Tag Archives: Julian Assange extradition

Your Man in the Public Gallery – Assange Hearing Day 2, by Craig Murray

Posted on February 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

Day 2 of the Assange extradition hearing from Craig Murray at craigmurray.org.uk:

This afternoon Julian’s Spanish lawyer, Baltasar Garzon, left court to return to Madrid. On the way out he naturally stopped to shake hands with his client, proffering his fingers through the narrow slit in the bulletproof glass cage. Assange half stood to take his lawyer’s hand. The two security guards in the cage with Assange immediately sprang up, putting hands on Julian and forcing him to sit down, preventing the handshake.

That was not by any means the worst thing today, but it is a striking image of the senseless brute force continually used against a man accused of publishing documents. That a man cannot even shake his lawyer’s hand goodbye is against the entire spirit in which the members of the legal system like to pretend the law is practised. I offer that startling moment as encapsulating yesterday’s events in court.

Day 2 proceedings had started with a statement from Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s QC, that shook us rudely into life. He stated that yesterday, on the first day of trial, Julian had twice been stripped naked and searched, eleven times been handcuffed, and five times been locked up in different holding cells. On top of this, all of his court documents had been taken from him by the prison authorities, including privileged communications between his lawyers and himself, and he had been left with no ability to prepare to participate in today’s proceedings.

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The British Kangaroo Court Proceedings Against Julian Assange, by Moon of Alabama

Posted on February 26, 2020 | 2 comments

Kangaroo court about sums it up. From Moon of Alabama at moonofalabama.org:

Britain is currently holding an obscene show trial against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The hearing is designed to end with the extradition of Assange to the United States or with his death. In the U.S. he would be accused of a conspiracy to reveal secrets and put into jail for the rest of his life.

Over the years Wikileaks has revealed material on many important issues. As Patrick Cockburn remarked: With WikiLeaks, Julian Assange did what all journalists should aspire to do. Wikileaks provided the material its sources revealed to partner media who profited from it, but then went on to betray Assange. As Kit Klarenberg wrote a few days ago: ‘They Should Be In Jail’: How The Guardian and New York Times ‘Set Up’ Julian Assange.

Those who are not familiar with the false case against Julian Assange should read this interview with Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, who provides detailed insight. In Melzer’s learned view Assange, as the main editor of Wikileaks, has not committed any crime.

Melzer has also written at his medium page about the case:

The false ‘rape’ case in Sweden which was used to incarcerate Assange is also detailed in Marcello Ferrada de Noli’s book: Sweden’s Geopolitical Case Against Assange 2010-2019. It can be downloaded for free.

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Queen’s Counsel Charges vs. Assange ‘Significantly Overwrought’, by Ray McGovern

Posted on February 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

The damage to US sources from Wikileaks’ disclosure of Chelsea Manning’s materials has been significantly overstated. From Ray McGovern at antiwar.com:

We are about to see how malleable the British Court system is to diktat from Washington. Will the British embrace the flimsiest of circumstantial “evidence” from U.S. security services that have axes to grind?

Will British officials turn their back on 800 years of progress on the human rights wrested from King John at Runnymede? Are there today no “English Nobles” to thwart the obscene “legal” proceedings aimed at extraditing WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to a US prison for publishing the truth about US and UK war crimes?

At Monday’s court hearing in London, James Lewis QC, argued the US case using information the US gave him from “secret sources” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s Mr. Lewis:

“The US is aware of sources, whose unredacted names and other identifying information were contained in classified documents published by WikiLeaks, who subsequently disappeared, although the US can’t prove at this point that their disappearance was the result of being outed by WikiLeaks.”

With the CIA and Defense Department saying, in effect, “Trust Us”, what could possibly go wrong? – aside from a publisher of accurate information spending the rest of his life in prison – and all future journalists running the same risk, should they run afoul of US authorities.

Unless the British Court system has become totally subservient to US influence, James Lewis QC will have to do better in the coming weeks to plausibly pin a crime on Julian Assange.

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Did WikiLeaks Put Lives at Risk? by Daniel Lazare

Posted on February 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

A troubling question in Julian Assange’s extradition hearing is whether Wikileaks’ exposure of US government materials put at risk dissidents and others who in all innocence helped the US government? From Daniel Lazare at antiwar.com:

Julian Assange’s extradition trial in London got off with a bang yesterday when James Lewis, the lawyer representing the Trump administration, told the court that Washington “is aware of sources, whose unredacted names and other identifying information was contained in classified documents published by WikiLeaks [and] who subsequently disappeared.”

With that, he touched on a problem guaranteed to send a chill down the spine of even the most ardent WikiLeaks supporter. Exposing government misdeeds is one thing. But disclosing the name of a translator or dissident who then falls into the clutches of a death squad, a terrorist cell, or the political police is quite another. Can disclosure go too far? Should Assange be held to account when WikiLeaks disclosures cause harm?

On one level, the answer is yes. All of us are responsible when our actions hurt innocent people, WikiLeaks included. But on another level, the picture grows more complicated. For one thing, no one has been able to establish a loss of life, and, as Lewis immediately added, “…the US can’t prove at this point that their disappearance was the result of being outed by WikiLeaks.”

But even if he could establish that somewhere, somehow, a harm had ensued, the charge, ethically speaking, would still have to be balanced off against two things: the good that WikiLeaks does by exposing government wrongdoing and the government’s boundless hypocrisy in advancing such allegations.

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Assange’s Extradition Hearing Reveals Trump’s War on Free Press, by Nozomi Hayase

Posted on February 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

There were no real surprises during the first day of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing. The US government is trying to criminalize journalism and the unauthorized revelation of its secrets. From Nozomi Hayase at antiwar.com:

On Monday, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s one-week extradition hearing began at Woolwich Crown Court in SouthEast London. The judge heard the opening arguments for the prosecution and defense. The prosecution began, accusing the journalist who exposed the US government’s war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan of espionage charges that would carry 175 years in jail.

The US-based investigative journalist Kevin Gosztola, who was at the media annex during the proceeding, reported that U.S. Government barrister, James Lewis QC, said that prosecutors “are not criminalizing the publication of classified materials but rather the publication of names of informants or dissidents who help the US and allies in military operations.”

Gosztola noted that James Lewis QC “listed off specific documents that Assange is accused of releasing which allegedly contained names of ‘human sources’ that were endangered.” When asked by the judge if the offense of publishing would extend to a newspaper, the Prosecution replied, “1989 Official Secrets Act would cover [that]” and “If a journalist or newspaper publishes secret information likely to cause harm in the categories, it commits an offense.”

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Assange’s US Extradition Hearing Opens Monday: The Fight for the Free Press Is Now On by Nozomi Hayase

Posted on February 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

Put a toe tag on press freedom in both the US and the UK if a British court grants the US government’s extradition request for Julian Assange. From Nozomi Jayase at antiwar.com:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s US extradition hearing opens Monday. Finally, his legal team can argue in a court over the offenses listed in the indictment against the journalist who published government documents exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The prosecution of Assange threatens press freedom. This is the first time that the US Espionage Act has been used against a publisher. Ahead of the proceedings in a UK court, professionals, activists and human rights defenders around the world are coming together to intervene in this highly politicized case.

On Tuesday, a group of doctors representing 117 physicians and psychologists from 18 nations penned an open letter in the Lancet medical journal, appealing to governments to end the torture of Mr. Assange, and provide the best available healthcare before it is too late.

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Julian Assange Must Be Freed, Not Betrayed, by John Pilger

Posted on February 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

Regardless of the kangaroo court decision in the Julian Assange extradition proceeding, that world’s press is on trial and has not acquitted itself with any veracity or honor. From John Pilger at consortiumnews.com:

When Julian Assange steps into Woolwich Crown Court on Feb. 24, true journalism will be the only crime on trial, writes John Pilger.

This Saturday, there will be a march from Australia House in London to Parliament Square, the centre of British democracy. People will carry pictures of the Australian publisher and journalist Julian Assange who, on Feb. 24, faces a court that will decide whether or not he is to be extradited to the United States and a living death.

I know Australia House well. As an Australian myself, I used to go there in my early days in London to read the newspapers from home. Opened by King George V over a century ago, its vastness of marble and stone, chandeliers and solemn portraits, imported from Australia when Australian soldiers were dying in the slaughter of the First World War, have ensured its landmark as an imperial pile of monumental servility.

As one of the oldest “diplomatic missions” in the United Kingdom, this relic of empire provides a pleasurable sinecure for Antipodean politicians:  a “mate” rewarded or a troublemaker exiled.

Australia House

Known as  High Commissioner, the equivalent of an ambassador, the current beneficiary is George Brandis, who as Attorney General tried to water down Australia’s Race Discrimination Act and approved raids on whistleblowers who had revealed the truth about Australia’s  illegal spying on East Timor during negotiations for the carve-up of that impoverished country’s oil and gas.

This led to the prosecution of whistleblowers Bernard Collaery and “Witness K”,  on bogus charges. Like Julian Assange, they are to be silenced in a Kafkaesque trial and put away.

Australia House is the ideal starting point for Saturday’s march.

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Assange’s Extradition Case: Critical Moment for the Antiwar Movement, by Nozomi Hayase

Posted on February 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

Can apathy and hostility be overcome and the tide of public and political opinion be turned in favor of Julian Assange? From Nozomi Hayase at antiwar.com:

Last week, Leader of the UK opposition Jeremy Corbyn challenged Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the House of Commons on the US extradition request for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

Corbyn stated that Assange had been charged by the US “for exposing war crimes, the murder of civilians and large-scale corruption”. Backing the Council of Europe, who warned that the prosecution of Assange sets a dangerous precedent for journalists and called for his immediate release, he asked:

“Will the Prime Minister agree with the Parliamentary report that’s going to the Council of Europe that this extradition should be opposed and the rights of journalists and whistleblowers upheld for the good of all of us?”

Corbyn has risen to political prominence for his lifelong activism against military action. He opposed the 2003 Iraq War and also voted against British military involvement in Afghanistan and Libya. The Labour leader, who is known for his staunch commitment to democratic rights and peace, understood very well the value of WikiLeaks’ disclosure of government secrets.

WikiLeaks’ publication of documents concerning US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was a major contribution to the antiwar movement. The release of the Collateral Murder video provided a rare window into modern asymmetric warfare, revealing the war crime of a US military airstrike killing innocent civilians in a suburb of Iraq.

Corbyn, who has not mentioned Assange’s plight over the last 10 months, and with now less than two weeks before his extradition hearing, finally broke his silence. In his question to the Prime Minister, he fiercely asserted the voice of the antiwar movement at the Parliamentary session.

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The Coming Show Trial of Julian Assange, by Chris Hedges

Posted on June 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

The last thing Julian Assange can expect in the US is a fair trial. From Chris Hedges at truthdig.com:

The Coming Show Trial of Julian Assange

LONDON—On Friday morning I was in a small courtroom at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. Julian Assange, held in Belmarsh Prison and dressed in a pale-blue prison shirt, appeared on a video screen directly in front of me. Assange, his gray hair and beard neatly trimmed, slipped on heavy, dark-frame glasses at the start of the proceedings. He listened intently as Ben Brandon, the prosecutor, seated at a narrow wooden table, listed the crimes he allegedly had committed and called for his extradition to the United States to face charges that could result in a sentence of 175 years. The charges include the release of unredacted classified material that posed a “grave” threat to “human intelligence sources” and “the largest compromises of confidential information in the history of the United States.” After the prosecutor’s presentation, Assange’s attorney, Mark Summers, seated at the same table, called the charges “an outrageous and full-frontal assault on journalistic rights.”

Most of us who have followed the long persecution of Assange expected this moment, but it was nevertheless deeply unsettling, the opening of the final act in a Greek tragedy where the hero, cursed by fortuna, or fate, confronts the dark forces from which there is no escape.

For more information on the Assange case, see Chris Hedges interview U.N. special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer and read the transcript. Also, see Hedges interview WikiLeaks Editor in Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson.

The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Assange is extradited and convicted it will become one. Assange is not an American citizen. WikiLeaks, which he founded and publishes, is not a U.S.-based publication. The message the U.S. government is sending is clear: No matter who or where you are, if you expose the inner workings of empire you will be hunted down, kidnapped and brought to the United States to be tried as a spy. The extradition and trial of Assange will mean the end of public investigations by the press into the crimes of the ruling elites. It will cement into place a frightening corporate tyranny. Publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian, which devoted pages to the WikiLeaks revelations and later amplified and legitimized Washington’s carefully orchestrated character assassination of Assange, are no less panicked. This is the gravest assault on press freedom in my lifetime.

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