When Jeremy Hunt decided to attack the United Nations on twitter yesterday, he didn’t expect them to respond. He got owned.
Professor Melzer is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. Professor Melzer is Swiss. He is an extremely distinguished lawyer and Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow in addition to Professor of International Humanitarian Law at the Geneva Academy. He served 12 years as a Red Cross Delegate. There is no doubting either Professor Melzer’s expertise or his independence in this matter.
When Professor Melzer says that “UK courts have not shown the objectivity and impartiality required by law”, people should sit up and listen. I have detailed judge Michael Snow calling Assange a “narcissistic personality” in a brief hearing in which Assange had said virtually nothing but “not guilty”, on the basis of prejudice Snow brought with him into the courtroom. Snow convicted him summarily of bail jumping and sentenced him to a virtually unprecedented 50 weeks. I have detailed Judge Arbuthnot, wife of a former Tory Defence Minister who co-owns a company with a former Head of MI6, mocking Assange and saying he can get all the exercise his health required on a Juliet balcony, as she dismissed a motion to have the bail charges dropped. I have detailed Judge Phillips of the Supreme Court choosing to rely on the French text and discount the English text of a treaty in arguing extradition was in order.
The bias of the British courts has been palpable and stinking. Hunt’s response to being called out, by saying the UN “should allow British courts to make their judgements”, is a nonsense. British judges have shown themselves to be utterly untrustworthy.
For almost ten years I have been documenting the incredible abuses of legal process and the barefaced displays of malevolent prejudice by the British judges who have been at the sharp end of the state’s persecution of Julian Assange. Yesterday I recommended an excellent summary of it all by Jonathan Cook. Yet every single episode has been entirely misrepresented by the corporate and state media to the extent that the ordinary population of the UK has been brainwashed into unthinking hatred of Assange. Those of us who have tried to explain the true situation have been systematically traduced by the state and “mainstream” media.
As Professor Melzer put it yesterday:
there has been a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Mr. Assange, not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, Sweden and, more recently, Ecuador.” According to the expert, this included an endless stream of humiliating, debasing and threatening statements in the press and on social media, but also by senior political figures, and even by judicial magistrates involved in proceedings against Assange.
“In the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.
This is undeniably the truth. The British “liberal” establishment and media should be hanging their heads in collective shame at being called out by the United Nations on this. But they won’t.
I recall that, when the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary and Illegal detention ruled that Julian was being held against his will in the Ecuadorean Embassy and should be permitted to leave to Ecuador, in repudiating the UN Working Group – whom the UK had supported in every single one of hundreds of previous cases – then Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond stood up in the Commons and denounced the UN Working Group as being “lay people not lawyers”, when in fact every single one of the panel is an extremely distinguished international lawyer. Hammond’s lie to parliament did not surprise me; but I was genuinely astonished that the entire corporate and state media went along with this most blatant of lies and did not call it out. The BBC, Times, Financial Times, Guardian all reported Hammond’s comment that the UN panel were “not lawyers”. None of them would agree to publish a correction of this basic and easily verifiable fact.
Britain no longer makes a pretence of obeying the rule of international law. It simply refuses to acknowledge the concerns of the UN in the Assange case, happily dependent on the bubble of prejudice the political and media elite have manufactured. This is part of a general pattern of direspecting the UN. Theresa May as Home Secretary refused to let the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women inside Yarls Wood immigration detention centre to inspect conditions there. The Tory government reacted to the recent shocking UN report on poverty in the UK – none of the basic facts of which are challenged – by seeking to have the UN Rapporteur removed.
When you add this together with the UK’s refusal to accept the 13-1 Opinion of the International Court of Justice that the Chagos Islands belong to Mauritius, and the UK’s refusal to accept the ruling of the agreed International Chambers of Commerce Court of Arbitration that Britain must pay its debt to Iran, you get what is a very clear picture that the UK has gone full rogue state and has simply abandoned its support for the system of international law which was in very large part a UK creation.
To repudiate the institutions of international law at a time when the UK is leaving the EU and launching out on its own as a middle sized power, just at the moment when acting as a crony to the USA no longer gives you the protection of the biggest boy in the school, is unwise. But still more is it immensely sad to see the abandonment of the project for an international system based on the rule of law rather than on force. One by one, the UK is simply repudiating the authority of all the major international institutions that enforce international law. The UK is acting as a rogue state.
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Murray
You lose no time to tell us that Melzer is Swiss. Does that confer any particular status to his “findings”?
That’s it Chas, blame the messenger, not the message. Double speak Ask a lot of pointless questions to raise some doubts about the messengers ability to describe what is self evident to the meanest intelligence. I am reminded of the recent US energy departments attempt to re brand natural gas as Freedom Gas: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/freedom-gas-us-energy-department-refers-to-natural-gas-as-freedom-gas-in-new-press-release/
As soon as Assange was seized from the embassy his ongoing incarceration looked inevitable, yet you seem to think this all within the normal rules of free expression about US war crimes.
I smell a troll.
Switzerland, as everyone knows, has applied a strategy of remaining neutral in the conflicts of Europe for several centuries. Switzerland operates its own currency and is free from entanglements in Schengen, NATO, the EU, and other transnational obligations that might bring political or economic influence over the country. This is exactly why many UN agencies and human rights NGOs are headquartered in Switzerland.
Therefore, Professor Melzer (whom I know nothing about apart from this article) being Swiss is highly critical information as he has “no dog in this fight” as the saying goes. Switzerland isn’t likely to be compelled or influenced or pressured by the UK, USA, Russia, or anyone else to sway its findings on a controversial topic such as the health and wellbeing of a political prisoner.
I remind you furthermore that it was Swiss investigators and law experts who did most of the work in uncovering the secret network of CIA “black sites” across Europe in 2001-2004, precisely because every other country (and civil air agency) in the region was being pressured by the United States and its allies to cover up those evil deeds.
And it was a Swiss ex-prosecutor, Dick Marty,
“Former Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty this week spoke publicly for the first time in years about his explosive December 2010 report on illegal human organ trafficking in Kosovo.
…
In his report Marty (who is also on the board of Fondation Hirondelle, owner of JusticeInfo.net) pointed the finger at current President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, accused of being “one of the most dangerous sponsors of the Albanian criminal underworld”. The report says that the Kosovo president and his close aides “ordered, and in some cases personally oversaw a certain number of assassinations, detentions, attacks and interrogations in various regions of Kosovo, notably at the time of UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) operations on Albanian territory between 1998 and 2000.”
Dick Marty, who was mandated three times to investigate for the European Council on secret CIA prisons in Europe, crimes in the northern Caucasus and organ trafficking in Kosovo in 1999, got to view in the process the cynicism of Realpolitik and interests of State. This Wednesday evening he admitted he had been “shaken” by the production of these three reports which “destroyed many of the illusions and hopes that I had in justice. I discovered that governments lie and manipulate information, that people say one thing and do another. They talk about human rights on Sunday and on Monday they violate them.”
https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/truth-commissions/33167-%E2%80%9Cwho-will-testify-to-kosovo-tribunal%E2%80%9D-asks-the-man-who-exposed-organ-trafficking.html
Guess, who is Kosovo’s president today?
But being Swiss didn’t stop Carla Del Ponte getting rubbished by the international Milosevic fan club when she went after certain Serbian war criminals, did it.
whut? jesus, do you even try to stay on topic?
@Pretzelattack@14:15. No, Bostock doesn’t stay on topic or respond to what’s put to him. Just goes off on some other path. Only idiots now should now engage with the troll. Save your time and energy.
B*stock, you’re off the charts in your desperation to traduce Craig and the UN. Pathetic piece of predictable trolling.
CB said
“But being Swiss didn’t stop Carla Del Ponte getting rubbished by the international Milosevic fan club when she went after certain Serbian war criminals, did it.”
Carla Del Ponte alleged she was obstructed from going after non-Serb warcriminals in the ICTY, such as Croatian general Ante Gotovina and the KLA/UCK. She has published a book on KLA rounding up and killing Serbs for organ harvesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/12/warcrimes.kosovo
This of course doesn’t mean she’s always correct, but it does show she goes after those she regards as war criminals regardless of which side they are on. As such, she has not been an especial target for criticism for those on the Serb side, not any more than those defending the KLA or Tudjman, your memory is confused.
addendum:
https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/03/who-will-testify-to-kosovo-tribunal/
““Who Will Testify to Kosovo Tribunal?” Asks the Man who Exposed Organ Trafficking”
Sam
I feel you might be under some illusions about Switzerland, excellent country though it is.
I offer you the example of the international exchange of information on bank accounts held by foreigners as an example of bowing to foreign pressure. Idem (and this will displease some on here) the restitution of the money held in Swiss bank accounts by German and other non-Swiss Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.
You may be interested to learn that Switzerland did not even join the UN until a couple of decades after its foundation.
Advise not to denigrate or rubbish this distinguished lawyer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Melzer
He has a kindly face.
https://images.app.goo.gl/SxzqdnrTaMqcQWkq5
Get an early comment in to derail everything towards a discussion about the Swiss rather than how completely morally bankrupt the U.K. is.
Neatly done by the gentleman from the British Empire.
Hmmm. Let me see…..choose the view of a U.N. special rapporteur, with a doctorate in law with many years of jurisprudential experience in the field of torture, or some Eton educated twit with 10 years of plundering the NHS…. I’m not sure after all, the U.N. guy has Swiss nationality…..Jesus wept!
Someone just wrote, wisely, “Save your time and energy.” 😉
My impression, from the short time that I’ve spent in this comment section (I’ve been reading Craig’s own posts for years, but only occasionally dipped in here), is that Bostock often posts statements whose presuppositions seem absurd, and when asked whether he actually means what he seems to mean, he never replies.
This obvious pattern of behaviour leads one to draw … conclusions … but, rightly or wrongly, I have formed the impression that one is not permitted to express such conclusions openly, because they would be classified as ad hominem attacks.
This creates something of a logical bind.
I think that’s a fairer statement than saying “only idiots […] engage”. (You’re not even being fair to yourself, for a start!) It really is hard to know what to do.
I have been cautiously experimenting to see if Mr. Bostock has any capacity for embarrassment. So far, the results are negative. (Am I allowed to say that?)
Internet forums can be difficult places, I’m confused about this particular point, and I would appreciate some clarification as to what the “rules” are here.
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[ Mod: Here are the main moderation rules for commenters as set out three years ago:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/06/moderation-rules-commenters/
There have been several amendments and clarifications since then as particular situations arose.
In summary, any of the following warrant deletion without further explanation: racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, proselytising, taunting, sockpuppetry, trolling, sealioning, or derailing discussions with off-topic distractions (particularly 9/11 conspiracy theories). ]
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Murray
I’n sure many readers would like to know a little more about the circumstances in which Melzer produced his “report”. Was it a personal initiative on his part and if not, by whom was he asked to produce it? What were the circumstances of any request? If requested by some UN committee or other, which committee and what is the membership (by country) of that committee? Has Melzer’s “report” been endorsed by that committee, and what is its status in international law?
This information might be available elsewhere, but as you are making such a big thing out of it on here, perhaps an explanation on here might be in order?
Chas, Why the quotes around “report”.
That’s just “Charles” – cannot accept that the UK is capable of evil and wrongdoing.
Charles’ identity is unravelling. Studying his grammatical somersaults over time and noting his inane interrogatory narrative I would surmise “he” is a team, unfortunately not Team Truth.This is not an ad hominem attack, but a criticism of an organisation. More investigation needed.
I have thought the same over years, in fact since 2011.
Utterly impossible to understand why anybody gives Team Bostock any attention at all, scroll on by. It seems many already do.
I tend to weep, every time I meet, team CB – as observed walk on by – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO073fekFfA
Team Truth? More like Team GCHQ.
Not me, Charles – I’m more interested in how the UK can be turned from a rogue state (US puppet) into a law abiding, honourable state.
The shock and need to face realities instead of spin of Scotland leaving the Union might do it. Might, or they might blame the problems resulting on some sort of scapegoat in the same way the effects of Austerity and not building ANY housing has been blamed on immigrants.
But it might happen. The budget problems when it turns out Scotland has been subsidising the Treasury in London instead of the other way around will make it interesting to see how they spin that.
I strongly suspect that the EU will take a strong interest in the negotiations between Holyrood and Westminster on Independence. The Irish as well will take a strong interest. We will not be on our own and liable to bullying.
There is also the small matter of Trident. Westminster will want a long lease period for the base, but iScotland will want it for our navy and many SNP voters want it just gone. I’m willing to allow them time to build suitable bunkers for the spare warheads at least, perhaps at Aldermaston. On Google Earth you can see them up the hill from the Coulport facility. That shouldn’t take that long, on the order of months. For a start Holyrood can mandate that the warheads can leave Scotland by road/rail but they cannot come back in.
For a start the protests against the movement are likely to ramp up. They are after all vulnerable to lone wolf attack: pensioners pressing the crossing button then moving out and stopping in front of the column. We have crack troops in this fight 😉
Charles.
“Professor Melzer is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture”
So the answer to your question is simple, he was doing his job.
It’s ‘Mr Murray’ as I keep reminding you.
Hi Charles,
To answer your question about the circumstances in which Nils Melzer produced his report. He was asked by Mr Assange’s legal team in December last year and he turned them down because, as he now admits, he had been biased against Mr Assange by the years of media lies about his case that he had absorbed along with you, me and everyone else. See this excellent 18-min interview on Democracy Now for details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErW1taJEPrs
Then, in April of this year (prior to Mr Assange’s asylum being illegally rescinded), Professor Sondra Crosby, a physician and senior forensic consultant specialising in refugee health, torture documentation and the treatment of torture, wrote to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet asking that her office to look into Julian Assange’s situation. Presumably, Mr Melzer was then assigned to the task by the OHCHR.
RT @SeanLoveMD “This letter, written by @sondracrosby16 to the @UN and based on a series of exams, convinced Special Rapporteur on Torture @NilsMelzer to investigate #Assange’s years of mistreatment at the hands of the UK, Sweden, Ecuador and US.”
https://twitter.com/SeanLoveMD/status/1134403152256458752
You can read Professor Crosby’s letter to the UN here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5912343-UNHCHR-Final.html#document/p1
“Presumably, Mr Melzer was then assigned to the task by the OHCHR.”
No. The OHCHR doesn’t “assign” Special Rapporteurs like Mr Melzer to particular investigations – that’s the whole point of Special Rapporteurs being independent: from states just as much as from the OHCHR / UN Secretariat. The OHCHR can, however, when communications are received, put them in front of relevant Special Rapporteurs so that they can decide whether to follow up on them.
A Special Rapporteur with a thematic (as opposed to geographic) mandate decides on his/her own priorities in terms of country visits and individual cases, and he will write to countries requesting permission to visit that country (well, technically “asking them to issue an invitation”, unless the country has issued a standing invitation), as he/she pleases. The UK is one of the countries which issued a standing invitation to all Special Rapporteurs (https://spinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/SpecialProceduresInternet/StandingInvitations.aspx) so Mr Melzer et al. don’t need permission to travel to the UK and investigate. Of course, Special Rapporteurs can also comment on cases without having travelled to a country in person.
I’n sure many readers would like to know a little more about the circumstances in which Bostock produces his “comments”. Are they personal initiative on his part and if not, by whom was he asked to produce it? What were the circumstances of any request? If requested by some committee or other, which committee and what is the membership (by country) of that committee? Have Bostocks’s “comments” been endorsed by that committee, and what is its status in international law?
This information might be available elsewhere, but as you are making such a big thing out of it on here, perhaps an explanation on here might be in order?
Why is he allowed on here to divert and disrupt is my question?
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[ Mod: He’s overstepped the mark again, so for the time being he’ll be silenced. ]
Charles, Apart from your wanting to know the answers to these irrelevant questions which have now been adequately answered by others, would you not admit that the pattern of behaviour of the British (Tory) Government is that of a rogue state that does not abide by the rule of international law?
Wow, B*stock, the distinguished lawyer has got your goat, you really are rattled. Still, no doubt you will congratulate yourself for the top trolling in derailing Craig’s excellent, calm and rational analysis, and making it all about you and your sad little life.
(Just as an aside to the above, of course Magnitsky actually died. But don’t let that distract anyone from answering the questions…)
“One by one, the UK is simply repudiating the authority of all the major international institutions that enforce international law”
Yet its politicians and media loudly damn Julian Assange as an outlaw…
quote “When you add this together with the UK’s refusal to accept the 13-1 Opinion of the International Court of Justice that the Chagos Islands belong to Mauritius, and the UK’s refusal to accept the ruling of the agreed International Chambers of Commerce Court of Arbitration that Britain must pay its debt to Iran, you get what is a very clear picture that the UK has gone full rogue state and has simply abandoned its support for the system of international law which was in very large part a UK creation.”
Well, its all very brexity isnt it – just imagine all the sovereignty that we repatriated by not going along with outside interferers! I`m sure Bojo will take a strong lead from that!
The EU Human Rights Declaration was also written by a British lawyer under govt instruction. Yet Brexiters and May were allowed to traduce it as a creation of the EU and imposed on Britain (instead of the other way around). Plenty of EU states didn’t want it and the Commission then used it to make them reform their laws to comply aided by civil society activists in those countries taking their governments to the ECHR.
The Judiciary could help arrest our nations sad decline and fall. Are there enough good men and women within it to do the right thing ?
Surely the judiciary is simply another arm of a substantially corrupted state, as are the CPS and the police?
The entire concept of the liberal state is a fiction of the er..liberal mind. In order to stay wealthy and powerful the state needs to keep the population relatively poor, for if there are no poor then there is no leverage. The state reigns its impoverished populous with complex methods of social control. Money is created at whim but only given in substantial amount to the very few. Taxation is used to retrieve the supposed money to remind the public that it is not theirs. This act of provide and remove creates dependency and it’s drummed into children from an early age. The state provides police to enforce the rules regarding this fantasy money and to punish when it is not abided to, and of course control the use of violence
The state acquires more resources by violently attacking other states, it uses it media to enforce the view that this is just or somehow right and it uses social division to prevent the populous from rising up.
This is the truth of the state and of all states that have ever existed. The idea that this state has then become some kind of magnanimous kind nurturing force post WW2 is at best liberal fallacy.
What really happened was that highly skilled soldiers trained in command and conquer came home after World War Two demanding better.
A bag of confidence tricks designed to pacify we’re quickly devised and the fiction of the liberal state was created. Once the empire was thought defended national service and therefore military training was quickly removed. Now at this stage WW2 is history and the public are untrained in military skills and unfit, perfect once again for strict rule. We can see the state now throwing off its mantle of respectable liberalism and returning to its barbaric nature domestically.
The Establishment will, as they have done, simply ensure no principled jurist ever gets to rule on Assange. As the details in the linked Jonathon Cook piece detail there are lots of jurists with Establishment or Security Service or both links who can be ‘chosen’ to take the cases.
Assange has never had an independent judge prepared to look properly at this. Marian Ny denied him his right to the ECJ just to ensure he never gets one.
“an endless stream of humiliating, debasing and threatening statements in the press and on social media, but also by senior political figures”
A prime example is Alan Duncan (yes, he who fiddled his expenses and got caught on audio recording displaying complete contempt against the public, and was rewarded with a kighthood) who described JA as “a miserable little maggot” from the dispatch box in the HoC. When these disgusting liars and hypocrites talk about ‘facing justice’ an image of them dangling from a lamp-post springs to mind for some reason.
Thats how a sociopath would reply to UN human rights rapporteur Just awful.
Time to watch how Integrity initiatve is working these days too, most likely smearing Assange and his supporters.
Chris Williamson tried to gain exposure on the spook-central a few weeks ago.
19th of May: Inquiry into the Integrity Initiative | Chris Williamson MP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO57X961-tI
Craig Murray is right when he said the UK [and I might add the US] do not respect International law, former leaders George Bush and Tony Blair also disrespected International law to the extent that I would accuse them of being war criminals, but the likely hood of them being convicted at the Hague are zero, as Dr David Morrison explains here, the UK, France and the UK are above International Law, for all time.
“Roosevelt and Churchill built into the architecture of the United Nations the principle that the US and UK are above the rule for all time They accorded themselves permanent seats on the Security Council, the only United Nations body with any authority, and gave themselves a veto on decisions of the Council
The result is that they can engage in aggression against other states, as and when they like, without fear of a slap on the wrist by the Council, let alone being
Subject to economic sanctions or military action mandated by the Council. (Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would participate in the United Nations once Churchill explained to him that the Soviet Union would have a veto as well. Nationalist China was added to the list at the insistence of Roosevelt, and Churchill insisted that France be added as a counterweight to China.) In fact, there is a fundamental contradiction written into the UN Charter. On the one hand, Article 2(1) states: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.”But, on the other hand, Article 23 of the Charter grants five of its Members permanent seats on the Security Council, and Article 27 gives each of them a veto over decisions of the Council. Clearly, all Members are equal, but some Members are more equal than others”.
“Academic lawyers in their thousands may protest that taking military action against Iraq was illegal because it lacked proper authorisation by the Security Council, But it is of no consequence in the real world when there is no possibility of the UK, or its political leadership, being convicted for taking such action. It is meaningless to describe an action as illegal if there is no expectation that the perpetrator of the action will be convicted by a competent judicial body. In the real world, an action is legal unless a competent judicial body rules that it is illegal”.
“In the Attorney Generals advice to Blair he addressed the question that every client needs to have his lawyer answer, namely, what are the chances of me being done if I follow your advice? In this instance, would the UK get convicted of aggression? And would the Prime Minister himself face a trial for “the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression” as happened to Hermann Goering at Nuremberg? The Attorney- General’s answers were: there’s very little chance of it”. http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/iraq/ags-legal-advice.pdf
The crime of aggression has been added to the ICC legislation, unfortunately the US has the American Service-members protection Act [ASPA] which authorizes the U.S President to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.” This authorization has led the act to be nicknamed the “Hague Invasion Act.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act
I was brought up being told that the judiciary stood as a check on the power of the state.
Was this ;
(a) true, but no longer the case,
(b) only ever true to a limited extent, now very limited,
(c) always ‘a load of cobblers’
?
(c) 😉
hmm, i guess i would pick (b). as you say, now very limited.
Definitely ‘C’, I imagine they’re directed as to how to react to individual cases.
Plenty of evidence to that.
Really. Would you like to provide some of that “plenty of evidence”?
Also, have you noticed at all how often the government loses cases that are dear to its heart, not only in the Supreme Court, but also in the Court of Appeal, Administrative Court, etc.?
In fact, the higher courts decide more often against the government here than in most countries I know of (especially now that the US Supreme Court has become decidedly pro-Trump)
When an independent minded commoner from Liverpool, Chief Justice by merit, drags the truth and the head culprits into the daylight of an open Inquiry under oath – and then has the inquiry suspended and it’s recommendations shelved – then you have the answer to your question.
A completion and full implementation of the Leveson Inquiry is well overdue.
It would have had a great corrective on the DS/media collusion and lies that are daily stuffed down peoples eyes and ears.
ONLY A GENERAL ELECTION will give a chance to get a government that would implement it. That is one of the reasons why it isn’t allowed and talk is now turning to AVOIDING it incase the brexit party gets in so a National Emergency Govt can be imposed because its all Corbyns and his croniies fault!!??
I don’t know if the Lord Chief Justice or the Supreme Court can be persuaded to intervene over the non-legal rationale of some of their fellow judges or PM interference of properly constituted Public Inquiry.
John Kiriakou reports that he recently spoke to Julian Assange’s father who fears for his son’s life. A lot of honorable high-profile people, Craig Murray included, have been on Julian’s case for years but they are no match for the MSM and the PTB haven’t given an inch. I fear Julian will die in custody and they will heave a sigh of relief – problem solved. Entirely Julian’s fault, of course, because ‘he could have left the Embassy at any time’ to get treatment. No case to answer.
The Tory govetnment is turning the Uk back into becoming a medieval pirate state, ihnoring international law and regulations just as the immensely ignorant rogue state in the.ME, led under consequetive Zionist leaders.
The Uk is approaching meltdown of public services with record numbers pf GP’s shutting theor surgeries for lack of funding.
Proffesor Meizer is right to lambast Jermy Hunt for using lies to curry favours for his pathetic candidacy.
Worth to point out – as the UN report do – it is not only UK but Ecuador, Sweden, US – along with other western states and media that have commited this assault on this individual.
Trying to find the problem in Tory etc wont help. The assault upon Assange is beyond UK politics, it is something rotten about liberal, western pundits/media/politicians/culture.
Surely Australia is equally or even more culpable because neither the Australian Government (under various Prime Ministers) nor the Opposition have lifted a finger for Julian Assange. In fact, many MPs, including a former PM, have spoken out against him. It is interesting to see the heroic efforts made in the past on behalf of convicted Australian drug traffickers locked up abroad, and journalist Peter Greste who was imprisoned in Egypt and released after personal and relentless pressure by the Foreign Minister on her Egyptian counterpart. Interesting to see that Greste, beneficiary of all that assistance, has since spoken against Julian Assange.
Wearing my NZ hat I can opine that the Aussie govt has long been a poodle of the US equal to or even exceeding the UK. You may recall that NZ is a semi detached member of the Western Alliance because of our Nuclear Free status and the Rainbow Warrior Affair. In the latter affair the Australian authorities detained in Norfolk Island the yacht used to transport the limpet mines and took bilge water for testing.
They let it go before the test results came back showing explosive traces of the type used. The yacht disappeared, the crew resurfacing in France.
Australia and NZ are supposed to be tightest of tight allies ANZAC and all that but they bowed to international pressure over an Act of War in Auckland harbour.
Australia is no bastion of liberal values and the rule of international law. It’s a faithful and eager US poodle.
Unfortunately, the brainwashing works. I mentioned the dreaded words “Julian Assange” yesterday and almost no one wants to know. It reminds me of the situation in February 2003, when I mentioned the number and words that are banned on here. I note that Julian Assange never released anything on that, but maybe he never received anything on that. His ongoing torture by The British State, here and now in 2019, is something that I thought I would never witness in my lifetime in England. Such things haven’t happenned here (so far as I am aware) since “Alice Nutter (died 1612) was an English woman accused and hanged as a result of the Pendle witch hunt. Her life and death are commemorated by a statue in the village of Roughlee.”
We are rapidly heading for the Dark Ages, and hardly anyone complains.
“Pamela Anderson speaks out after visiting Julian Assange in prison”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS-aJ8PzDB0
Tony
I have been reading Craig as an observer with personal experience in some of his prominent subjects, although as a Yank. Your experience is very similar to mine, and suggesting to my colleagues that they actually trust the evidence of their senses and examine the original sources rather than parrot the received versions usually gets me the same response I’d get were I to show up for work wearing a grass skirt and a necklace of chicken heads.
I don’t want to stir any pots, but could you tell me what are ‘the number and words that are banned on here?’ I can reasonably speculate, but I’d rather be certain to avoid breaking the rules.
I was wondering about that and can’t even speculate.
My guess as to what it might be was confirmed by this reference, which was posted by a moderator in response to a question from me about what the rules are here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/06/moderation-rules-commenters/
Excellent, thank you. Those were the numbers I suspected, and for the reason I suspected. It, too, falls into a class occupied by Assange, global warming, the Boston Marathon bombing, and dozens of other topics for which there is a received version, or a received “skeptical” response. In all cases it is the proper recitation of the correct learned response that merits approval, like a schoolboy reciting by memory the Preamble to the Constitution, It was easy for me as an outsider living in England to see how deep that ran in British society, but it’s horrifying to me as an American to see how deep it runs here, too, and how little there is to gain, ever, by trying to get the self-blinded to see.
Julian Assange has been in a continuous state of uncertainty/stress for two years in the Ecuadorian embassy – since Moreno was elected. Add lack of excercise and sunshine.
Any body can take this for a limited duration but not for long. There is no way this can be reversed during a lengthy court process without releasing Julian or taking his mind out with psychotropic drugs which would make him incapable to stand trial (at least in my book).
Whatever way this goes, it will be a huge embarrassment for the people doing this. They cannot demonize and destroy him at the same time.
Tony, all about there is evidence that we are re-running the C17th: the country divided, the rise of Puritanism, religious zealotry and bigotry (in established and new religions), an increasingly dictatorial government and others, including your example.
I find it utterly loathsome as someone born and living in England that the government of this country acts in the way it does. It is particularly infuriating that there appears to be no way to hold these people to account. It is difficult not to feel powerless. What is a regular citizen supposed to do?
Vote these people out.
Unfortunately that still seems ineffectual against the corrupt judicial system..
Extradition finally decided by the home office.
Add: It seems the US have put it into the Home Secretary’s bag now by charging Assange with espionage (he is Australian)
The threat of a death penalty would make extradition from Britain impossible if the Home Secretary does his/her job
https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/04/11/extradition-factsheet/
You can’t vote these people out. Most of the establishment positions are not open to elections.
These things tend to be generational processes. Establishment positions are not inherited – even in Britain. Wealth is inherited, and that presumably is a large part of the problem.
“Vote these people out.”
That just changes the legislature. It has little effect on the executive part of the government.
Sad
But the people we vote in are just as bad, they do not care about the 95% of the people.
Once they get an MP’s salary – “plus expenses” thanks Dire Straits – they treat you like excremen. Nick Clegg and the coalition was the best example of that.
Labour is just as bad as the Tories though and if you think PM Farage will be different you are dreaming.
I am despairing of the Scottish govt after the court of session had to legally threaten the govt lawyers to get necessary documents released unredacted in the attempted lynching of Alex Salmond recently. Sturgeon, a lawyer, did nothing against either Civil Servant responsible.
It seems protecting the sisterhood needs to be added to the list of things the judiciary will be traduced over.
“It seems protecting the sisterhood needs to be added to the list of things the judiciary will be traduced over”
Until now Muscleguy I had read your comments with interest and sympathy. Too bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZScpNEmpS7c
Prof. Melzer on Going Underground
‘Assange case is unlike anything I’ve seen in 20yrs of work with war victims’
Craig, just a small factual correction so that the error does not detract from the post:
Snow did not sentence him to 50 weeks as you write, because as a district judge in the Magistrates’ Court, Snow wouldn’t even have the power to do that. He committed him for sentence in the Crown Court, because he considered his own sentencing powers (26 weeks) to be insufficient. He was sentenced to 50 weeks by HHJ Deborah Taylor sitting at Southwark Crown Court.
Also, it strikes me as a bit unfair to denounce Lord Phillips on the basis of drawing on the French text: as you will be very well aware, if a judge considers the text of an European legal instrument to be ambiguous, he should also draw on different language editions in his interpretation (as held in Craies on Legislation cited by Lord Phillips at [15]). Lord Phillips explained at considerable length why it was important to compare the English and French versions of the texts and the way in which both developed. Of course, the UK diplomats / negotiators (and the ministers they advised) will have been perfectly aware of the co-equal importance of the English and French texts when approving the Framework Directive. Your implication that Lord Phillips just casually abandoned the English text in order to prejudice Assange seems, to be frank, a bit intellectually dishonest towards your readers. I’m worried that this muddles your otherwise coherent and good argument.
John Doe: thank you for your expert review comments on Craig’s post – much appreciated by this reader.
It is, though, somewhat unbelievable that this ‘ambiguity’ that had to be resolved by referring to the French text, had languished undiscovered until just when the Assange case reared its ugly head.
Well it’s not that unbelievable.
The Assange case was certainly one of the highest profile extradition cases since the 2003 Act (and 2002 Framework Directive) came into force. Both parties were represented were represented by extremely senior and capable counsel, who unsurprisingly left no stone unturned. Sometimes in law,on things such as the interpretation of a particular phrase, there is just an assumption / silent consent by everyone for years, until it is actually challenged in a particular case where the parties have enough resources to throw at the problem in terms of legal research.
You’ll be aware, of course, that it Assange’s team which brought up the meaning/ambiguity of “judicial authority” in this case, rather than the government…
The question also came up in a 2007 Italian case, by the way, cited by L. Phillips in para 62 of his judgment.
You can disagree with the UKSC judgment, as Lady Hale and Lord Mance did, and that’s fine. But to suggest that they invented an “undiscovered ambiguity” just to spite Assange shows, I’m afraid, that you haven’t even started to read the judgment and understand who made which arguments.
Sounds nice but is as dubious as Craig Murray notes.
“l’autorité judiciaire” is a French constitutional term that indeed includes prosecutors. That does not mean prosecutors have all the “autorité” in France.
The intellectually dishonesty is on Lord Phillips’ side comparing a specific term “judge” in English with a constitutional category granting political independence that includes people with different powers.
Talking about the French constitution
“Toutefois, même si la demande n’entre pas dans leur compétence en vertu de ces accords, les autorités de la République ont toujours le droit de donner asile à tout étranger persécuté en raison de son action en faveur de la liberté ou qui sollicite la protection de la France pour un autre motif.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/julian-assange-asylum-france-macron-extradition-us-wikileaks-a8866971.html
Er, if you don’t mind, I’ll prefer Lady Hale and Lord Mance’s explanatio of dissent to yours.
““l’autorité judiciaire” is a French constitutional term that indeed includes prosecutors. That does not mean prosecutors have all the “autorité” in France.” doesn’t exactly suggest that you understood the core of the issue.
And speaking of intellectual dishonesty, I hope you’ll be aware that “the specific term ‘judge’ in English” completely misses the point, given that the term in question was “judicial authority” and not “judge” in English. If the term had been “judge”, the Supreme Court and parties could have saved a lot of paper.
Look, it may very well be that Lady Hale and Lord Mance got it right (they often do) and Lord Phillips & Co did not. But to suggest that Phillips and the others somehow took on a completely crazy position which they would have never taken if the appellant hadn’t been Assange, is just nonsensical. (Especially if you look at Lord Phillips’ record on disagree with the government on things…)
It is pretty crazy.
Obviously, Assange’s defense challenged the right of the Swedish prosecutor to ask for extradition.
The English text says she does not have this right. For some reason the judge wanted to extradite. He therefore declared the French text as valid, as a French “procureur” is part of “l’autorité judiciaire” in the French constitution protecting their independence. However, a French “procureur” represents “the interest of French society” according to the French constitution, a Swedish prosecutor represents the state. They are basically part of the government.
https://www.government.se/49ec0b/contentassets/9ebb0750780245aeb6d5c13c1ff5cf64/the-swedish-judicial-system.pdf
So the judge took a term from a different legal system to decide on the powers of an official whose job title sounds similar but has a different job description.
German prosecutors for example don’t qualify for European arrest warrants
https://www.dw.com/en/ecj-deems-german-prosecutors-too-political-to-issue-european-arrest-warrants/a-48911931
Their function is similar to Swedish prosecutors.
Add this here is the – recent – European Court judgement
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-05/cp190068en.pdf
“The Supreme Court (Ireland) and the High Court (Ireland) ask, in that context, the Court of Justice for an interpretation of that framework decision. In light of the fact that PI is, on the basis of the European arrest warrant issued in respect of him, in custody in Ireland, the Court of Justice acceded to the High Court’s request that the case be dealt with under the urgent preliminary ruling procedure. In today’s judgements, the Court of Justice holds that the concept of an ‘issuing judicial authority’, within the meaning of the framework decision, does not include public prosecutor’s offices of a Member State, such as those of Germany, which are exposed to the risk of being subject, directly or indirectly, to directions or instructions in a specific case from the executive, such as a Minister for Justice, in connection with the adoption of a decision to issue a European arrest warrant. However, that concept includes the Prosecutor General of a Member State, such as that of Lithuania, who, whilst institutionally independent of the judiciary, is responsible for the conduct of criminal prosecutions and whose legal position affords him a guarantee of independence from the executive in connection”
A good idea to ask the European Court what they consider European law, instead of deciding as a British court that French language was preferable, don’t you think?
“Rogue state” is an appropriate term in the sense that the US and UK used this term to describe countries that would not do their bidding or allegedly defied their rules of international law. The question is whether the US or UK ever actually really adhered to international law. From Suez to the invasion of Iraq, both countries have acted as if they alone determine what constitutes international law.
I think “rogue state” is perhaps not the proper term in the sense that I believe the US and UK are pursuing a long term strategy in a desperate attempt to preserve their dwindling power in a rapidly changing world.
It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that the US and UK are engaged in some sort of “great game” primarily against Russia but also against China. The aim is to reassert US (+junior partner UK) status as the dominant superpower. Also, there are huge future economic interests. Russia is an immense country with vast natural and fresh water resources and also land that will become increasingly arable in the face of global warming . China is already an economic rival of the US and this will only increase. This is aside from the fact that the dominant power is able to constantly enrich itself at other countries’ expense. If the USA’s position is weaker, their economic model of plundering the world and paying with US dollars will become decreasingly viable to the point that it will surely simply collapse.
This very recent study by the Rand Corporation only confirms my suspicions.
Overextending and Unbalancing Russia
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB10000/RB10014/RAND_RB10014.pdf
See also this short article:
Rand Corp: how to destroy Russia by Manlio Dinucci
https://www.voltairenet.org/article206547.html
I think we must see their brutal treatment of Assange against this background.
OnlyHalfALooney,
I am not disagreeing with anything you wrote, but the Government of the USA, as a direct result, of spending the vast majority of its natural resouces, and hard work and determination of The American people, on weapons of mass destruction, in an effort to control the entire world, is destroying and totally impoverishing the vast majority of the American people. Yes, there are the very rich, and some families like my Niece’s who are doing relatively O.K., but still extremely worried about the future. Then there is the 80% of the rest of America. Much of it now – particularly the fly-over Middle America of Hilary Clinton’s “Deplorables”, seems very much worse than the very remotest rural parts of India. India is getting very much better, and when people are getting better, despite their abject poverty, they feel happy, because they can see everything improving for their children and grandchildren.
On the evidence of Linh Dinh, born in Vietnam, but spent most of his life in The USA ( I would seriously recommend his book, his blog, his words and his photography as it portrays reality), everything for the vast majority of Americans is getting considerably worse, and they are not happy, though still friendly to the Vietnamese. Unlike their Government, Americans do have a conscience.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Postcards-End-America-Linh-Dinh/dp/1609806530
Tony
Tony_0pmoc
Thanks Tony, the harsh reality, which most folks are incabable of seeing. Holllywood and the soaps only let’s us glimpse the glamour, the perfect actors and actresses.
The reality is filthy money, stained with the blood of tens of millions of people around the World.
The US survives by slaughtering people, at home and abroad, where weapons and ammunition are big money, and human beings are soft targets.
thanks craig.. there is never any accountability, or if there is accountability, it is only on those who reveal ugly truths of a gov’ts actions that the gov’t in question wants to keep buried….
was there any accountability with regard to the war in iraq? and that is only one example.. no.. the usa-uk-israel tag team are not held accountable for the crimes against humanity they regularly express… until this changes, nothing is going to change…
Well put Craig, you have those in here who defend the British state, but denounce Russia relentlessly, yet here we are the British state openly snubbing or prevaricating to bypass International Law.
The British corporate media, are complicit in not reporting the truth on Assange. However the usual defenders of “British democracy” in here fall over themselves to cite the likes of RT as obeying the Putin regime.
The British state now routinely flouts UN reports by rapporteurs, such as the recent UN report on poverty in Britain due to the Westminster governments inhumane welfare policies.
Hunt (the twerp i/c at the FC)) has already received a corrective from Nils Melzer.
He doesn’t learn though. Today in Glasgow, where he was giving a speech on media freedom, he tweeted –
‘”A free media is not a “Western” value but a pillar of a thriving society, benefiting people across the world.
To embrace the opportunities of a free society we must defend the press. My speech in Glasgow to #World News Media Congress @Newspaper World” ‘
No mention of Julian Assange. Read Ben Norton’s riposte on
https://twitter.com/Jeremy_Hunt/status/1134818431503671296?
Hunt doesn’t understand irony.
He has pinned this one.
Pinned Tweet
#Jeremy_Hunt
May 31 Great to talk marmalade, Lambada and leadership with @bbcnickrobinson
Wot!? I think he’s simple.
He was apparently on a BBC Radio 4 programme today, entitled ‘Political Thinking’.
‘The Jeremy Hunt One
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
The Foreign Secretary on his inner toughness, the biggest jolt he’s received while in the cabinet, the genius of Japan, and how to have fun dancing the lambada – plus a taste test.’
36mins of it no less on https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07bw308
YCNMIU.
SE
I think I shall put the 36 minutes to better use…watching paint dry may be! 🙂
Illargi and others have called Assange the Martin Luther King of our time.
Now MLK is being smeared anew. We already knew that MLK had at least one extramarital affair, but now – based on dubious transcripts of FBI tapes with little credibility (because they were clearly out to get King) – we are told that King engaged in orgies and encouraged rape.
This article by King biographer Garrow is being widely hailed as “new information” about King and cited as though it were fact. But what all these reports leave out is that the FBI was intent on destroying King as proven by many examples, including sending a letter to King and his wife with audio tapes (or portion of the tapes) to blackmail him!!!
Historians attack Pitt professor David Garrow’s Martin Luther King allegations:
Pamela Anderson had the best response to the MLK new smears:
Despite vast differences in their respective historic and personal circumstances, Julian Assange’s plight evokes quondam “Enemy of the State” Alfred Dreyfus.
…and, in many respects, Ibsen’s fictional play ‘An Enemy of the People’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People
“…and, in many respects, Ibsen’s fictional play ‘An Enemy of the People’.”
Fictional play. Excellent!
Ort,
I would also seriously recommend “The Scum of The Earth” by Arthur Koestler. I knew nothing about the content, nor the author. It’s one of those books, you can’t put down. I was reading it fresh. I just wanted to know what happenned next. Mostly set in France about 1940. True story.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/516E%2B8cX4wL._SX319_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
Tony
Re Ort at 18.46
By a weird coincidence I was pawing over the details of the Drayfus affair today and thinking of the similarities it bore to Julian’s plight. Almost every aspect of the progress of the Assange case looks to me like and travesty of Natural Justice.
Charles Bostock
June 1, 2019 at 11:32
“I’n [sic] sure many readers would like to know a little more about the circumstances in which Melzer produced his “report”. Was it a personal initiative on his part and if not, by whom was he asked to produce it? What were the circumstances of any request? If requested by some UN committee or other, which committee and what is the membership (by country) of that committee? Has Melzer’s “report” been endorsed by that committee, and what is its status in international law?”
“This information might be available elsewhere, but as you are making such a big thing out of it on here, perhaps an explanation on here might be in order?”
………………………………………………………………………………………..
I’m becoming more suspicious that Charles Bostock is in fact the banned troll that called himself Habbabkuk.
A strategy he used frequently in the past, was to ask participants of this blog questions that require time consuming research.
Don’t bother, he will not respond to your answers or he will come up with more questions for you to waste your time on.
Doug: “I’m becoming more suspicious that Charles Bostock is in fact the banned troll that called himself Habbabkuk.
A strategy he used frequently in the past, was to ask participants of this blog questions that require time consuming research.”
You’re talking about this?
Charles Bostock the Sea Lion: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/873/260/a5b.png
He even followed me on to The Lifeboat News where I also commented. He was using another pseudonym, surname Hampshire, as far as I recall. He soon received the order of the boot from the site owner.
I support Craig’s position wholeheartedly, but, there are two big barriers, among others, to overcome in order to mount a challenge. One is the sheer arrogance of the British state and government, which effectively denies that it can ever do any wrong in these matters. The other is the lack of spline of the parliamentarians, who seem incapable of asking critical questions. Corbyn, to his credit has asked questions, but he is hog tied in following them through by the sustained vilification against him; the same with Diana Abbott. There are no backbenchers taking Corbyn’s place, apart from someone like Chris Williamson who has been squashed. For example, why did no MP question the justification of spending millions of pounds in policing the Ecuador Embassy round the clock, if it was thought Assange was just another common or garden criminal? That expenditure could only be justified on political grounds. Home Secretary Javid in parliament revealed complicity between Ecuador, USA and UK in Assange’s discharge and arrest, without challenge. And it goes on. Our politicians are spineless, that’s a big problem.
Thanks for all the Updates Craig.. Must be hard watching a Friend being crushed, and Tortured ..Bad enough for most of us.
Helen Steen
@ June 1, 2019 at 16:05
Helen Posted About Going Underground, mentioning the Interview with Prof Nils Melzer..Cheers Helen.
Also On The Show is a Very good Interview with the former President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, beginning at 14 mins in
The Link again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZScpNEmpS7c
Brian, Afshin Rattansi if I got his name right is ex BBC & C4 and one of the best UK journalists at the moment. He is equitable and challenges interviewees thoroughly. A great source of knowledge. Also of course @TeleSurSouth who report across our hemisphere (N&S) and sometimes further (E/W).
“Hammond’s lie to parliament did not surprise me; but I was genuinely astonished that the entire corporate and state media went along with this most blatant of lies and did not call it out. The BBC, Times, Financial Times, Guardian all reported Hammond’s comment that the UN panel were “not lawyers”. None of them would agree to publish a correction of this basic and easily verifiable fact.”
Appears to me to be one of the strongest statements in recent posts. i.e. Any traditional media of record is entirely corrupt or bought.
S.O.S.
Shortly History will begin writing of these times, of another Prometheus is bound to a lifetime of torture, not for bringing fire to mankind but for shinning light the crimes and lies of the great and powerful.
As recently as Victoria’s lengthy reign, as it came to a close with some semblance of honour despite being heavily tattered from the construction and holding of empire. Not so Elizabeth II, the silent, insidious one. Her reign has seen the British ‘recuperation’ from war and the loss of empire, the development of a profound public apathy and circus of market legerdemain to drain the public coffers. She has seen the degeneration of civil and political service from an accepted acknowledgment of public integrity to now well past the point of even knowing the meaning of the word. She has seen the courts which use her name go from having a strong connection with Roman jurisprudence to nefarious dark dens where evil metastasises into injustice; She was silent at the egregious wrongs of Wiggery and remained silent while the law courts became populated by Wiggery clones all willing to prostitute the traditions of Law to gain position, power and status for themselves. The creature sitting over assigning Assange to extradition, finding Assange to be (without any testimony whatsoever) a “narcissist”, should have his tongue ripped from his face and banned from approaching any bench any closer than a furlong. The other so called magistrate is nothing but a whore in magistrate’s robes and have their credentials cancelled without further ado and reduced to sleeping on public benches if one unoccupied can be found.
Elizabeth II has preferred to be a silent clothes-horse, multitudes of matching frocks, hats, bags and shoes, those not meeting Elizabeth’s fancy doubtlessly filling many warehouses. It is a silent and pathetic creature who is the sovereign of Britain and other dreary places. Future histories will never again place great as adjective to Britain and the Isles bearing that designation will revert to being known as The Celtic Isles as they should have been from the beginning.
Never again will this writer obtain goods or services from those who are still subject to that now ill-omened, ill-starred monarchy; now a kingdom built upon self-delusion and lies and not the slightest evidence of authentic Law.
Once Julian Assange would be surrendered to Washington’s grasp, can any rational person believe Habeas Corpus will still exist in the U.S.? How many of the world’s armies will be needed to enforce it? It cannot be expected anywhere in the world’s greatest axis of evil and its sycophantic followers.
As always, our hero Craig exposes himself, and others, to ridicule by making stupid and unnecessary statements.
Where are his diplomatic skills, if he ever had any?
So what if Professor Melzer is Swiss? Does that make him anything special?
By this stupid statement, our hero deliberately or otherwise lowers the esteem of Professor Melzer.
CB, have you noticed how similar you sound to ‘Charles Bostock’ at times?
Re J on CB and CB similarity
Of course they sound similar, they are one and the same.
Am I right in thinking that the UK is the historic home of the crime thriller? Our obsession with hidden motives, false trails, scapegoats and wrongful accusations abound and provide entertainment for millions. The elusive answer we seek is always hidden but in the end always revealed, to our relief that justice is served. It’s called fiction.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alan-turings-death-murder-not-4799480
It would seem that the ‘West’ including Israel flout “International Law” when they are the guilty party. Illegal sanctions, Human Rights abuses, Regime changes through war and or sanctions, Drone assassinations and so many other crimes. The ‘thumbing the nose’ at the UN shows that they want to dispense with the UN altogether. It seems to me that the USA and fellow terrorists are applying an economic blockade to the UN as they can’t get their own way.
All signs of an empire in decline!