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On the 6th September, 2020 Kevin Gosztola reports

Pollack outlines why the U.S. government’s position in the case against Assange is a “very dangerous one.”

*Kevin Gosztola will be covering WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing all week. If you’re able to support his work, go to shadowproof.com/donate and chip in a few dollars or become a paid subscriber of this newsletter and support his work that way.

The trial portion of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing will unfold from September 7 until at least September 24.

Ahead of the extradition hearing, Shadowproof managing editor Kevin Gosztola interviewed Barry Pollack, who is Assange’s lawyer in the United States.

In the interview, Pollack outlines why the U.S. government’s position in the case is a “very dangerous one.” He describes several aspects that would likely lead one to believe Assange would be denied justice if extradited to the U.S. for a trial and what makes this hearing September so crucial for Assange’s legal team. 

***

The following is a transcript of the interview with Barry Pollack, who is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s lawyer in the United States. It was edited for clarity in a few sections.

GOSZTOLA: What aspects of defending Julian Assange do you focus upon as his U.S. lawyer, and where does your work fit into the larger defense? 

POLLACK: I represent him with respect to the charges here. So if the United States were ever successful in getting him extradited to the United States, I would be the one who would represent in court against those charges. Right now, obviously, what is happening is the extradition in the U.K. That extradition, whether or not he’s going to be extradited, will be determined by U.K. law, not by U.S. law. He has a team of British lawyers representing him in that proceeding. 

I am coordinating with them, advising them on U.S. law, U.S. procedures, what Julian would face if he were brought here because some of that is quite relevant to the extradition proceedings. But they are very much his lawyers in the U.K. for purposes of the extradition hearing. I am his lawyer here in the United States to defend him if and when he is required to face those charges.

GOSZTOLA: And you’ve, to some degree, represented him before the extradition request? 

POLLACK: Yes, I’ve been part of his legal team for a number of years. He was already in the [Ecuador] embassy when I first started representing him. But I represented him for a number of years prior to the criminal charges or the extradition request having been made. 

GOSZTOLA: One of the issues that has become pronounced is we see the U.S. government making this argument that Julian should be denied First Amendment rights while at the same time suggesting they can bring a prosecution under the Espionage Act. But many defense attorneys have defended alleged leakers by claiming the Espionage Act is too broad when it comes to the First Amendment, making First Amendment defenses to try to see how far those might go. 

How do you view this dynamic that is part of the U.S. prosecution? 

POLLACK: The position that the U.S. is taking is a very dangerous one. The position the U.S. is taking is that they have jurisdiction all over the world and can pursue criminal charges against any journalist anywhere on the planet, whether they’re a U.S. citizen or not. But if they’re not a U.S. citizen, not only can the U.S. pursue charges against them but that person has no defense under the First Amendment. It remains to be seen whether a U.S. court would accept that position, but that certainly is the position that the government is taking. 

In the cases that have been brought under the Espionage Act to date, efforts to build defenses around the First Amendment have been quite unsuccessful. The courts have not [generally allowed or supported defenses] based on the First Amendment. But those are cases where the defendant was a leaker, not a publisher. 

This case is unique. The U.S. government has never tried to charge a journalist or a publisher under the Espionage Act. 

GOSZTOLA: That raises an important question in my mind, which is, how can someone who is not from the U.S. be expected to submit to these U.S. secrecy laws and regulations, especially when he never signed a non-disclosure agreement? 

A key part of these Espionage Act prosecutions are that they are brought forward as strict liability offenses, that he signed something. It seems that there is no evidence whatsoever in favor of the U.S. government that he signed anything to agree to not disclose information. 

POLLACK: That’s correct. In the cases that have been brought to date, the charges have been against an employee of the government, a government contractor, a former employee of the government, all people who entered into an agreement with the government that they would not disclose classified information. 

Journalists don’t enter into that type of agreement, and every day the New York Times and the Washington Post publish classified information. The Department of Justice has never charged a domestic reporter under the Espionage Act. Up until the current administration, I think it was widely understood that doing so would be inconsistent with the First Amendment. 

Publishers do not have those kinds of non-disclosure agreements. They report what is newsworthy, and that includes classified information that comes into their possession.

What the government is doing here is not only charging a publisher who has no non-disclosure obligation but charging a publisher who is not in the United States. They’re charging an Australian citizen, who is publishing from the U.K. So it is an unprecedented prosecution. 

GOSZTOLA: What concerns do you have about the U.S. criminal justice system? One aspect is that there are such things as coercive pleas. Are you concerned about what would happen if he was put on trial and the way in which he could be pressured to not go to trial in the United States? 

POLLACK: The pressure on defendants in the federal criminal justice system in the United States generally is extraordinary. In a case like this, it would be even greater. There is frequently in the United States a tremendous disparity between the penalty somebody receives if they plead guilty versus the penalty that they would receive if they go to trial and are ultimately unsuccessful. 

So there is a tremendous disincentive to go to trial. Approximately 97 percent of all federal criminal cases end in the plea, not going to trial, for that reason. 

Here one would expect Julian would be kept in an isolated administrative detention. In other words, he would be in jail effectively under solitary confinement, even awaiting trial, awaiting appeals. Once sentenced and put into the Bureau of Prisons system, he would likely be sent to a maximum security system. 

And the potential sentences if he is convicted after trial are extraordinary. He’s facing a maximum of 175 years. Under those conditions, it would be very, very difficult for somebody to say I want to go trial, and if I’m unsuccessful, I want to appeal and be heard in the Supreme Court. Even if you were ultimately successful, you would spend years in draconian prison conditions fighting the charges. 

Yes, there would be tremendous on him to accept some sort of a deal that mitigated some of those consequences. 

GOSZTOLA: If you’re the prosecutors, you bring 18 charges. You only have to convince a court that he committed three offenses, and then you’ve essentially put him behind bars for what amounts to a life sentence because you just consider his age. 

Have you gained any greater awareness through being able to work with U.K. attorneys on how out-of-line this is by comparison to European countries in the way that they wouldn’t stack sentences that add up to 175 years? 

POLLACK: There are all kinds of differences between the way the U.K. would treat this situation and how the United States would treat the situation. Not only is it charged much more aggressively in the United States, but in the U.K., there clearly are public interest exceptions to the publication of state secrets. 

In the U.K., it is pretty clear that this would not be a crime, and that certainly will be an issue in the extradition proceeding. 

Also, the conditions of confinement in the U.K. are different. In the U.K., if you are convicted of a crime, in this case a nonviolent crime, you would not be held in isolation, essentially solitary confinement indefinitely, potentially for years, potentially for the rest of your life. That would not happen in the U.K. 

In the U.K., there is better access to medical care in the prison system. There is better access to mental health treatment in the prison system. So, there are all kinds of differences between the U.S. system of justice and U.S. conditions of confinement and those in the U.K. And I think all of those are likely to come up in the extradition hearing as reasons why the U.K. should not be willing to extradite him. 

GOSZTOLA: How would you describe the Eastern District of Virginia? And how do you see the makeup of a possible jury pool as bolstering this argument that justice would be denied to Assange? Can the demographics of a judicial district work in favor of arguing against extradition? 

POLLACK: You would have to ask the U.K. lawyers where that fits in terms of extradition law, but there is no question in the United States there are different demographics in different districts. And the Eastern District of Virginia is a district that has a disproportionately high number of Defense Department employees, intelligence community employees, family members of those employees, people who hold a security clearance, etc.

It is certainly not a representative district. If the case were being tried in Iowa, you would have a very different jury pool then you do in Alexandria, Virginia. I don’t think the U.S. government is blind to the fact. The U.S. government could have chosen to charge him in any district in the country because the law is when an alleged crime is committed abroad there is venue in whatever district is the first district that you arrive in the United States. 

Since Mr. Assange would be brought in custody, the U.S. government could take him to any district they wanted to and have venue in that district. It has chosen the Eastern District of Virginia, and that’s not a coincidence. The U.S. government thinks it will get a favorable jury pool in the Eastern District of Virginia. 

GOSZTOLA: I could be off in my analogy, but to take an issue that has captivated the country for the last six-to-seven months, it’s almost to me like if you had jury made up almost entirely of police officers, and they were hearing a case involving involving an officer who shot and killed somebody. It doesn’t seem like we would think it was fair for them to be the only people on that jury. 

POLLACK: We would not think it was fair to give somebody in a police shooting case a jury pool that was disproportionately made up of police officers. I think we would also not think it was fair that one side gets to pick which district and which jury pool it wants to have. But that’s exactly what the law allows. 

GOSZTOLA: Finally, I understand this upcoming hearing that will span three weeks is a very crucial hearing for the legal team. Clarify for me what this hearing means and how essential it is for certain evidence to be brought in order to undermine what the U.S. government is doing. 

POLLACK: This is the main taking of evidence regarding the extradition request. So this is essentially the equivalent of the trial for purposes of developing the facts on which the decision will be made whether or not to extradite. 

The various legal issues that come into play in extradition: Is this is a political offense? Has there been some sort of abuse of process? Has the government accurately represented the nature of the charges and the allegations to the court? Are the conditions of confinement in the United States comparable to what they are in the U.K.? Is this even a crime in the U.K.? 

All of those things that will go into deciding whether or not extradition is appropriate—What’s going to unfold over the next three weeks is we’re going to hear from witnesses who are going to speak to those issues to inform the court as to whether or not each of those things are in fact true. 

Obviously, from our perspective, we hope and believe that the witnesses are going to be very compelling on each of those issues and that each one of those issues militates against extraditing.

Read Original Article and interesting commentary in the Dissenter

On the 28th August 2020, Oscar Grenfell  reports

ulian Assange received his first visitors in six months, less than a fortnight out from British court hearings for the extradition of the persecuted WikiLeaks publisher to the US, where he faces life imprisonment for exposing American war crimes.

Stella Morris, Assange’s partner and an internationally-respected human rights attorney, was allowed to meet with the WikiLeaks founder earlier this week, after authorities at London’s Belmarsh Prison eased restrictions introduced in response to the coronavirus pandemic. It was the first time that Morris and their two young children Gabriel and Max had seen Assange since March 22.

The visit is welcome news for all supporters of Assange and democratic rights. But it has underscored the brutal conditions in which he is held by the British authorities, despite not having been convicted of any crime, and has sparked renewed fears that his health is continuing to deteriorate.

In comments to the PA news agency after the visit, Morris said that the experience had been “incredibly stressful” but that she was relieved to have been able to see Assange.

“We had to keep social distancing and Julian was told he would have to self-isolate for two weeks if he touched the children,” Morris said. “Julian said it was the first time he had been given a mask because things are very different behind the doors.”

She added: “At least he got to see the children, even though he couldn’t touch them. The children were both calm. We all remained seated the whole time.”

Morris said that the older of the boys, Gabriel, who is three-years old, showed off his abilities to count and to recite the alphabet. Gabriel was born when Assange was a political refugee in Ecuador’s London embassy, where his arbitrary detention was enforced by British threats to arrest him if he set foot outside the building.

The infant child was immediately targeted for intrusive surveillance and other human rights violations by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Max, who is one-year-old, first met Assange in 2019 at Belmarsh, a facility dubbed Britain’s Guantánamo Bay.

Speaking of Assange’s physical condition, Morris said: “He is in a lot of pain.” She stated that he continues to suffer from a frozen shoulder, a long-term condition compounded by a lack of adequate medical treatment. He had also recently sprained his ankle.

“I could not see him very clearly because of the visors, but he looked a lot thinner. He was wearing a yellow armband to indicate his level of prisoner status, and you could see how thin his arms were,” Morris explained.

The confirmation that Assange has not been provided with a mask is evidence that the British state wants him dead. That the most high-profile political prisoner in the world, detained in a country falsely held up as a beacon of democracy, was not provided with the most basic protection during an unprecedented global pandemic sums up the criminality of the decade-long persecution of Assange.

At the height of the crisis, hundreds of prison staff and inmates at penitentiaries across the country were struck down by the virus, including in Belmarsh. Warnings from medical experts that Assange was particularly susceptible to succumbing to COVID-19, given his chronic respiratory issues, were ignored and an application for bail contemptuously dismissed.

The calls for Assange’s release on medical grounds during the pandemic followed statements of concern by doctors from around the world since November last year that Assange could die in Belmarsh due to a lack of adequate treatment.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has repeatedly condemned Assange’s imprisonment as a continuation of government abuses that have resulted in the WikiLeaks founder displaying the medically-verifiable symptoms of psychological torture.

The latest indications of Assange’s physical condition follow reports that he looked poorly when he attended his last court hearing by video link on August 14. Assange was reportedly coughing through much of his brief appearance and appeared to be unwell.

As the WSWS wrote in a perspective article, the August 14 hearing “made clear, if any further proof was needed, that the prosecution of Julian Assange is a shameful and degrading show trial, intended to railroad an innocent man to prison or death for revealing the crimes of US imperialism.”

In a blatant violation of legal procedures and due process, the US filed a superseding indictment of Assange days before the hearing, and more than a year after the deadline elapsed for them to present a final charge sheet. This is a transparent attempt to prevent Assange’s legal team from presenting any defence.

The new indictment contains no new information or charges. It is the tortured product of American intelligence agents and two of their informants, including one previously convicted of impersonating Assange and stealing money from WikiLeaks.

The gross abuse has not been condemned by any of the official political parties in Britain, the US or Australia. By their silence, all of them, including Labor and the Greens in Australia and the British Labour Party, have given their blessing to the show trial that Assange is set to be subjected to when extradition hearings recommence on September 7.

The unprecedented persecution of the WikiLeaks publisher has also been treated as a non-event by the corporate media, which enjoy the closest ties with the military and intelligence agencies that have spearheaded the pursuit of Assange.

The substantial public support that Assange enjoys, which stands in marked contrast to the stance of the political and media establishments, has been expressed in the response to an online fundraiser for his legal expenses, initiated last week by Morris.

The initial target of £25,000 was achieved within days. A stretch goal of £50,000 has since been surpassed and the appeal is well on its way to the new target of £75,000. As of this writing, almost £68,000 has been contributed by 1,563 people from around the world.

Morris provided an update on Wednesday, writing: “Julian wanted me to thank you personally for all of the help you have provided in covering his legal fees to fight the extradition to the USA, where he faces 175 years in prison.”

Read Original Article in the World Socialist Web Site
Similar reportings :
The Daily Mail
The Telegraph

On the 29th August 2020, The Labour Heartlands reports

Everyone knows the real story everybody can see it, we can’t believe anybody is hoodwinked. it’s not espionage this is journalism!

Ken Loach spoke out today after a screening of a new film highlighting Julian Assange’s political incarceration titled ‘The War on Journalism: The Case of Julian Assange.‘ After denouncing the mainstream media for sucking every story out of Julian Assange and the Wikileaks organisation then leaving him to dry in the clutches of the vengeful establishment. Ken went on to call out the self-serving media. Ken Loach always one for expressing the truth asked the questions of the mainstream media most journalist and political commentators now shy away from. He went on to say:

“Everyone knows the real story everybody can see it, we can’t believe anybody is hoodwinked. it’s not espionage this is journalism! When you get a right-wing politician like David Davis saying Julian Assange is a political prisoner, everyone knows it, the Guardian knows it who took his stories then disowned him, the BBC knows it, Channel 4 news, every serious editor current affairs programme, of a national newspaper ‘knows this is the truth’ and yet they are silent the journalist are silent, the lawyers are silent.”

Ken Loach: Starmer should be challenged, what does he know?

Stating this should be a test for him! Starmer speaks of openness in his dealings, well let him be open about this, and let’s hear what he says about the torture and the illegal oppression of Julian Assange.

What do we know about Sir Keir Starmer as head of the Prosecution service.

As DPP, Sir Keir Starmer tempered his supposed love of liberty by fast-tracking the extradition of Julian Assange (a process now making its way through the courts). He flouted legal precedents by advising Swedish lawyers not to question Assange in Britain: a decision that prolonged the latter’s legal purgatory, denied closure to his accusers in Sweden, and sealed his fate before a US show trial. Leaked emails from August 2012 show that, when the Swedish legal team expressed hesitancy about keeping Assange’s case open, Sir Keir’s office replied: ‘Don’t you dare get cold feet’.

Documents released under Freedom of Information requests to Italian magazine La Repubblica confirm the very close relationship between the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Sweden in the Julian Assange case. The files contain hundreds of mostly redacted emails sent over a five-year period. But according to one authoritative source, the number of CPS documents relating to the case may be much greater than has so far been disclosed.

In May 2017, the Swedish authorities announced they had ceased all remaining investigations into alleged sexual assault by WikiLeaks founder Assange. But the Metropolitan Police arrest warrant for skipping bail would remain in force. Subsequently, Assange’s legal team sought a ruling that the Met warrant should be rescinded, but the court ruled otherwise.

Chief Magistrate hearing the Assange case: Baroness Emma Arbuthot, married to Baron Arbuthot, former British Conservative Party MP & Chairman of the Defence Select Committee. Yes of course the judiciary is completely independent in the UK. https://t.co/zSxpnoildL

CPS intervention

The emails between the Swedish Prosecuting Authority (SPA) and the CPS show that the latter was closely involved in the Assange case at every stage.

In one such email, dated 25 January 2011, a CPS lawyer advised the SPA not to send someone to the UK:

My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant [Assange] in the UK.

In August 2012, in response to an article saying Sweden could withdraw the warrant against Assange, a CPS staffer (name redacted) warned [pdf, p1] Sweden’s Director of Public Prosecutions Marianne Ny:

Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!

But a year later, in October 2013, Ny wrote [pdf, p332]:

we have found us to be obliged to consider to lift the detention order… and to withdraw the European arrest warrant. If so this should be done in a couple of weeks. This would affect not only us but you too in a significant way.

However, it took three and a half more years for that to happen.

Edward Fitzgerald QC said in court that Assange is ‘anti-war and anti-imperialist’ and this is why the US is out to get him.

This case is one of the great political cases of the century, as John McDonnell recently said. It’s a defining case for the left, and Sir Keir Starmer has taken the most conservative position imaginable.

This is what Labour Party members can expect from a Starmer leadership: unquestioning loyalty to the establishment on both sides of the Atlantic.

It beggars belief that Julian Assange who is ‘subjected to every kind of torment’ in Belmarsh prison sits and awaits extradition, yet the likes of Tony Blair walks free. To rub salt into this travesty of justice, when the Scottish SNP proposed a motion to investigate Tony Blair for allegedly misleading parliament over Iraq war, Sir Keir Starmer voted against it.

Meanwhile, the most high profile political prisoner is treated like a war criminal for exposing war crimes.

Read Original Article in the Labour Heartlands

On 4th September 2020, Dr Vacy Vlazna, wrote

On this coming Father’s Day I want to salute three fathers whose sons, who have not broken Australian law, were and are betrayed by the Australian government: Terry Hicks the father of David Hicks incarcerated in a cage in Camp X-ray Guantanamo Bay for 5 years; John Shipton the father of Julian Assange who is presently incarcerated by the British government and Khalil El-Halabi whose son, Mohammed former Gaza/West Bank director of World Vision Australia, continues to be incarcerated by the Jewish state of Israel.

As you can empathise, for Terry, John and Khalil, on the unjust imprisonment of their sons, everything fell apart and the centre of normality and morality, with its implied fairness guaranteed by government obligations, ceased to hold as political shysters sacrificed their children to foreign interests (American and Israeli) while ‘journalists’, indentured as government henchmen, discharged venom and lies in the public square.

For them, daily a new alien norm of fatherhood was burgeoned with distress and anguish in knowing their child was daily suffering emotionally, physically, and mentally. For these fathers on a desperate mission of justice, powerlessness struggled with determination, frustration with doggedness, exhaustion with agency.

Terry Hicks

In 2006, ACT chief minister Jon Stanhope nominated Terry as Australian Father of the Year. It was awarded to the amazing Ron Delezio, notwithstanding, Terry stood tall and heroic in the eyes of supporters of his relentless five year campaign to secure a fair trial for his son David, who was arrested in 2001 in Afghanistan and underwent extraordinary rendition to Guantanamo Bay as a ‘terrorist’ and enemy combatant despite not having breached American or Australian law.

Until then Terry was a regular Aussie bloke, Dad and a political ingenue according to Sandra Kanck, the former outspoken Australian Democrat rep in South Australia, “Terry is a wonderful person who started out knowing nothing about politics and had to learn very quickly.”

Nor had Terry been outside of Australia, but as the saying goes  – parents will go to the ends of the earth to protect their children – he did just that “staying in a Guantanamo Bay-sized cage on a New York pavement and outside a convention centre in Adelaide” and followed in the dangerous footsteps of his son in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the making of the Curtis Levy’s documentary, The President vs David Hicks (2004)

Today Terry, political and justice wise, is a staunch supporter of Julian Assange,

“You might get support from high profile people, but the fight to gain Julian’s freedom depends on ordinary people speaking out. You will win them if you explain the basic issues at stake, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press and democratic rights, and you’ll be respected for your determination and your honesty.”

Concerning David,  political hypocrisy was putridly on the nose; consider ‘until Sept 11, 2001, the United States officially supported the Taliban with millions of dollars in aid and a natural gas pipeline worth billions’. Then there’s the many young Australians who take leave to join the military of a foreign power i.e.  Israel to brutally subjugate indigenous Palestinians, but never end up incarcerated on Christmas Island.

John Shipton

Julian Assange’s 7 year diplomatic asylum at the Ecuador Embassy, London was revoked in April 2019 when left-wing President Rafael Correa was replaced by devoted USA fan, the right-wing Lenin (irony) Morena.

Julian Assange’s father John Shipton now jumps the hurdles of the international advocacy circuit to secure Julian’s unconditional release from Britain’s high-security Belmarsh Prison where he served 50 weeks for breaching bail (but remains remanded) ,

“I’m at this full time,” he says. This is my job now. I came over from Melbourne this year and spent a month in the UK and saw how they kept mucking around with Julian, even with visiting him. They’d mess up an appointment and then you couldn’t go again for another two weeks.”

and to deter USA’s extradition demand and charge under the Espionage Act for the Wikileaks’ exposure of US torture and war crimes in Iraq. Australia, ever the US shoe-shine boy, abandoned Julian.

The mainstream media especially the Murdoch press has for years eviscerated the truth of Julian’s journalistic contribution to freedom of speech and to his reputation. As for the smear that Julian is his own worst enemy,

“That’s horseshit,” [John] says. “What you’re dealing with reminds me of the line in [TS] Eliot about the King and Thomas Beckett. ‘Will anybody rid me of this turbulent priest?’ A lot of that stuff is designed to just get at Julian with no basis for it.

“Julian is a joy of a man, he’s very positive, sweet natured. He’s determined but he always could get his own way by being charming. He didn’t have to bully anyone.”

Khalil El Halabi

Within the restrictions of his own incarceration in the wretched Gaza death camp, Khalil El Halabi pursues online his mission to free his son Mohammad who has been illegally held without charge by Israel since 2016 and is forced to attend court  – over 146 times. This psychological cruelty and abuse of the international standards of the rule of law are condemned by civilised people.

Mohammed, World Vision’s respected Gaza coordinator was falsely accused  by the Jewish state of diverting foreign aid (Australian funds) to Hamas.

This fake accusation was officially dismissed by the Australian government in March 2017 and by World Vision, nevertheless the Israeli ‘justice’ department beat, tortured and keeps Mohammed incarcerated. True to form, the Australian government simply threw him to Netanyahu’s wolves.

Yet, with typical Gazan resilience, Khalil persistently pleads to Australia for help,

My son stands by his innocence and without hesitation rejected Israel’s plea deal. He has been honoured by the UN as a Humanitarian Hero and is a loving father of five children, Khalil,15, Asem,13, Amro, 9, Rital,6, and Faris,4 who miss him so much. He is a fine man and son. My heart is broken for my son. All he was doing was trying to help needy people.

Every single day I try to do all I can to raise awareness of my son’s cause. Thinking of him humiliated and mistreated eats me up on the inside. I want to hold him close to my chest and tell him how proud I am for all he has done for Gaza and the Palestinian people.

The majority of Australian politicians are parents and a majority haven’t denounced the grave injustices threatening the children of their parental contemporaries. I say this is mainly down to two reasons:

1. the majority of politicians belong to two major parties and once elected they make the Faustian pact of sacrificing integrity and honour (if ever existed) for ambition which means. . .
2. b) towing the party line that involves, in these three cases, another sacrifice  – sacrificing Australian sovereignty for infantile subservience to US interests and/or zionist donor monies.

This Father’s Day I offer my respect to Terry, John and Khalil for their love, courage and moral integrity and also to our First Nations’ fathers who mourn their child’s death in custody or unjust incarceration. And, lest we forget the aching fathers in distant persecuted lands whose asylum-seeking children are cruelly incarcerated for the past 7 years by our government. Shame Australia.

Khalil El Halabi

Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She is the author of  East Timor: Reveille for Courage, editor of a volume of Palestinian poetry, I remember my name and writes political commentary for a number of independent online magazines. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was convenor of Australia East Timor Association and coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.

Read original article in Counter Currents

On the 30th August, Craig Murray posted

The travesty that is Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumes fully on 7 September at the Old Bailey. I shall be abandoning my own legal team and going down to London to cover it again in full, for an expected three weeks. How this is going to work at the Old Bailey, I do not know. Covid restrictions presumably mean that the numbers in the public gallery will be tiny. As of now, there is no arrangement for Julian’s friends and family in place. It looks like 4am queuing is in prospect.

By 7 September it will be six months since I applied to resume my membership of the National Union of Journalists. I STILL have not the slightest idea who objected, or what the grounds were for objection. I have not heard from the NUJ for months. A senior official of an international journalists’ organisation has told us that he inquired, and learnt that the NUJ national executive has considered my application and set up a sub-committee to report. But if so, why is this secret, why have I not been informed, and why am I not allowed to know what the objection is? I find this all very sinister. At this stage it is not paranoid to wonder whose hand is behind this.

The practical effect of this is that without NUJ membership I cannot access a Press card, and avail myself of whatever media arrangements are in place for the Assange hearing (just as I was kept out of most of the Salmond trial). I have now reached the stage where I would like to take legal action against the NUJ, but the finances are beyond me. I am not going to ask you to donate because we are going to need all our resources for the contempt case against me, which the Crown drags out.

I shall be writing next week about my own case and that hearing earlier this week. I would just note now that the “virtual hearing” is entirely unsatisfactory and unfair on defendants. There was at least one occasion when my QC agreed with a suggestion of the judge when I would have instructed them not to had I been, as I should normally have been, seated near them in court and able to instruct.

More on Craig Murray’s Blog

On 26 August 2020, John Kendall Hawkins interviews Andrew Fowler

Andrew Fowler is an Australian award-winning investigative journalist and a former reporter for the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent and Four Corners programs. and the author of The Most Dangerous Man in the World: Julian Assange and WikiLeaks’ Fight for Freedom.

This is an updated edition of his 2011 account of the rise and political imprisonment of Assange. Much of that account explained how Assange seemingly inevitably moved toward an adversarial positioning against American imperialism abroad. He was a tonic for the indifference expressed by so many ordinary Americans in the traumatic aftermath of 9/11 and the rise of the surveillance state. Boston Legal’s Alan Shore (James Spader) seems to sum it up succinctly.

His updated version discusses the torture Assange is currently undergoing at Belmarsh prison in Britain. Here is a must-see film regarding his torture.

His book also contains the latest on UC Global’s comprehensive spying on Assange and his visitors at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in the last year of his ‘refuge’ there. UC Global is a Spanish security company hired to protect the embassy. It has since been revealed that they were passing on data to American intelligence, presumably the CIA. Certainly, Fowler implies such a connection in his updated book, citing two Assange hacking breaches of US government servers, each of which, Fowler writes, the CIA went berserk, as if they’d been hit by a foreign enemy. In the last (new) chapter of the book, “The Casino,” Fowler describes how outraged the CIA was when Assange published their hacking tools, known as Vault 7, on Wikileaks: “Sean Roche, the deputy director of digital innovation at the CIA, remembers the reaction from those inside the CIA. He said he got a call from another CIA director who was out of breath: ‘It was the equivalent of a digital Pearl Harbor.’” Below is my recent interview with the author.

* Note: Upon his release of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg was referred to as “the most dangerous man in the world.”

What is the up-to-date status of Julian’s health?

It seems quite clear that there is an attempt by the British and US administrations to destroy Assange, either driving him to suicide or a psychological breakdown. He has had a lung condition for a number of years, which has not been properly treated, and is clearly suffering from huge stress. During his last court appearance over a video link, there were long pauses between his words, even when speaking his own name.

When Chelsea Manning was imprisoned at Quantico she spent 23 hours per day in solitary confinement and was stripped naked at night. How does Julian’s treatment at Belmarsh compare? Manning’s treatment was said to be an attempt to coerce her into ratting on others, including, presumably Assange. What do you see as the ultimate purpose of Assange’s treatment? And how does it amount to torture?

The ultimate purpose of Assange’s treatment is a warning to others. Particularly other journalists. It’s the modern day equivalent of crucifixion, putting heads of enemies on spikes, or public hangings. The torture of Assange involves two main areas: being confined to three rooms in a single building for 7 years, and unable to leave without fear of arrest and extradition to Sweden which was playing an underhand role to allow Assange to be extrdited to the US. As the UN rapporteur on torture Nils Meltzer wrote that never in the two decades he had spent investigating war crimes had he ever seen such a ganging up of so many powerful nations against one individual. It is a testament to Assange’s mental strength that he resisted at all.

No effort was made by the Swedes to “question” Assange once he was lifted from the Ecuadorian Embassy, suggesting that their purpose all along was, as Assange and his defenders averred, a pretext for hand-over. You’d think there was some way to nix the bail jump charge given this likelihood of intergovernmental collusion. Thoughts?

There are no outstanding allegations for Assange to answer in Sweden. They were always only allegations, rather than charges. It is important to understand that if the Swedish prosecutors had charged Assange, they would have had to reveal the evidence of the ‘offences’ to his lawyers upon which those charges were based. And the evidence was not only thin, it pointed to a conspiracy. So it was possible to keep Assange in the embassy, while the UK prosecuting authority worked at ways of getting him extradited to Sweden. There seems little doubt that the plan all along was to use Sweden as a holding pen for Assange as the US applied for his extradition. It is possible he could take his case to the European Human Court of Human Rights, but the Brexit decision, makes this area extremely murky.

Can you provide more details about the UC Global, the Spanish company brought into the Ecuadorian Embassy to spy on Assange? Do we know more about what data that they gathered? Has a more definitive connection to the CIA been made? Has any further effort been put into place to quash the extradition process based on this fact alone? (He could never expect a fair trial back in the US if such surveillance and potentially framing were done.)

UC Global not only recorded hundreds of conversations inside the Ecuadorian embassy, but also photographed the phones [and] their location identifying IMEI numbers, passports and other documents of everyone who visited Assange in the embassy between 2015 and 2018. It’s my understanding that the case running in Madrid at the moment against the former CEO of UC Global, David Morales, who is charged with illegally spying on Assange and his lawyers (a specifically illegal act in Europe) will be used by the Assange legal team to argue that the US extradition case should be thrown out. It is my understanding that if any material gathered spying on Assange and his lawyers is used, or even known about, by those involved in the US prosecution – the charges must be withdrawn. There has been no definitive connection to the CIA. The closest I have managed to make the link is to the State Department and White House confidantes.

Snowden’s, Permanent Record is one of the best reads I’ve had in quite some time. You could argue that his revelations are equally, if not more significant, than what Assange offers up through Wikileaks. Where do you stand on the difference of value, if any, between Wikileaks and the Snowden revelations?

The main differences are: Assange is a recipient of information which as a journalist he publishes. Snowden is a source. When it comes to quantifying the different values of their work, Assange mainly provided information and analysis, whereas Snowden exposed intelligence gathering systems. In the source-journalist relationship, they both need each other. Both exposed the activities of a war-making machine. Without Assange it is unlikely that we would have had Snowden. It was WikiLeaks that opened up the public on a truly massive scale to a secret world of horror and deception which until then had been largely hidden from view. For Snowden’s part he brought the argument home that it wasn’t just foreign governments who were being spied on, it was the Americans themselves. They both played a significant and at times overlapping role in revealing the truth about the world we’re in.

Assange and Snowden seem to have had their differences over the years. Snowden describes in PR how he chose his nickname: “The final name I chose for my correspondence was ‘Verax,’ Latin for ‘speaker of truth,’ in the hopes of proposing an alternative to the model of a hacker called ‘Mendax’ (‘speaker of lies’)—the pseudonym of the young man who’d grow up to become WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange.” (p.193) There was irritability there between them, and Snowden didn’t trust Assange with his life (fearing that a dump, rather than a journo-processed revelation system, would close off future whistleblower arguments). His first choice had been the NYT, but their suppression of James Risen’s 2004 pre-election piece on STELLARWIND enraged him and he ended up going with Greenwald et al, instead. Snowden suggests character differences between the two, but on the other hand Assange really pissed the US government off when he sent a woman to rescue Snowden from Hong Kong. Some of us thought Obama was going to shoot down Bolivia One with president Evo Morales on board because Obama thought Snowden was onboard.

I see in Permanent Record Snowden says he decided not to go with WikiLeaks because of a change of policy to publish material unredacted, or ‘pristine’ as he calls it. Not sure why he says this because WL policy is to redact. [Here’s Snowden’s explanation.] WL did put all the Iraq/Afghanistan/Cablegate documents online un-redacted, but only after David Leigh of the Guardian published the password — and the material was already out on the internet. I’ve never asked Assange this, but there is another Mendax. In the 1920s an Australian science fiction writer Erle Cox’a Mendax was an eccentric inventor. Mendax experiments with ‘matter transmission’ ‘invisibility’ and ‘extracting gold from seawater’. There is a tension between the two, no doubt about it. Snowden still errs on the side of secrecy and Assange on the side of publication, possibly the difference between an ex-intelligence agent and a journalist.

Covid-19 seems to be the wild card in the deck, vis-a-vis Assange’s extradition to the US. If he doesn’t contract the illness in prison, then his extradition next year could prove problematic — courts, protests, circus. How do you think the virus will affect the legal proceedings? Do you think he’ll be better off under Biden’s DOJ? Or worse, given the perceived threat to the Democrats he represents? Do you see a way for his defense to exploit the DNC/Russia hack dishonesty?

Not sure how Covid will impact anything much, other than slowing down the process, which in itself is extremely problematic for Assange. He’s already been in prison or under house arrest (including the embassy) for nine years. I’m not sure what it takes to embarrass the UK government into refusing the extradition request, but the new indictment is surely turning the political prosecution into a farce. The US now wants to re-arrest Assange to wrap in a new indictment because the first one was likely to fail. In past years it might have been possible for the UK Government to reject this deceptive or incompetent behaviour by the US, but Britain is a spent force now on the world stage, and the US can do whatever it wants.

As for Biden’s DoJ, he’s called Assange a ‘high-tech terrorist’ and has recently said though he favours freedom of the press it should not compromise US national security. Not much hope there.

One hope Assange has is the possible pardoning of Snowden. It plays to Trump’s ‘deep state’ argument that the intelligence agencies are out of control and were involved in the fabrication of Russian collusion. [Here’s Snowden referencing his work for the “Deep State”] Assange’s work has exposed CIA atrocities (which supports Trump’s position) but WikiLeaks has also revealed evidence of war crimes by the US military, an establishment so admired by his core supporters. I fear that a Snowden pardon, much as I would personally welcome it, would only further isolate Assange.

If Assange goes down, do you see a future for journalism in the world — given America’s so-called leadership in this area, by way of the holy first amendment, but with dwindling global newspapers. The Guardian, WaPo and the NYT remain the only papers of record available in every international terminal in the world — and sales falling for them, the fight over what’s real news and what isn’t underway (a proxy war to control the narrative), how do you see the fight for journalism ahead?

If Assange goes down, it will be the third domino. First, the rising power of executive government; second, the destruction of the, at times, countervailing power of the mainstream media, including public broadcasters who draw their political power from their audiences (and thus to a certain extent are independent). The internet has savaged media budgets which has weakened the overall media environment and empowered governments to attack and cut public broadcasters. Assange who used the internet as a weapon for journalism provided a way to re-energise old media structures — engage readers and challenge executive government authority. He provided a way to democratise journalism. It is the reason he is such a threat to the hegemony of the US led five eyes nations, who until recently in a uni-polar political and strategic world, have ruled supreme.

I sometimes marvel at the effect on journalism and even constitutional issues in America that Australians have had. Early on, Assange seems to have declared war on the DoD and, later, the US State Department; John Pilger has, with his interview with the CIA “rogue” Duane Clarridge, exposed the full fuckin hubris of American foreign policy; and, Fox News has so dumbed down the political conversation in America that it may be heading for a fate like that depicted in Idiocracy. Any thoughts?

There’s a strange contradiction in Australia. Australians are very conservative, and cautious, but part of the national identity is tied to the notion of anti-authoritarianism, dating back to the nation’s convict past. The degradation of the mainly poor, transported to Australia from the UK and Ireland two centuries ago for often minor crimes, created a bedrock of antagonism against the ruling ‘elites’. This long history of dissent in Australia has produced outstanding journalists such as Pilger and Assange, Wilfred Burchett and Philip Knightly. I can think of no better way to explain how Assange and Murdoch became two of the most influential global media figures in the past century. Murdoch rose to power as an anti-establishment figure in the UK and Assange has done the same on a global basis.

Read Original Article John Menadue

Julian’s partner Stella Morris (Twitter , Facebook), is fighting day and night to bring him home. Please donate to his legal defence now to support the fight against U.S. extradition.

Donate at Crowd Justice Campaign

Julian's partner @StellaMoris1 is fighting day and night to bring him home. Please donate to his legal defence now to support the fight against U.S. extradition. #FreeAssangehttps://t.co/q3UGFDmUsN pic.twitter.com/wwl5uHYviF

— Father The Movie (@fathermovie) August 29, 2020

On the 31st July, 2020, Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis write

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice is blocking the release of basic information about the judge who is to rule on Julian Assange’s extradition to the US in what appears to be an irregular application of the Freedom of Information Act, it can be revealed.

Declassified has also discovered that the judge, Vanessa Baraitser, has ordered extradition in 96% of the cases she has presided over for which information is publicly available.

Baraitser was appointed a district judge in October 2011 based at the Chief Magistrate’s Office in London, after being admitted as a solicitor in 1994. Next to no other information is available about her in the public domain.

Baraitser has been criticised for a number of her judgments so far concerning Assange, who has been incarcerated in a maximum security prison, HMP Belmarsh in London, since April 2019. These decisions include refusing Assange’s request for emergency bail during the Covid-19 pandemic and making him sit behind a glass screen during the hearing, rather than with his lawyers. 

Declassified recently revealed that Assange is one of just two of the 797 inmates in Belmarsh being held for violating bail conditions. Over 20% of inmates are held for murder.

Declassified has also seen evidence that the UK Home Office is blocking the release of information about home secretary Priti Patel’s role in the Assange extradition case.

The article covers many intrigues including:

• the difference in response between an FOI request on Judge Baraitser arguing the judiciary is not a public body versus the FOI request on Justin Barron where the FOI cost limit required a reduced FOI request.
• Baraitser has a 96% conviction rating on extradition trials, with a subsequent 26% rate of overturn by appeal
• An FOI request for all cases held at Woolwich Crown Court was denied
• Chief Magistrate Arbuthnot has a leader ship role in the case, possibly including selection of Judge Baraitser, yet has a conflict of interest due to her family’s connections to the British military and intelligence establishment
• An FOI on phone calls Home Secretary Priti Patel concerning the Assange case was denied, yet the Home Office appears to indicate that Patel has had communications regarding Assange during her tenure as home secretary.
• Patel is also linked to Arbuthnot’s husband, Lord Arbuthnot and will sign off Assange’s extradition to the US if it is ordered by Baraitser

Read whole article in the Daily Maverick’s Declassified UK or follow on Declassified UK on twitter

On the, 17th July 2020, Nina Cross sent this as yet unpublished article to the editors of this site.

There seem to be two notable tendencies of the British extradition courts. One is their protective nature towards oligarchs seeking asylum from Russia; the other is the extent they go to enable the extradition of Julian Assange. The first involves applying human rights and rights of asylum in the courts; the second involves removing human rights and rights of asylum from the courts.  By comparing them we can see the arbitrary nature of the British judiciary’s treatment of Assange.

We might remember British courts refused to extradite individuals to Russia for financial crimes connected to Yukos oil while the company was in the hands of oligarchs Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, champions of “market capitalism in Russia”. British courts claimed the allegations of financial crimes against individuals who were connected to Khodorkovsky and seeking asylum in the UK were politically motivated.  In contrast, we are told by the extradition court that Julian Assange, fighting extradition for charges of espionage, having exposed war crimes, is facing “serious allegations in the US.”   Yet if the average person were asked to choose, which of the following two charges do you think they would describe as politically motivated?

1. Massive financial crimes including defrauding the state
2. Espionage for publishing sources exposing government corruption and war crimes

It is notable that the British extradition courts hurried to refuse extradition requests relating to the first, but appear to be facilitating the second.  Is the interpretation of a politically motivated extradition request that arbitrary in British courts?

Alexander Temerko 

In 2005 Judge Timothy Workman refused to extraditefrom the UK several individuals wanted by the Russian authorities.  One of those was  Alexander Temerko, senior vice-president at Yukos, who was facing allegations of Conspiracy to Defraud and of Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice. Judge Workman claimed the case against Temerko was politically motivated by extension of the fact he believed the case against Khodorkovsky, eventually convicted by the Russian authorities in 2005 for tax evasion crimes (and again in 2010 for embezzlement and money laundering) was politically motivated. 

As a result, Temerko remained in the UK, and with the growth of his business in the UK became increasingly influential, and known for his connections to the Tory party to which he has made significant donations.   However, when Khodorkovsky took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, its ruling in 2011 did  not support the view it was politically motivated and in a second ruling in 2013 following his second trial and conviction, the ECHR claimed the case had ‘a healthy core‘.  Judge Workman may have had his reasons to refuse extradition, but by claiming the charges were politically motivated he allowed scope for interpretation the charges were trumped up, an interpretation clearly rejected by the ECHR.

On the publication of the ECHR ruling in 2011 the British media reported the findings but with no analysis of the convictions for financial crimes, while Khodorkovsky’s representative  was given a national platform.  The case of Khodorkovsky was presented to the West as a human rights case and he was effectively portrayed as a martyr.   Khodorkovsky would appear to be the righttype of Russian for the British political class, and his associates were the right type of asylum seekers for the extradition courts.

Public mobbing by public officials

Had the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, called Temerko a miserable little worm, we can imagine how this would have been presented at the extradition court of Judge Workman.  Yet the British Former Foreign Office Minister, Alan Duncan, made such a comment about Assange in the House of Commons.  Did we think then that Assange might be treated fairly?  Duncan’s collaboration with the Moreno government of Ecuador resulted in Assange being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy on 11th April last year, an act that violated international law. 

Immediately following Assange’s arrest, British Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, made the following statement in what appeared to be an announcement presented in interview format, and broadcasted by the leading state broadcaster, the BBC, Jeremy Hunt: 

“No one is above the law. Julian Assange is no hero. He has hidden from the truthfor years and years and it is right that his future should be decided in the British judicial system. What has happened today is the result of years of careful diplomacy by the foreign office and I commend particularly our ambassador in Ecuador, and Alan Duncan and his team here in London for their work but also the very courageous decision by President Moreno in Ecuador to resolve the situation that has been going on for nearly seven years I mean it’s not so much Julian Assange being held hostage in the Ecuadorian Embassy, it’s actually Julian Assange holding the Ecuadorian embassy hostage in a situation that was absolutely intolerable for them so this will now be decided properly, independently by the British legal system respected throughout the world for its independent and integrity and that is the right outcome.”

BBC Political News: 

And What was the process that led to this between Ecuador and the UK?

Jeremy Hunt: 

Well we have been talking to them for a very very long time about how to resolve the situation. We are a law abiding country we always uphold the law so we have to follow all the international rules in a situation like this but there was a change of leadership by Ecuador, President Moreno took a courageous decision which has meant that we have been able to resolve the situation today.

This in effect announcement by Hunt appears to have been broadcasted in less than 90 minutes after Assange’s arrest, according to the times indicated, and before he even appeared in court. Hunt’s comments, how they were presented and when, demonstrate how he used his powerful position to shape the public’s view of Assange, an example of what Nils Melzer, UN rapporteur on Torture, has described as ‘public mobbing’. Hunt used a strategy of figurative language and insinuation to create suspicion around Assange. What ‘truth’ had Assange ‘hidden from’? Everyone knew he claimed asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, thereby jumping a police bail, which in 2019 was not attached to any investigation or existing or previous charges. In its 2015 decision of arbitrary detention, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) recognised Assange skipping police bail was a result of his seeking political asylum at the embassy. What truthwas Hunt therefore referring to? What ‘this’ would be ‘decided properly’? As there were no charges or even allegations made against Assange when Hunt made this speech, what was this mysterious vague badness hanging over Assange, evoked by Hunt, that the public should be so wary of and see as a reason to anticipate punishment, but that could not be clearly articulated?

Another term used by Hunt that day was ‘holding the Ecuadorian embassy hostage’. The power of such words should not be underestimated when used by political leaders. In fact, it has been described as a ‘rhetorical weapon’ used most enthusiastically by Barack Obama: 

“Never again will the American taxpayer be heldhostage by a bank that is too big to fail.” (January 21, 2010, Remarks on Financial Regulatory Reform)

Obama, a lawyer, used the term 70 times, demonstrating how highly he rated its political value, as has been pointed out:

President Obama and his speechwriters undoubtedly feel there is significant political value in playing the hostage card with respect to a whole host of domestic policy issues.

So why is it such a handy little weapon? We do not expect to hear the term ‘hostage’ from a leader without serious implications. When used to describe real cases we associate it with murder, death and danger. When used figuratively, it implies victimhood by one party subdued by another more powerful. Hunt wanted the public to believe Ecuador was being terrorised by Assange, and to support Moreno’s decision to expel him from the embassy. This was a flagrant violation of international laws, including non-refoulement, which means asylum cannot be removed, once granted, if the case for political persecution still exists. In Assange’s case it clearly still existed. Hunt’s comments were designed to legitimise Moreno’s actions. We now know that it was in fact Assange who was the victim inside the Ecuadorian embassy since Moreno came to power. He was denied visitors, a phone and internet access and then allowed limited access following intervention by UN officials. It has also come to light that he and his visitors were subjected to illegal and intrusive surveillance that was designed to benefit those engineering his extradition. In reality, Assange had been there entirely legitimately in accordance with international asylum law since the previous President, Rafael Correa, supported his application. Later that day, when Assange was indicted on a politically-motivated agenda by the US; it had nothing to do with the Ecuadorian embassy, which brought no charges against him, despite Hunt’s story to the public. The purpose of Hunt’s broadcast was clear: to discredit Assange, promote propaganda about his behaviour inside the embassy, airbrush his reason for being in the embassy and airbrush its legality.  

When was the last time a foreign secretary held a press interview about someone who breached a police bail several years previously? Is it a proportionate action by a government official towards someone with no criminal record, and not charged with any crime? We can imagine that Hunt’s remarks on the day of Assange’s arrest might have been written by a lawyer. They insinuate but do not name, they infer but do not clarify, and they were powerfully persuasive. And whom were they designed to persuade? The public or the courts? 

We might also read Hunt’s comments as an admission that his government had been able to arrest Assange because Moreno had broken ‘international rules,’ if not an actual admission that the UK government had stopped respecting them:

“…we have to follow all the international rules in a situation like this butthere was a change of leadership by Ecuador, President Moreno took a courageous decision which has meant that we have been able to resolve the situation today…”

What does this actually mean? That the British government chose not to invade the Ecuadorian embassy to capture Assange while the Correa government was in power? The reality behind this rhetoric was that by removing Assange’s asylum status in this politically motivated way, the Moreno government violated “international rules.” British politicians conspired to use this to send their authorities into Ecuadorian jurisdiction, the Ecuadorian embassy, to snatch Assange, denying him due legal process. 

The silence by the British media, and judiciary, following comments made about Assange by British leaders can be contrasted to the storm of hysterics over several comments made by Russian President Putin following Khodorkovsky’s first conviction in 2005, prior to his second. These include the following:

 “… As for Khodorkovsky, I have expressed my opinion on this on many occasions. But if you want me to repeat myself again now, I will. It is my conviction that “a thief should be in jail” [a quotation from a famous Soviet film starring Vladimir Vysotsky]. Khodorkovsky has been convicted, by court, for embezzlement, pretty major embezzlement. We’re talking about tax evasion and fraud involving billions of roubles. Then, very importantly, there was also the matter of his personal tax evasion.“

Outrage poured from Western media outlets.  The Guardian called it a ‘flagrant abuse of process’.   However, the ECHR ruled that Putin’s comments did not violate the convention protecting presumption of innocence because he had set his comments in the context of Khodorkovsky’s conviction.  The ruling makes the point also that Putin’s comment was spontaneous, made during a question-and-answer session with the general public. In contrast, Hunt’s comments about Assange were prepared and the interview appears to have been staged to take place directly after Assange’s arrest. It reached a mass audience through BBC Political News, a significant platform for British government announcements. 

https://ruptly.tv/en/videos/20190411-025

(this link shows Assange dragged out of embassy at 10.44

"Julian Assange is no hero. He has hidden from the truth for years and years"

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt says a "courageous decision" by Ecuador's new leader Lenin Moreno led to the arrest of #Wikileaks co-founder in Londonhttps://t.co/maAHGMUkjf #Assange pic.twitter.com/i8jzpSp4nq

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) April 11, 2019

this link shows Hunt making a statement about Assange’s arrest at 12.04

The charges against Assange brought by the US the same day of his arrest revealed the politically-motivated reason why the British authorities trapped him inside the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years.  It was never about sexual allegations:Swedish prosecutors were the last to know about his arrest despite all the years the Swedish authorities hung arrest warrants over him for allegations they failed to investigate and that contributed to the 2015 UNWGAD opinion of arbitrary detention.  On 11th April, Hunt publicly smeared and vilified Assange in an attempt to cover this politically-motivated abuse of process even before Assange stepped foot inside court. Even for this he had been given no time to prepare.

Enabling impunity 

Threats against Assange’s life have been made by powerful politicians (as seen here, here and here), some presented in court by his lawyers to explain why he sought asylum.  But the British courts’ routine dismissal of the death threats and instigations of violence by US public officials directed at Assange should be contrasted with the way the same extradition courts have rallied behind oligarchs fleeing Russia and claiming fear of persecution. Why are threats of violence and murder against Assange given a pass by British courts?

The denial of human rights in the case of Assange was seen in Judge Taylor’s sentencing statement to Assange’s notes of mitigation submitted on 2nd May last year, dismissing the UN ruling of arbitrary detention.  Her only reference to asylum was in the context of it being ‘revoked’ by the Moreno government of Ecuador, which, as has been made clear, was in fact a violation of international law of asylum.  And as Assange’s fears of extradition are unfolding in full view of the world, British judges have sent a journalist, who has held  authority to account for war crimes and corruption, to rot indefinitely in a category A prison.  From there he is fighting extradition to the US where the threats to his life have originated.  This is a stark contrast to the way British courts have listened with grave concerns to Russian oligarchs fleeing to Britain claiming asylum.

And it is not just Assange’s human rights they betray: the courts also ignore evidence of abuses of process in his case.  Assange’s case can be compared to the case of Lofti Raissi whom Judge Workman refused to extradite to the US in 2002.  Raissi was held in Belmarsh prison for a period of 5 months on ‘holding charges’ as the US tried to build a murder case against him, claiming he was linked to the 9/11 terrorist attack, the basis for a US extradition request.  However, it transpired that all Raissi had done was fail to disclose a knee injury, and a previous conviction for theft, leading to allegations he had misled the authorities in order to obtain a pilot’s licence.  The CPS “…repeatedly made statements for which they knew the evidence was either non-existent or erroneous”:

In 2008 the Court of Appeal, in a case brought by Raissi following refusal by British authorities to compensate the abuse he suffered, had this to say about the extradition case:

“Viewed objectively, it appears to us to be likely that the extradition proceedings were used for an ulterior purpose, namely to secure the appellant’s detention in custody in order to allow time for the US authorities to provide evidence of a terrorist offence.” 

“… it seems to us that the extradition proceedings themselves were a device to secure the appellant’s presence in the US for the purpose of investigating 9/11 rather than for the purpose of putting him on trial for non-disclosure offences.” 

Both the extradition and appeal courts recognised abuse of process by the CPS in the case of Raissi. Yet where Assange is concerned, the courts again turn a blind eye to serious questions about the handling of his case. They have ignored existing evidence that the CPS attempted to engineer Assange’s extradition to Sweden by pressuring the Swedish Prosecuting Authorities not to carry out a standard, preliminary interview with him in the UK. The courts have allowed what appear to be irregularities to go unchecked, enabling impunity.

As Assange fights for his life in continued arbitrary detention in overcrowded and understaffed category A Belmarsh prison, and vulnerable amid the Covid-19 pandemic, we see the arbitrary application of law by the British authorities. Each day Assange remains in Belmarsh, they align further with the political aspirations of Washington, enabling its impunity and the destruction of law.

On the 21st July 2020, the Stuttgarter Zeitung digital newspaper posted (Google translation)

Association ‘The Founders’

The association “Die Anstifter” awards the Stuttgart Peace Prize 2020 to the imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. It is endowed with 5000 euros.

Stuttgart – The Stuttgart Peace Prize 2020 of the association “Die Anstifter” goes to the imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange . The Australian-born has been in a London prison for about a year. The award for Assange is “a sign that the right to unconditional freedom of information and the press is not only protected, but enforced,” said club chairwoman Annette Ohme-Reinicke in Stuttgart on Tuesday.

With the award, the organization honors people or projects who are particularly committed to peace, justice and solidarity. The prize, endowed with 5000 euros, is to be awarded in Stuttgart on December 6 (11:00).

Read post in German at the Stuttgarter Zeitung