The Missing Step 354

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In Sweden, prosecutors have applied to the Swedish courts to issue a warrant for Julian’s arrest. There is a tremendous back story to that simple statement.

The European Arrest Warrant must be issued from one country to another by a judicial authority. The original Swedish request for Assange’s extradition was not issued by any court, but simply by the prosecutor. This was particularly strange, as the Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm had initially closed the case after deciding there was no case to answer, and then another, highly politically motivated, prosecutor had reopened the case and issued a European Arrest Warrant, without going to any judge for confirmation.

Assange’s initial appeal up to the UK Supreme Court was in large part based on the fact that the warrant did not come from a judge but from a prosecutor, and that was not a judicial authority. I have no doubt that, if any other person in the UK had been the accused, the British courts would not have accepted the warrant from a prosecutor. The incredible and open bias of the courts against Assange has been evident since day 1. My contention is borne out by the fact that, immediately after Assange lost his case against the warrant in the Supreme Court, the British government changed the law to specify that future warrants must be from a judge and not a prosecutor. That is just one of the incredible facts about the Assange case that the mainstream media has hidden from the general public.

The judgement against Assange in the UK Supreme Court on the point of whether the Swedish Prosecutor constituted a “judicial authority” hinged on a completely unprecedented and frankly incredible piece of reasoning. Lord Phillips concluded that in the English text of the EWA treaty “judicial authority” could not include the Swedish prosecutor, but that in the French version “autorite judiciaire” could include the Swedish prosecutor. The two texts having equal validity, Lord Phillips decided to prefer the French language text over the English language text, an absolutely stunning decision as the UK negotiators could be presumed to have been working from the English text, as could UK ministers and parliament when they ratified the decision.

I am not making this up – you will find Phillips amazing bit of linguistic gymnastics here on page 9 para 21 of his judgement. Again, it is impossible that this would have been done to anybody but Julian Assange; and had it been the outcry from the MSM against the preference given to French wording and thus French legal tradition would have been deafening. But given the state’s unhidden animus against Assange, it all was passed quietly with the law simply amended immediately thereafter to stop it happening to anybody else.

The law having been changed, this time the Swedes have to do it properly and actually go to a court to issue a warrant. That is what is now happening. As usual, the Guardian today cannot resist the temptation to tell an outright lie about what is happening.

The main headline is completely untrue. Sweden has not filed a request for arrest. Sweden is going through its judicial processes – which it skipped the first time – in order to decide whether or not to file a request for arrest. This gives Assange the opportunity to start the process of fighting the allegations, which he strenuously denies, in the Swedish courts. However at present his Swedish lawyer cannot access him in Belmarsh high security jail, which is typical of the abuses of process to which he is subject.

It is not political correctness which prevents the UK mainstream media from investigating the extraordinary nature of the allegations against Assange in Sweden. In the case of Nafissatou Diallo, for example, the entire UK mainstream media had no compunction whatsoever in publishing the name of the alleged victim from the very first moment of the allegations against DSK, and the likelihood or otherwise of the entire story was raked through in detail by every single national newspaper, and extensively by the BBC.

I have never heard anybody even attempt to explain why it was OK for the MSM to look in detail at Diallo’s accusations and use her name, but Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen must never be named and their story must never be doubted. The answer is not the position in Swedish law – the Swedish law states that neither the accuser nor the accused may be named, which law has been gleefully broken in Assange’s case every day for nine years. When it comes to Assange, he is simply to be reviled. He is provably treated differently by both state and MSM at all points. It does not matter to them that his arrest warrant was not from a judge, or that the media apply entirely different rules to investigating his case, enforced by a feminist mantra they do not believe or uphold in other cases. He is simply to be hated without question.

Why has there never been a documentary in the UK like the brilliant “Sex, Lies and Julian Assange” from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship Four Corners programme? Please do watch if you have not done so already:

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/sex-lies-and-julian-assange/4156420

Julian Assange revolutionised publishing by bringing the public direct access to massive amounts of raw material showing secrets the government wished to hide. By giving the public this direct access he cut out the filtering and mediating role of the journalistic and political classes. Contrast, for example, the Panama Papers which, contrary to promises, only ever saw less than 2% of the raw material published and where major western companies and individuals were completely protected from revelation because of the use of MSM intermediaries. Or compare Wikileaks to the Snowden files, the vast majority of which have now been buried and will never be revealed, after foolishly being entrusted to the Guardian and the Intercept. Assange cut out the intermediary role of the mediating journalist and, by allowing the people to see the truth about how they are governed, played a major role in undercutting public confidence in the political establishment that exploits them.

There is an interesting parallel with the reaction to the work of Reformation scholars in translating the Bible into vernacular languages and giving the populace direct access to its contents, without the mediating filters of the priestly class. Such developments will always provoke extraordinary venom from those whose position is threatened. I see a historical parallel between Julian Assange and William Tyndale in this respect. It is something worth bearing in mind in trying to understand the depth of the State’s hatred of Julian.

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354 thoughts on “The Missing Step”

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  • Lou Coatney

    For Assange, extradition to Sweden may have been preferable, because his situation in Britain is apparently gravely and possibly even terminally serious now and … judging by Milosevic’s “medical death” in custody in the Hague, just before he was to be embarrassingly acquitted.

    Chelsea/Bradley Manning has been re-arrested in America, in connection with the case of Assange. Being interrogated by the British, Assange would never voluntarily or knowingly implicate Manning. This means Assange – who has basically and ominously “disappeared” like Sergei and Juliya Skripal – is being subject to interrogation duress, physical (as in sleep-deprivation and other torture) and/or chemical.

    As we saw with the “suicide” – not, for obvious reasons – of Iraq war fraud whistleblower Dr. David Kelly in July 2003, Britain has become a “national security” dictatorship, with (among other things) the mis-application of the Official Secrets Act to cover up high crimes, including Nuremberg-condemned wars of aggression.

    Britain’s “neoconservative” – they’re not at all conservative – power groups and media have turned once great Britain into one of the most utterly evil countries on Earth. Would – could – Corbyn take Britain back for Britons and make Britain Great again?

      • Judge Dredd

        In case you people have forgotten, this country operates under the same rules as the leading nation of the Free World. Assange is not the law … the United States of America is the law. Assange is a common criminal; guilty of revealing the names of human sources and creating a grave and imminent risk to human life. Any who obstruct US in carrying out our duty will be treated as an accessory to his crimes…. You have been warned. And as for you Assange … judgement time.

        Read the full indictment.

        • Curiouser & Curiouser

          Well, me, I’m with Henry Miller, I guess you’d be more the Ghenghis Khan/Adolf Hitler type:

          “Nothing will avail to offset this virus which is poisoning the whole world. America is the very incarnation of doom. She will drag the whole world down to the bottomless pit.”
          Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

      • Sharp Ears

        There are 18 charges according to the estimable Daniel Ellsberg.

        Daniel Ellsberg on Julian Assange’s Espionage Charges
        May 23, 2019
        The US Department of Justice issued an 18-count indictment against Julian Assange for violating the 1917 Espionage Act. We speak to Daniel Ellsberg about the dangerous implications this move has for journalism in the United States
        https://therealnews.com/stories/daniel-ellsberg-on-julian-assanges-espionage-charges

        All the way back to WW1 for Julian. My word! They seem to be stretching credibility to max.
        http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=3904

    • OnlyHalfALooney

      Since Davide Leigh and Luke Harding were the ones who published the password for the encrypted WikiLeaks archive, I am looking forward to both being indicted under the US Espionage Act and threatened with 170 year prison terms. And remember, being a “journalist” is not a defence. And how did they come to obtain the password? I’m sure US prosecutors can make a “conspiracy” out of it!

  • Tatyana

    so, a short introduction.
    On April 1st Victoria Skripal and her husband Arseniy got into a conflict. They were beaten in the office of the house management company by the ex-head of it. He hit Victoria’s belly with his foot and also struck her face with his hand. Arseny broke his finger.
    The attack was accompanied by insults against Victoria’s unckle Sergei Skripal.
    Photo and video of the conflict available here
    https://www.mk.ru/incident/2019/04/01/v-yaroslavle-izbili-plemyannicu-otravlennogo-v-solsberi-skripalya.html
    —
    Soon after, on 4th April Sergei Skripal called Viktoria. Here is Victoria’s interview (*my notes are italics under asterisk in parentheses. Tanya.):

    – The first time he called on April 4. It was around two o’clock in the afternoon. At first I didn’t even hear the ring. I saw that there was a missed call from the UK on my phone, and I started texting, “We’re in the hospital, call back later.” And while I was texting, I got a second call. About a minute or two apart.

    – Where were you at the time?

    – We were in the hospital after the 1 April blows. Already had surgery. Sergey has read that we have received damages and respectively there was a telephone conversation. (*Victoria’s speech misses style is not very literate .)
    He called and asked if I was at home. “No, of course I’m in the hospital, not at home.”
    He says: “If you sat at home for another two weeks, roughly speaking, all the journalists would be behind, and no one would look for you and would not get.” I say: “I thought I was acting within my family. It’s good to give advice when you’re not here.”
    He said, “It’s all your fault. So it’s your responsibility.” Then he asked: “So, do you know who is calling?” He repeated three times: “It’s Skripal Sergey Viktorovich calling.” (*something strange, we usually don’t repeat our names in full, with name-patronim-surname, especially for 3 times, especially with our relatives.).
    He also said: “I’m sick and tired of your Rashka, we are fine, everything is fine. Let’s just say you’re on your own, we’re on our own. And why did you decide that Julia wants to return to Russia?”
    I did not answer this question, just listened to him, said: “we are doing well”. He asked how grandma was. I told him: the second day we are cleaning (*I’m sorry) excrements. To which he said, “I can’t help you with it.” Wished good health, repeated that they were doing well, they were in the UK, and that they were transported from place to place.

    – So that’s exactly what he said?

    – Yeah, “we’re about to be taken somewhere else.” He stressed that this is not his number, he was given a phone to make a call (the call was made from a British mobile number – “MK”). We talked with him for maybe three minutes, five at the most. “How are you? Health? Well, it is difficult for me to speak because this stoma (*a hole in the throat where the tube is inserted) is installed, I pull out”. He spoke in his normal voice. Well, a little, maybe a little, wheezing. We talked, I hung up.

    – When Skripal contacted the next time?

    – May 9 we went to wash grandmother, made the bed, the phone was in the bedroom. I come, I see that I have missed calls from Britain. The first message when I started listening to it – Sergey Viktorovich talks to someone, to the man, in English: he asks something, that man responds. «No answer. Can I leave a voice message?” He seems to be getting the go-ahead. And the second SMS is a voice message: “Vikul, hi, this is uncle Seryozha. How are you? How is your health?» (* here is normal adressing to a relative. Vikul – cordial from Victoria. Uncle Seryozha – normal way we adress our relatives.)

    – How did it feel like? Was it strange, anxious?

    – He did as usual.

    – No doubt about it?

    – No. There is no doubt it was him.

    – Maybe a strangled voice?

    – No, no. He makes “Kh-Kh” as if tickling in the throat, it’s hard for him to talk.

    – Did Julia call you?

    – No, Julia doesn’t call. I didn’t intend to make this call record public, but recently again these events start being exaggerated, again sanctions against Russia, again the Skripal case, again Petrov and Bochirov … I decided I better tell about it to let people know that they are alive and well, they are fine.

    • Tatyana

      symbolic I find this conversation

      – how is my mother doing?
      – we are washing the sh*t out
      – well, I can’t help you with it.

      and this
      – it is your fault and your responsibility. if you were silent, so they would soon forget.

      it was their first conversation since the poisoning, they both must understand the double-meaning of the words.

      • Tatyana

        and this “I’m sick and tired of your Rushka”. So it is not ‘his’ country and he also uses diminitive and scornful word.

        • Robyn

          Thanks, Tatyana, that’s most interesting. It’s surprising it isn’t being widely reported.

  • Tatyana

    Another piece on Skripals.

    (end of February-beginning of March) Sergei Skripal’s mother appealed to the police with a request to find her missing relatives, son and granddaughter Julia. … there are rumors that someone sold Julia’s car, and neighbors see the light in the windows of her Moscow apartment.

    Investigators found out that Julia’s friend Gulnara in February really sold her car “Ford Kuga” and flew to Kazakhstan.
    On March 12, Gulnara returned to Moscow and was met by the guards at the airport. The girl gave an explanation. In addition, she showed a ‘power of attorney’ document from Julia Skripal on the car and the apartment. The authenticity of the documents did not cause any doubts with the investigators.
    Gulnara also said that Julia and Sergei Skripal are alive and are under the witness protection program.

    former Soviet diplomat Nikolai Platoshkin:
    – There is no witness protection program in the UK. They only have a joint program with the United States…
    Of course, Skripals are under the control of foreign intelligence agencies … They are kept, perhaps, in countries whose intelligence agencies are in fact branches of British intelligence – the Netherlands, Sweden, Estonia.

    Gulnara was recently contacted by the Netherlands phone number.

    Recently on the specialized sites there was an ad about sale of the Skripal’s house. However, it almost immediately disappeared.
    https://static.mk.ru/upload/entities/2019/03/25/14/articlesImages/image/a0/49/ff/64/e4370aa2caf6134563c02113ecd087bf.jpg

    Victoria believes that most likely in the near future Julia Skripal will make another official statement.
    – As soon as she sells the apartment, she will immediately announce that she will not return to Russia. I know she’s already asked the owner of the dog shelter to put her dog in. Long ago I’ve said that I was ready to take the dog to me. But she categorically does not want. Why?
    —-
    IMO, from what I learned I see the relations of Victoria on the one side and Sergey and Julia on the other side, this is not a close relationship. Their income, education, lifestyle are very different. Skripals look down on Victoria. They don’t want her on television. They want Victoria to sit silently in her provincial town, caring for an elderly woman, that’s her role. Skripals did not associate their life with Russia earlier, and obviously are not going to do it now. They take care of themselves.
    Victoria feels the injustice of what is happening. She doesn’t want her homeland to be defamed. And of course, she uses the whole situation to achieve some personal advantages, to benefit financially. For example, I am sure that her participation in the TV programs is highly paid, and she is going to write a book about her uncle.

    • Nikko

      Hello Tatyana, does Rashka = Russia? Has there been news on the boyfriend and his mother?

      • Tatyana

        Hello, Nikko
        Rashka is a scornful word for Russia.
        The boyfriend tries to dissapear, no news. Some journalists tried to reach him on the phone in his working place, but he won’t answer and his co-workers won’t ask him to the phone. Somebody tried to meet him at the door of his office. No results.
        No news on his mother too.

  • michael norton

    In a handwritten letter from Belmarsh prison, Julian Assange says he is being denied a chance to defend himself and that elements in the U.S.A. that “hate truth, liberty and justice” want him extradited and dead.
    The letter was sent to independent British journalist Gordon Dimmack. It was dated May 13 – ten days before the US announced 17 additional charges under the Espionage Act against the jailed whistleblower.
    https://www.rt.com/news/460215-assange-letter-from-prison/

    Now that May has said she is on her way out, things are goning to get Hectic, Euroelections to be unveiled Monday and count down to Brexit Day in October, very dangerous times for Julian, he could be slipped out of the United Kingdom,
    almost without people noticing.

    • Sharp Ears

      GG on Sputnik with Patrick Henningsen of C21 Wire ref Julian Assange

      RT UK
      ‏Verified account
      @RTUKnews
      9 hours ago
      “It’s clear that there’s some perversion of justice”
      https://www.rt.com/shows/sputnik/459670-assange-challenge-iran-war/ First half..
      @21WIRE says that Julian Assange case has been ‘distorted’ to give the ‘illusion of public officials doing the right thing’ on @georgegalloway’s @RT_sputnik.

  • Dungroanin

    “the relationship with Assange was fraught. We fell out, as most people eventually do with Assange. I found him mercurial, untrustworthy and dislikable: he wasn’t keen on me, either. All the collaborating editors disapproved of him releasing unredacted material from the Manning trove in September 2011. ”
    Alan Rusbridger
    The Guardian – 2019/may/26/prosecuting-julian-assange-for-espionage-poses-danger-freedom-of-press

  • Sharp Ears

    I want to talk to you about Julian Assange’ said the BBC stooge Evan Davis to Noam Chomsky Right at the end approx. 20mins in.

    Davis was probably very disappointed to hear Chomsky defending Julian Assange who said Assange is being persecuted and that he should not be imprisoned like this (meaning in the Ecuadorian Embassy then). The programme was made in May 2017.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edicDsSwYpk&feature=youtu.be

  • Sharp Ears

    This is the crazy woman who made an allegation of rape against Julian Assange. She is a deacon in the Swedish Ecumenical church.

    ‘In her piece in the Christian newspaper Kyrkans Tidning, Anna Ardin, the Swedish woman who has accused Julian Assange of rape, proclaimed celebrity climate activist Greta Thunberg a prophet of our time, just as the biblical characters Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah and Ezekiel once were.

    Together with Joakim Kroksson, Equimenical (sic) Church deacon Anna Ardin has listed six traits they claim to elevate Greta Thunberg to prophet-like status. The traits include “daring to talk about harsh reality” and “preaching repentance”.

    https://sputniknews.com/europe/201905271075375354-sweden-assange-accuser-biblical-prophet/

  • Kramer

    The UK supreme court ruling is indeed stunning. It is not a case of French “text” which differs ( as though it was an error or difference of translation ) it is that in the French legal system the prosecutor would be a judge “la juge d’instruction”. In the French legal system , which is fundamentally different from the adversarial Anglo-Saxon model, such a case would be investigated by a special category of judge, who is quite separate from the trial judge but nonetheless IS a judge and therefore “judicial”.

    As such it is totally inapplicable to UK law. I’m surprised that his team did not take this to ECJ, which AFAIK still has precedence over UK supreme court ( previously known as the House of Lords: the law lords ). Maybe they figured that once he has skipped bail that became a secondary issue.

    It is not too surprising that the Guardian ( erstwhile stalwart of independent journalism in Britain ) is so compliant. At the time of Snowden’s revelations the then editor Alan Rushbridger courageously defied MI5 and refused to hand over a hard disk containing the leaked Snowden materiel. They along with their US colleagues were very keen to learn the extent of the damage. Rushbridger held fast to his journalistic principals.

    At the end of 2014 he “resigned” to be replaced in 2015 by a more establishment compliant editor Katharine Viner.

  • michael norton

    Per Samuelson, one of Assange’s Swedish defence lawyers, told Reuters on Tuesday that he made the request for the hearing to be delayed after meeting with Assange at Britain’s Belmarsh Prison on Friday. One of the reasons for the application, he said, was that “Assange’s health situation on Friday was such that it was not possible to conduct a normal conversation with him.”

    “I meant that it should be postponed until I had time to meet again and go through the issues in peace and quiet,” Samuelson added. “I suggested no specific date and meant it should be postponed until everything was ready, but the district court has now decided that this won’t happen.”
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/29/assa-m29.html

    Julian is not coherent.

    I wonder if he has a urine infection or worse
    sounds like he should be in hospital not on trial.

  • Dawn Garmon

    Only if one tenth of the idiots protesting Trump’s state visit to England were to protest in front of the embassy of Ecuador this biggest insult to journalism would not have happened.

  • Michael Keenan

    Just came across this:
    “I fully respect the court’s decision. They had to take a position on a difficult assessment issue, which I considered should be examined by a court”, says Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson.

    “The investigation continues with interviews in Sweden. I will also issue a European Investigation Order in order to interview Julian Assange. No date has been set yet. We will constantly review the state of the investigation.”, says Eva-Marie Persson.

    https://www.aklagare.se/en/news-and-press/press-releases/?newsId=3257975

  • Michael Keenan

    The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to law, and particularly to deny him judgement by his peers for an indefinite period , is in the highest degree odious, and it is the foundation of all totalitarian Governments, whether Nazi or Communist….Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person and keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of a civilization. Winston Churchill November 1942

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