unheard of.
I haven't seen pictures. Just did a quick search now and didn't find anything relevant.
Is he in as precarious a state as Julian Assange is?
There are several pictures of him in a recent trial where he looks way skinnier an paler.
I imagine they're treating him like they treated Winston Smith in the book 1984.
This, most people won’t
If he was making such statements (I'm not following this), does that mean that his lawyers were indeed being used by him to pass letters and that this is not propaganda?
Russian regime is strangely obsessed with following some procedure and complying to some law, even if it sounds like a joke. In this case they just found the way to legally stop publication of his statements and what they say is true if you accept their narrative as a whole. Still it is just propaganda and lie, because it is based on highly illegal (unconstitutional) foundation. The laws that they passed, the judicial process - everything is rotten to the roots.
The propaganda part is that his organization is "terrorist".
Yeah, that’s downright revolting. Not surprising I guess, but still.
Now there’s this white haired journalist that’s currently rotting in a British jail because of his work…
Piers Morgan, Boris Johnson and Andy Coulson were journalists too for as much as that's worth.
And this has to do with Russia... How?
Or are we just doing whataboutism?
Its standard bot behaviour. Acknowledge. Distract. Relativize.
What remains is a fog, the uncertainty about there being truth at all. Assange should not be in prison. But the law has not decayed in the west to the point, were its non-existant anymore, power-mad anarchy dancing naked but a paper-loincloth in the streets ala russia.
The should free assange, just to silence these bots.
...what?
Who's the bot?
The post is about Russia and how they've now have arrested a lawyer because he's representing navalni.
So then point to be where the UK is part of Russia, or maybe just maybe we should hold the topic of "unfairly arrested" where we can talk all day long about assange, navalni or anyone else.
Besides assange is no lawyer, a better whataboutism would be trumps lawyers who are either arrested have charges against them.
That would make sense if you wanted to sow discord on the right. The post here does so for those that lean left. All of the above serve to weaken a sense that there's a difference between the autocratic China-Russia axis and the west.
Toplevel comment author here.
My main point was to remind that we too are at risk of suffering the same kind of authoritarianism we point our fingers to. Russia is currently being very blatant in how it uses trumped up charges to make an example of someone and discourage further opposition, but I felt obligated to remind everyone that they’re not the only ones.
The West does it less, and it does it more subtly, but everywhere I look (mostly Europe) there’s a substantial increase in the use of authoritarian practices. We’re not immune to full blown authoritarianism making a come back.
Oh definitely, it's more annoying than anything.
I can sympathize with genuine causes but cheap potshots like whataboutism is just such a cynical means.
Pointing out hypocrisy is not "whataboutism" it's just simply pointing out hypocrisy.
This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons, you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible, here you go: "Russian whistleblower who uncovered that the Russian government spied on all of its people has fled to the US to avoid being imprisoned in Russia", talking about Snowden of course.
Which is why I asked, what does Julian Assange unfair arrest have to do with Russia, as this was and still is the topic of this thread, not a general discussion about unfair arrests.
And further more, there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from opening a thread here and now where we can discuss the topic of unfair arrests.
>This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons
If I invented the term "whatboutism" I would've been proud how certain people over-dramatize it's invention.
Whataboutism is just a more proper word for the logical fallacy "Tu quoque" or appeal to hypocrisy, which is used to divert attention away from the original specific topic and instead try and force the topic to either be as broad and inconsequential as possible or to make us focus on this 'hypocrite' to avert attention away from the original specific topic.
>you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible
The assertion that replacing one country's name with another creates a "plausible" story is just overly reductive.
It says nothing about the context nor the specific situations at hand, you're effectively flipping the concern at hand.
Where the origin of the story is more important than the actual evidence at hand.
Here's an NPR link about the same topic: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/23/1195305201/rudy-giuliani-arre...
Why do people keep pushing archive.ph/.is? The site is infamous for putting people into constant captcha check hell.
Because this website bypasses paywalls and loginwalls - it has accounts for a lot of the social media websites, so you don't see a generic "Login to see this page" but the actual contents.
You can’t use it if you are using CloudFlare DNS.
Just because it doesn't work for the minority, doesn't mean the shouldn't do something nice for the masses
I agree, it was just a PSA.
Better links to the same news, without paywall:
https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/10/18/defense-lawyers-arreste...
https://apnews.com/article/russia-navalny-dissidents-prison-...
Russia is literally a meme country: https://twitter.com/jacopo_iacoboni/status/16797651991783096...
How much popular support does Navalny have in Russia?
(I realize Russia is a banana republic and Navalny is a hero but does he actually represent something that has wide support in Russia? From the few Russians I have talked to, they seems supportive of Putin despite everything.)
It may be unusual or surprising even but I don't think it matters who has popular support in Russia - Russians have lost the minimum agency they had in the mid 90s. There was a failed attempt to regain it in 2011 but it was crushed.
He is largely irrelevant now. He was significantly popular, but there is a combination of:
1. Many of his most fervent followers fleeing the country in February or September 2022.
2. His team being useless and consisting of people of very questionable loyalty (the question remains why he let them all in), and in many cases under their own brands.
3. Overall switch from the anti-corruption discourse towards different set of topics, such as war, etc - where he does not have much relevance.
4. Him being AFK (not to blame him for that).
5. His organization FBK now resides abroad, burning grant money and not doing anything useful for Russian residents.
1 and 5 are semi-true, 2 is false (both parts), 3 and 4 are fair enough.
The overall statement is false (he remains the most recognized opposition figure in the country).
On top of that, the guy is literally a racist, if anyone cares to explore his past. But he’s all hero these days, because he wants to be in charge of Russian regime instead of Putin. He’s portrayed as a fighter for freedom, while actually right now, any Ukrainian soldier does more to protect the values of democracy. By literally fighting tooth and nail for it. But nobody seems to care about a Ukrainian soldier as much as they care about just one person from Russia, isn’t it?
Was waiting for this comment. Yes he did (have to) ally with nationalists in the past. He did say negative things about migrants. Nevertheless, he stated multiple times since then that it's not his views anymore.
Speaking of racism and nationalism, let's be honest Euromaidan in 2014 would never succeed without the support of the Right Sector. This type of brutal force was missing in Belarus 2020 protests.
It still have support from both a nationalist right and an internationalist left. Let's not forget the only anarchist regime that beat out an Army was Ukrainian, and that has a certain appeal to the left. I have three friends and I know that a complete antifa cell went there (some came back, war seems terrible even if you 'just' want to volonteer at a hospital). Regardless, it's followed by the entire political spectrum.
He was hoping to get elected. You need to have broad popular support to get elected (see Trump), hence the "views".
Some time later it became apparent that he is not going to be elected and elections will not be the thing, so the new plan was getting paid by State Dept NGOs, with corresponding change to "views".
My personal take on Navalny is that he mostly was a charismatic opportunist, but eventually that lured him in a trap.
>But nobody seems to care about a Ukrainian soldier as much as they care about just one person from Russia, isn’t it?
Ukrainians should be grateful for support they get and dramatically reduce sense of entitlement. US provided more material support to Ukraine in the last year than to any other country in history. Constant whining becomes tedious and defense of the democracy argument is questionable.
Could it be because of the Budapest Memorandum? Ever heard of that?
its imposible to know, no man on the street will admit supporting him for obvious reasons
One poll from May 2023 that I saw (the pollster is quite respectable):
"When asked 300 days before presidential elections Russians say they would vote for:
30,2% Putin
2% Prigozhin
2% Navalny
1.3% Zhirinovsky (who is dead)"
https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1663222792605630464
https://russianfield.com/300days
Not a lot, but still higher than other non-Putin candidates (except Prigozhin, who is now dead)
I believe it does not represent the actual state of affairs.
Firstly, many people wouldn't say they'd vote for Navalny -- that's just against the self-preservation instincts.
Secondly, there are many people who are not "in love" with Navalny, his team and personal views, but still think he'd be a much better president than Putin.
I'd personally estimate the count of people here (in Russia) that are neutral/neutral-positive/positive about Navalny at 15-25%. And much higher at hightech giants and top univesities at Moscow/Saint-Petersburg.
So, except Putin, all others are either dead or rendered inoffensive and likely be killed as well after the public forgets about them.
Just for clarity: I copy-pasted from a tweet, the list is longer on the actual chart from the poll: https://thumb.tildacdn.com/tild3833-6564-4031-b932-623365633...
Thanks, the link provided didn't work for me, but I forgot I've twitter and other online services redirected through libredirect and many of its endpoint stopped working a while ago. My fault.
Plenty of other candidates are spoilers that add legitimacy to elections. They may have some popular support, but time to time they make statements or do something that portrays them as clowns to the majority, reducing their electoral base and making them not dangerous to Putin.
So, with Putin out of the picture he'd be leading the pack?
It's hard to predict. It probably depends on how exactly Putin would be "out of the picture".
I'm sure the FSB has the likes of Naryshin, Patrushev or Bortnikov up their sleeve with Putin out of the picture. Putin was virtually unknown when he was first appoined as president. Win a Chechen war by throwing countless human and material resources at it, then you're wildly popular. If you come to think about it, Russia has only gained territories during Putin's leadership.
The political landscape in Russia is basically this: United Russia, commies and ultranationalists. All of these are pro war with the exception of a single party with a single member in the Duma, which opposes the war due to economic reasons.
I remember watching a documentary about Navalny (was it on Netflix?). The positive thing is that he is against Putin. The negative thing (imho) is that he is a 'fake' person, proper salesman, tells you what YOU want to hear/what sells and not his original ideas. He changed ideas and opinions too much, too fast in the past. He started out making crappy videos on YT about various topics. If he wouldn't oppose Putin he would be a very low-yield <insert name of some youtube comentator-troll>.
Extremely little. His a nationalist (has argued for occupation of Crimea, genocide in Georgia, "cleansing" russia of non-whites, etc) that is irrelevant in Russia and only popular abroad in the west with people that don't speak Russian and don't know his actual nationalistic positions.
Living in tyranny happens when a critical mass of civilians accept and support the lie.
That Putin realized Russia was ripe for takeover is brilliant on his part, but it has been hell for the Russian people who allowed it to happen.
In the beginning of attack on Ukraine I used to think Putin's days are numbered and finally this will be the end of him. But then I realised how it turned around for Bashar and how he has bounced back and is almost back to the path of as things were. Compared to him Putin is maybe a hundred times or more well placed to stay on.
Putin had the lawyers of his primary opposition arrested, what a dictator.
Trump's and Navalny's lawers were fighting cases on opposite sides of democracy
We're lucky to live in the west where that kind of thing doesn't happen.
We just do it differently. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/12/united-kingd...
Assange isn't a lawyer, and definitely isn't "the opposition's lawyer".
Yeah. But he was also over a decade in jail without a trial.
Don't get me worng: The state of justice here is certainly better than in Russia, but we should give ourselves the same scrutiny we give to the Russians. Closing our eyes when we do obvious unlawful things is bad for our rule of law and makes us look like hypocrites when we (rightfully) point out injustices elsewhere.
Yep.
On the other hand, not even his fellow journalists do anything... They could at least do a weekly article, "assange is still in jail", because in reality, you're either "just a reporter" (who writes articles about what someone, usually from the government, said) or you could actually do some meaningful investigative work, and end up like him. I know that corporate mainstream media reports just what their owners want them to report, but even kevin mitnick had more media support and individuals asking hard questions than assange has now.
If I'd been the editor of the Guardian newspaper on the day the British security services ordered the destruction of the hard drive with the Snowden archives, I would've made the next day's front page almost fully blacked-out, except for perhaps a handful of words across the whole thing reading:
> ■■■ no ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ free ■ ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■ press ■■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■ ■ ■■■
or something else equally snarky.
But Snowden still comes across as one of the "good guys", someone who was expecting to get hurt and did his thing anyway because it was the right thing to do, whereas Assange… comes across wanting to be the headline rather than be responsible for the headline.
Well, came across; I've only heard statements about him or on his behalf since he left the embassy, not from his own mouth. But the old reputation stuck.
In my opinion, the major difference between Assange and Snowden is the respective threats they represent: Snowden was a one and done deal. Get the stuff out, blow the whistle, done. Worst case someone might be encouraged to imitate him.
Wikileaks, and Assange as its figurehead, are a different deal. They enable whistleblowing, and as journalists they can report over and over again. Whistleblowers typically whistle only once. Journalists can re-whistle constantly.
Most importantly though, journalists who actually protect their sources (hopefully that’s a tautology) can forward illegally obtained information and shield their sources from any legal repercussions. Kind of the whole point of source protection, but even Western governments don’t like whistleblowers evading the law. They’d rather know who blew the whistle, just to make sure it’s never blown inappropriately. Because inappropriately blown whistles are so much worse than inappropriately unblown whistles I guess?
Let's be honest, unlike Snowden, Assange really come as an asshole, and that really undermined the public opinion.
I know the 'rape' bit was probably political, but he seems like the type of guy who would totally do that, and I think he actually did considering his lawyer responses. The fact that the woman brought it to court however, that's the point that is suspicious to me. A consequent fraction (at least 10% imho) of the male population could be condemned for the same stuff, dirty pigs. And the fact that it was a successful trial. My sister was actually raped by her employer, and advices from both the police and lawyers were "you can't bring that to court, it's a 'he said she said' situation, you should just make a report and 'hope another girl get raped'" (rough translation of what the 'helpful' policeman said).
> we should give ourselves the same scrutiny we give to the Russians
Absolutely. I will never be satisfied with any punishments or justice system, unless and until that system cannot be abused — if it can be used against Team Us by Team Them when Team Them are next in power, it had better be because Team Us actually did something wrong. Even if Team Them today won't abuse the system, it's just waiting for trouble.
That said:
> Yeah. But he was also over a decade in jail without a trial.
He spent most of that decade hiding from an extradition, and is currently refused bail on the grounds that last time he was given it, he jumped. That's very different in important ways.
Now, as demonstrated by the fact that we collectively did, we can spend the entirety of that duration arguing:
(1) if the things he was accused of doing were in fact crimes (they were, but some people at the time were claiming they weren't).
(2) if the women who made the accusations were secret US government plants — they could be, but I doubt based on statements attributed to one of the accusers communicating with the Swedish prosecutor even after Assange had been ejected from the embassy.
(3) if the legal system had pressure put on it to keep him pinned down in one place for the sake of the US investigation — I suspect yes, albeit only at the first stage: the reason I think pressure was put upon the system is that sexual offences are notoriously difficult to prove and accusations normally don't go anywhere, the reason I think "only the first stage" is that he'd already claimed asylum before it got very far. Furthermore, the investigation was re-opened (briefly) after Assange had been ejected from the embassy and the new extradition request from the USA, and the combination is stupid, which is suggestive without being proof (after all, governments do stupid things all the time).
(4) and also if he even did the things he was accused of — I lean towards thinking he did, because (a) sexual offences happen way more than most people realise, and (b) all the people who, upon hearing of the nature of the allegation, argued #1 in the negative, saying something along the lines of "surely that can't be a crime!" or "this is merely rude, not criminal", neither of which is the standard of evidence used in a court case, hence the difficulty of proof that is my reason for thinking pressure was put on the system in #3.
-
Despite all that, the current extradition process to the USA sounds suspect, at the very least.
No, he's someone who is being detained just to make a point and discourage others. Had he really known something of vital importance about the US or any other allied country national security, he'd have been tortured 5 minutes after his arrest.
He was initially detained for extradition to Sweden on sexual offence charges. The security on that was so light he was able to skip his (expensive, donor-paid) bail.
The intelligence people were annoyed with him back then, hence all the claims of even that arrest being "a conspiracy" sounding at least slightly plausible, and yet, even then, they were demonstrably so uninterested that he could walk to an embassy and claim asylum.
He has been denied bail now because he skipped bail then and when doing so specifically said his reason was not wanting to end up in the country who now wants to extradite him.
And to be blunt, saying "as I am afraid of being extradited to the USA, I want to remain in a country that has a history of extraditing people to the USA rather than be extradited to a different country that has a slightly lesser reputation for the same" was one of the things that a decade ago made me think he was fleeing justice for the sexual offences rather than being sincere in (what ought to have been a legitimate) fear of the USA.
Still, two things bother me:
Wasn’t there a way for Sweden to promise him not to extradite him to the US?
I’ve heard he wasn’t even heard by Swedish justice, even though he offered to be heard remotely (from England), and such a thing was done in similar cases.
Solving one or the other would have showed with much more certainty whether he was actually trying to flee the sexual charges or not. Though perhaps the Swedish prosecutor just wanted to maximise the chances of having him in Swedish custody.
> We're lucky to live in the west where that kind of thing doesn't happen.
Was that a sarcastic comment or did you entirely miss out the whole Snowden affair ?
I think it's a reference to how Trump's lawyers keep on getting in trouble.
AFAIK Snowden's lawyers have never been newsworthy — I'm sure he's got some, but I've never heard of them.
>I'm sure he's got some, but I've never heard of them
Offtopic