In yesterday’s proceedings in court, the prosecution adopted arguments so stark and apparently unreasonable I have been fretting on how to write them up in a way that does not seem like caricature or unfair exaggeration on my part. What has been happening in this court has long moved beyond caricature. All I can do is give you my personal assurance that what I recount actually is what happened.
As usual, I shall deal with procedural matters and Julian’s treatment first, before getting in to a clear account of the legal arguments made.
Vanessa Baraitser is under a clear instruction to mimic concern by asking, near the end of every session just before we break anyway, if Julian is feeling well and whether he would like a break. She then routinely ignores his response. Yesterday he replied at some length he could not hear properly in his glass box and could not communicate with his lawyers (at some point yesterday they had started preventing him passing notes to his counsel, which I learn was the background to the aggressive prevention of his shaking Garzon’s hand goodbye).
Baraitser insisted he might only be heard through his counsel, which given he was prevented from instructing them was a bit rich. This being pointed out, we had a ten minute adjournment while Julian and his counsel were allowed to talk down in the cells – presumably where they could be more conveniently bugged yet again.
On return, Edward Fitzgerald made a formal application for Julian to be allowed to sit beside his lawyers in the court. Julian was “a gentle, intellectual man” and not a terrorist. Baraitser replied that releasing Assange from the dock into the body of the court would mean he was released from custody. To achieve that would require an application for bail.
Again, the prosecution counsel James Lewis intervened on the side of the defence to try to make Julian’s treatment less extreme. He was not, he suggested diffidently, quite sure that it was correct that it required bail for Julian to be in the body of the court, or that being in the body of the court accompanied by security officers meant that a prisoner was no longer in custody. Prisoners, even the most dangerous of terrorists, gave evidence from the witness box in the body of the court nest to the lawyers and magistrate. In the High Court prisoners frequently sat with their lawyers in extradition hearings, in extreme cases of violent criminals handcuffed to a security officer.
Baraitser replied that Assange might pose a danger to the public. It was a question of health and safety. How did Fitzgerald and Lewis think that she had the ability to carry out the necessary risk assessment? It would have to be up to Group 4 to decide if this was possible.
Yes, she really did say that. Group 4 would have to decide.
Baraitser started to throw out jargon like a Dalek when it spins out of control. “Risk assessment” and “health and safety” featured a lot. She started to resemble something worse than a Dalek, a particularly stupid local government officer of a very low grade. “No jurisdiction” – “Up to Group 4”. Recovering slightly, she stated firmly that delivery to custody can only mean delivery to the dock of the court, nowhere else in the room. If the defence wanted him in the courtroom where he could hear proceedings better, they could only apply for bail and his release from custody in general. She then peered at both barristers in the hope this would have sat them down, but both were still on their feet.
In his diffident manner (which I confess is growing on me) Lewis said “the prosecution is neutral on this request, of course but, err, I really don’t think that’s right”. He looked at her like a kindly uncle whose favourite niece has just started drinking tequila from the bottle at a family party.
Baraitser concluded the matter by stating that the Defence should submit written arguments by 10am tomorrow on this point, and she would then hold a separate hearing into the question of Julian’s position in the court.
The day had begun with a very angry Magistrate Baraitser addressing the public gallery. Yesterday, she said, a photo had been taken inside the courtroom. It was a criminal offence to take or attempt to take photographs inside the courtroom. Vanessa Baraitser looked at this point very keen to lock someone up. She also seemed in her anger to be making the unfounded assumption that whoever took the photo from the public gallery on Tuesday was still there on Wednesday; I suspect not. Being angry at the public at random must be very stressful for her. I suspect she shouts a lot on trains.
Ms Baraitser is not fond of photography – she appears to be the only public figure in Western Europe with no photo on the internet. Indeed the average proprietor of a rural car wash has left more evidence of their existence and life history on the internet than Vanessa Baraitser. Which is no crime on her part, but I suspect the expunging is not achieved without considerable effort. Somebody suggested to me she might be a hologram, but I think not. Holograms have more empathy.
I was amused by the criminal offence of attempting to take photos in the courtroom. How incompetent would you need to be to attempt to take a photo and fail to do so? And if no photo was taken, how do they prove you were attempting to take one, as opposed to texting your mum? I suppose “attempting to take a photo” is a crime that could catch somebody arriving with a large SLR, tripod and several mounted lighting boxes, but none of those appeared to have made it into the public gallery.
Baraitser did not state whether it was a criminal offence to publish a photograph taken in a courtroom (or indeed to attempt to publish a photograph taken in a courtroom). I suspect it is. Anyway Le Grand Soir has published a translation of my report yesterday, and there you can see a photo of Julian in his bulletproof glass anti-terrorist cage. Not, I hasten to add, taken by me.
We now come to the consideration of yesterday’s legal arguments on the extradition request itself. Fortunately, these are basically fairly simple to summarise, because although we had five hours of legal disquisition, it largely consisted of both sides competing in citing scores of “authorities”, e.g. dead judges, to endorse their point of view, and thus repeating the same points continually with little value from exegesis of the innumerable quotes.
As prefigured yesterday by magistrate Baraitser, the prosecution is arguing that Article 4.1 of the UK/US extradition treaty has no force in law.
The UK and US Governments say that the court enforces domestic law, not international law, and therefore the treaty has no standing. This argument has been made to the court in written form to which I do not have access. But from discussion in court it was plain that the prosecution argue that the Extradition Act of 2003, under which the court is operating, makes no exception for political offences. All previous Extradition Acts had excluded extradition for political offences, so it must be the intention of the sovereign parliament that political offenders can now be extradited.
Opening his argument, Edward Fitzgerald QC argued that the Extradition Act of 2003 alone is not enough to make an actual extradition. The extradition requires two things in place; the general Extradition Act and the Extradition Treaty with the country or countries concerned. “No Treaty, No Extradition” was an unbreakable rule. The Treaty was the very basis of the request. So to say that the extradition was not governed by the terms of the very treaty under which it was made, was to create a legal absurdity and thus an abuse of process. He cited examples of judgements made by the House of Lords and Privy Council where treaty rights were deemed enforceable despite the lack of incorporation into domestic legislation, particularly in order to stop people being extradited to potential execution from British colonies.
Fitzgerald pointed out that while the Extradition Act of 2003 did not contain a bar on extraditions for political offences, it did not state there could not be such a bar in extradition treaties. And the extradition treaty of 2007 was ratified after the 2003 extradition act.
At this stage Baraitser interrupted that it was plain the intention of parliament was that there could be extradition for political offences. Otherwise they would not have removed the bar in previous legislation. Fitzgerald declined to agree, saying the Act did not say extradition for political offences could not be banned by the treaty enabling extradition.
Fitzgerald then continued to say that international jurisprudence had accepted for a century or more that you did not extradite political offenders. No political extradition was in the European Convention on Extradition, the Model United Nations Extradition Treaty and the Interpol Convention on Extradition. It was in every single one of the United States’ extradition treaties with other countries, and had been for over a century, at the insistence of the United States. For both the UK and US Governments to say it did not apply was astonishing and would set a terrible precedent that would endanger dissidents and potential political prisoners from China, Russia and regimes all over the world who had escaped to third countries.
Fitzgerald stated that all major authorities agreed there were two types of political offence. The pure political offence and the relative political offence. A “pure” political offence was defined as treason, espionage or sedition. A “relative” political offence was an act which was normally criminal, like assault or vandalism, conducted with a political motive. Every one of the charges against Assange was a “pure” political offence. All but one were espionage charges, and the computer misuse charge had been compared by the prosecution to breach of the official secrets act to meet the dual criminality test. The overriding accusation that Assange was seeking to harm the political and military interests of the United States was in the very definition of a political offence in all the authorities.
In reply Lewis stated that a treaty could not be binding in English law unless specifically incorporated in English law by Parliament. This was a necessary democratic defence. Treaties were made by the executive which could not make law. This went to the sovereignty of Parliament. Lewis quoted many judgements stating that international treaties signed and ratified by the UK could not be enforced in British courts. “It may come as a surprise to other countries that their treaties with the British government can have no legal force” he joked.
Lewis said there was no abuse of process here and thus no rights were invoked under the European Convention. It was just the normal operation of the law that the treaty provision on no extradition for political offences had no legal standing.
Lewis said that the US government disputes that Assange’s offences are political. In the UK/Australia/US there was a different definition of political offence to the rest of the world. We viewed the “pure” political offences of treason, espionage and sedition as not political offences. Only “relative” political offences – ordinary crimes committed with a political motive – were viewed as political offences in our tradition. In this tradition, the definition of “political” was also limited to supporting a contending political party in a state. Lewis will continue with this argument tomorrow.
That concludes my account of proceedings. I have some important commentary to make on this and will try to do another posting later today. Now rushing to court.
With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.
This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.
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There was a comment on Twitter this morning that appeared to suggest that the Public weren’t going to be allowed in this morning.
Is this true?
That would be one way of ensuring no members of the Public would be there to observe and report as citizens journalists on the event, let alone (illegally) take photographs.
RUPTLY have a live camera facing the entrance. It’s a dump.
https://youtu.be/_koquJwIGJU
Architects – PSA who appear to be an offshoot of a US firm. It’s one of those characterless ‘design and build’ structures in the public domain seen so much around this country now.
A firm called Cementaid feature the building on their website.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolwich_Crown_Court A snip @ £600.000 and the rest. Probably a PFI construction, ie build it now and the taxpayers keep on paying for it to the end of year dot.
l dearly hope this is not true.
Taking photographs in court is foolish.
Taking photographs in THIS court is the height of idiocy.
Publishing the photograph while the court is still running is stupid beyond belief.
Publishing this photograph alongside a translation of Craigs unparalleled work is highly questionable and makes me wonder about the motive.
Why is it foolish?
It’s foolish because it adds nothing to Assanges defense case, but could threaten public access which is essential so we can all get to read what is REALLY going on..
Perhaps that was the intention all along?
@ Los February 27, 2020 at 10:52
Exactly. Can anyone tell if this could simply be a snap taken from the Court CCTV?
Again always ask the question: Cui bono?
One picture? Everyone knows suspect Julian Assange from thousands of previous pictures. Or is it not him but a double?
Millions of public CCTV pictures are made daily in the UK and stored by the NSA in Utah, not to mention all of the pictures UK residents save from their private mobile phones in the Cloud.
A drop vs all oceans.
re: bugged
‘Ecuador bankrolled a multimillion-dollar spy operation to protect and support Julian Assange in its central London embassy, employing an international security company and undercover agents to monitor his visitors, embassy staff and the British police,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/15/revealed-ecuador-spent-millions-julian-assange-spy-operation-embassy-london
Assange knew the cameras were there. It’s insane to believe he wouldn’t have. He knew that he and his guests were being spied on and recorded.
“Assange knew the cameras were there. It’s insane to believe he wouldn’t have. He knew that he and his guests were being spied on and recorded”.
What’s your point?
Your coverage of this highly significant event is unmatched.
Huge respect and gratitude to you for your immense efforts.
l dearly hope that the photograph added to the French translation of your article does not get linked to you, and therefor get you excluded from the gallery.
One day Julian will see all your recent work and will thank you and shake you heartily by the hand.
He will get free. He must get free..
.
We need to put up a reward for a photograph of Vanessa Baraitser (not while in court) so the whole world can see what a minion of true evil looks like.
The absence of photograph on the internet for the judge/magistrate is curious. The judiciary shouldn’t be hounded for their work of course, they do a critical job in our democracy, and there is a system of review/appeal [and in this case, the consensus appears to be, there will be an appeal regardless of the ruling by the judge].
Having said that, if you impede the accused’s ability to communicate with their legal representatives in a junior court, you might find the prospects for an appeal slip away at a superior court which might confine its review to matters of law, rather than evidence which might have been challenged if the accused had appropriate access to their lawyers at the junior court.
“The judiciary shouldn’t be hounded for their work of course, they do a critical job in our democracy…”
That’s a very curious thing to say. One may think judges and magistrates are a good thing, a bad thing, or intermediate or variable. But their work most certainly has absolutely nothing to do with democracy. Or even “democracy”, which is the modern “Western” pretence of democracy.
Judges are appointed arbitrarily by officials, not by popular vote. They make their decisions arbitrarily, supposedly according to the law; but if they fail to follow the law, the voters have no recourse.
You could hardly have chosen any public officials in the Western world who are less “democratic”.
I think some people might disagree with you, and that the separation of the legislature, executive and judiciary is a cornerstone of many democracies. And now that the UK is leaving the EU, presumably the House of Lords will get its old role back from the ECJ as the final arbiter of legal opinion.Not that the House of Lords is very democratic but that’s the system in the UK.
I am not saying this magistrate isn’t a poor judge, she seems a bit lost on some points of law from what I read, but her ruling is subject to further challenge. She might also be a bit of an unpleasant person, some of them are, but it’s her judicial ability that’s relevant. I think in this instance, she is making a mistake preventing Julian from sitting beside his legal reps and demanding a full bail application to merely re-position Julian in her court room.
“I think some people might disagree with you, and that the separation of the legislature, executive and judiciary is a cornerstone of many democracies”.
If you will reread those words carefully, trying to see them objectively as if someone else had written them, I think you may see a flaw.
In so-called “democracies”, there is much self-congratulation about the theory that members of the legislature and (in the USA at least) the president are elected by some kind of vote. Even though the choice is almost always between preselected representatives of the ruling elite, with no candidates who would represent the interests of the people as a whole.
But there is no pretence of popular election in the case of judges. (All judges and magistrates in the UK, and senior judges in the USA).
The House of Lords is no longer the highest court of appeal in the UK – it was replaced by the UK Supreme Court in 2009.
Judges are appointed by the Queen, on the advice of the Prime Minister.
We should be able to very judge , being a judge does not give you anonymity , if you want anonymity don’t be a judge
“his counsel were allowed to talk down in the cells – presumably where they could be more conveniently bugged yet again.”
Is that what it’s come to?
Of course, there is a contextual pattern of behaviour suggesting prejudice towards Julian Assange, but have we gotten to the stage that we can casually suggest Julian’s conversations with his legal representatives in the cells of a courthouse will be “conveniently bugged”? Is there any evidence to support this suggestion? How awkward for the extradition if a solicitor were to bring a detector into the cell and uncover a bug!
And how on earth do you propose a solicitor – one representing Assange at that (!) is going to smuggle an electronic bug detecting device past all the electronic scanners, body and baggage searches at one of the most outrageously high and unnecessarily security conscious hearings in British history? Do you think the Assange lawyers all get a pass on the grounds they are bewigged and just swan in through a door with a key carrying Baratser’s latte?
If you are going to dis a valid observation then think first.
I just listened to a podcast interview with (Australian MP) Andrew Wilkie who described going through security to visit Julian in Belmarsh last week. He had almost completed the procedure when a guard found a 6mm (approx) size hole in his inside breast jacket pocket. Wilkie was told that torn clothes are not permitted and he had to go back, remove his jacket, and start from the beginning.
Australian readers might be interested in the podcast – ‘Weatherboard and Iron’ by Barnaby Joyce – first time I’ve ever agreed with Barnaby on anything but he’s spot on with this and he’s getting accurate information about Julian to a conservative rural constituency.
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/episode-4-barnaby-joyce-andrew-wilkie-discuss-julian/id1498573452?i=1000466729831
I read here only yesterday that Baltasar Garzón is part of the Deep State, so then he must have his ways…
With respect, the suggestion that a conversation between Julian and his legal reps in the cells of a courthouse might be “conveniently bugged” isn’t an observation, just a suggestion. Perhaps it is tongue in cheek, because of the recent evidence that conversations between Julian and his legal reps at the Ecuadorean embassy were in fact recorded, though there now seems to be dispute over whether Julian did or didn’t know that the conversation was being recorded.
Keep going Craig, your reporting is invaluable. You’re a hero, really.
Hear, hear!
Does Vanessa Baraitser look anything like the court artist’s image in this link? She looks younger than I imagined her to be.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-7595731/WikiLeaks-founder-Assange-court-face-extradition.html
Looks like a vicious harridan to me. Where do these people come from ?
@ grafter February 27, 2020 at 10:43
The nearest damp rock. Wouldn’t surprise me if she parks her transport in the broom cupboard (probably exempt from the ‘No Fly Zone’ around Belmarsh).
“The nearest damp rock.”
At least the creatures one finds in such places serve an indispensable purpose in ridding the Earth of it’s accumulated rubbish, thereby making it a better place.
All this person seems to amount to, is what the public need to be protected from.
There are no good or bad people; there are only good or bad behaviours and attitudes. Behaviours and attitudes can change, and it is up to us all to change them.
The science of psychology has established that aggression is a common response to the feeling of being threatened, and everyone is so very threatened in the modern neoliberal environment. Even the very rich feel threat, for they could lose their wealth; the more they have the greater the feared loss, and their competitors hold wealth and hence power comparable to their own. This whole process operates subconsciously in most people, so they don’t know where the aggression comes from, and have no idea how best to direct it.
It is a bitter irony that the neoliberal environment nurtures the very threat and hence aggression that it thrives upon, in a vicious spiral. The Toxic System.
The remedy is love, and love is a verb, a doing word. Spill your teardrops onto the fire that human society has become.
The cesspool in Mordor.
So she will live longer in infamy for letting herself being used as a pawn by the CIA & its Mi6 branch: they must have some serious goods on her! Doubt if she can sleep at night…
Let’s see if she reports sick tomorrow.
One thing is sure: this whole closed loop circus has NOTHING to do with Justice.
I wasn’t interested in her before – but now I’m mildly intrigued, anyone got her cv? How did this dalek come to be?
Public records not available.
She’s obviously an inn member (probably ex-practising) but they don’t advertise their lists. Bar association might have her somewhere in the archive but nothing obvious.
Edit: Actually almost guaranteed she’s the same inn as Arbuhtnot and probably deviled for her. Inner temple more than likely.
More evidence of the “democratic” nature of our injustice system. Why let the proles know anything? That would only cause trouble.
Mary,
This is an interesting Twitter feed, where various people are asking who exactly is Vanessa Baraitser and why are details about her so difficult to find on the internet. Is it a fact that like Emma Arbuthnot, Vanessa Baraitser is actually a magistrate and not a judge? Is the US state department dictating what happens in an English court?
https://twitter.com/hashtag/vanessabaraitser?lang=en
Magistrates are judges. In this case, Vanessa Baraitser is a district judge – she’s a paid, professional judge, in contrast to the lay magistrates who are non-professional, unpaid judges.
Indeed, very hard to find images of the magistrate on the internet.
The accompanying image of this article gets it wrong, I think this is Emma Arbuthnot: https://www.globalresearch.ca/new-conflict-interest-evidence-against-uk-judge-charge-assange-extradition-process/5704662
But on the right there may be a partial picture: https://madworldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Coe.jpg.gallery-678×356.jpg
The somewhat pointed chin seems to correspond with the artist’s impression in the Daily Mail.
(Sorry, I got it wrong, the Global Research article is about Emma Arbuthnot…)
There was more artistry in popular children’s programme ‘RooBarb & Custered’
Is it an offence to publish a photo which was attempted to be taken in a courtroom?
I have found myself laughing out loud while reading your accounts – both because of your phrasing and the ludicrous events you’re reporting; then I stop abruptly when I realise that these events are very serious and really not funny at all.
However, I have come to the conclusion that if I don’t laugh I’ll be in tears, so I hope the laughter continues.
@Craig, do keep it up. You’re doing a wonderful job in grim circumstances. Thank you.
Laugh on with the rest of us AJ. It’s a valid and normal response. That’s why police officers and emergency responders across the globe have the same sense of humour, one those not called on to witness the same horrors would consider in poor taste. It’s self protective a means of preserving some sanity, a distancing from events that are clearly so wrong and beyond the norm.
Like many here, I find Craig’s accounts compelling and totally astonishing that this is happening in 21st century Britain!!!! I never thought I would witness such things in my lifetime in my country after so many years. One thing is for sure, Craig’s integrity is not in question and he will try to be as level in his reporting as possible, but you can only report what is – however astonishing, however much you have to pinch yourself, however nauseating.
The state has a duty of care to those it incarcerates, the guilty have certain privilges and rights as human beings safeguarded by law and morality, those incarcerated yet still to stand trial have many more such rights all of which are denied to a peaceful man. Baraitserris an instrument of the state that for the most part in these matter (when it isn’t Assange) works well, yet that she denies all those basic human rights on behalf of our established historic legal principles and she does do that as an instrument, and abrogates them to a private, share holder for profit company defies any definition of common decency, common morality, or common sense. Astonished is not the word, I don’t know what is, but will have to do.
Importantly, this morning it appears that Assange will not be sitting with his defence lawyers – he has been offered a set of headphones which they can try – comedy central certainly not a court of justice – has the defence not pursued the issue of Assange sitting with them – beginning to question the defence team’s ability here!!
Assange wearing headphones further likens the entire proceedings to the Nuremburg trials where the defendents wore them to get a simultaneous translation
Keep up the good work, Craig
Baraitser’s argument that Julian has to be released from bail to sit in the court is rubbish. My solicitor got me out of the dock on day one. This, of course, was meant to be symbolic that it was the government not me on trial. We even had our own room at where we consulted and had lunch. They’d bugged our conferences before the trial. The question of bail never arose.
I would like to be there but my health is not up to it so I am sending a small donation. Please spend it on a decent meal and wine.
A friend of mine was on the jury in your trial. He kept hearing strange noises on his home phone, as did all the other jurors. Phone bugging almost certainly.
@ John A February 27, 2020 at 11:04
You normally only get noises on your phone (and sometimes playback of previous phone-calls) if they want you to know you are bugged. And of course your phone (landline or mobile) can act as a listening device, even when it is on the hook or when mobile is switched off.
CP.
Any chance you can get yourself invited on to a tv channel to make that point. If you have any such contacts that is.
Stay healthy.
Dungroanin. on youtube ‘Clive Ponting speaking in Dumfries 1/3/19’ if someone could post the link please.
[ Clive Ponting speaking in Dumfries 1/3/19 – https://youtu.be/XIX4oALBr8U ]
Clive hope you are ok. You were the Julian Assange of your day.
“Fitzgerald stated that all major authorities agreed there were two types of political offence. The pure political offence and the relative political offence. A “pure” political offence was defined as treason, espionage or sedition. A “relative” political offence was an act which was normally criminal, like assault or vandalism, conducted with a political motive.”
Julian Asssange is prosecuted under 18 USC Chapter 37, titled Espionage and Censorship, Par. 793 – that’s charges 1-17.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-37#
The charges:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165556/download
Thank you Craig, truth will set us free and hopefully , soon, Julian Assange. If it wasn’t for you none of this detail would emerge.
Superb report CM thanks.
bernard at MoA has put together a set of links to the various actual reports including here.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/the-british-kangaroo-court-proceedings-against-julian-assange-.html#comments
I have tried to encourage Off-G to publish CM’s reports in full – given he has made his permission explicit – they seem reluctant to do so but have posted some abstracts today.
If the defendant can’t hear the proceedings, it’s not a proper court.
If the defendant can’t give instructions to his lawyers during the proceedings, it’s not a proper court.
Apply for an order mandamus.
Strategy: make the court look ridiculous, and ever more ridiculous. Force them to say ever more stupid sh*t.
If they don’t want to let him sit with his lawyers, and it’s “against health and safety and risk assessment compliance” for them to allow him to do so, then they must make other arrangements for him to a) hear the proceedings (have they heard of electronics?) and b) be able to instruct his counsel.
Baraitser sounds like a right one. For a defendant to be released into the custody of their instructing solicitor so long as they stay in the court precincts is a formality and happens all the time (for defendants who haven’t come from prison), e.g. so they can go to the canteen while the jury is considering its verdict. And if allowing him to move a few metres requires giving him bail, then give him bail to do it. It could be called “arseholes”. What does it matter what it’s called? What a moron, pretending she’d love to help but can’t.
“At this stage Baraitser interrupted that it was plain the intention of parliament was that there could be extradition for political offences. Otherwise they would not have removed the bar in previous legislation.
She doesnt half come it with her local council official type phrases. “Intention of Parliament” indeed!
Parliament has no authority’to amend treaties. It didn’t have one under the Ponsonby rule, and it doesn’t have one now under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.
If she rules that a person can be extradited from Britain to the US for a political offence, and that what the extradition treaty says to the contrary doesn’t matter, she will get her arse kicked sky high at appeal.
In the light of what is happening, are you 100% confident that should she rule extradition valid as she inevitably will, that any appeal court hearing from Assange’s view point might ultimately be moot? That within an hour of such a ruling he might not be on a plane across the pond? That would be truly shocking, it shouldn’t happen, but then……
and if that did happen well, there’s always G4 to point the finger at. What, shouldn’t have handed him over to uncle sam, sorry about that thought there was no appeal, never mind…….
Wouldn’t happen. Would it?
That would be a risky commercial decision for G4S. I changed my utility provider some years ago specifically because they insisted in sending G4S personnel to read the meters. G4S is in breach of the Geneva Conventions with their contracting to do detention related work in the occupied West Bank.
Then again, they have to remain in the regime’s good books to tender for those juicy outsourcing contracts.
Yes, N_; but at the end of the appeal route lies the “Supreme Court”, which is simply Baraitser writ large. They will completely ignore the law and give whatever verdict the Americans tell them to.
It’s plain to see you have limited time and are working to a daily deadline to get these accounts to us so I hope, Mr Murray, that your daily reporting of these proceedings will eventually be turned into a book where you will be able to divulge at greater length an even better insight into this travesty of justice. Thank you for all your endeavours on Mr Assange’s and this nation’s behalf.
Thank you for your report. I pray for Julian Assange and his team to be strong. Free Julian Assange.
Pray for Craig too, he’s not a particularly well man and he’s putting his everything into this to protect our right and help his close friend
This legal guff is designed to be incomprehensible. I’m reminded of my Energy supplier which went bust without providing customer service support. When I later wanted to query a final bill, the new energy supplier said that some of the old energy supplier team had been incorporated into its own customer service.
The first company and the second company deliberately publicly hid this fact from their customers.
Because they had both lied, I saw little point in pursuing any further truth from either of them and I paid the bill.
In the case of UK Extradition Law 2007, it seems the corporate mind-set of the UK government has deliberately made the law on political extradition vague, whereas it had always previously been specific.
Maybe that was because what they had done @ 9/11 and subsequently in Afghanistan and Iraq led them to foresee precisely the circumstances of Assange’s case where their outrageous crimes had been exposed and they might want to shut the exposers up. The criminals in power, Blair, Brown, and subsequently Cameron, Clegg, May and Johnson appear to have deliberately built obfuscation, i.e. lies, into legislation ,which by definition and tradition should not be opaque.
The logic of Torydom is a Fascist state, hiding under the mask of liberal democracy.
It should be obvious that UK domestic law cannot be formulated specifically to cater for extradition to the US or any other jurisdiction, and in fact must be written for compatibility with all extradition agreements with foreign powers.
The point is that the domestic legislation is compatible with the UK/US Treaty, with its clause forbidding extradition for political offences.
The extradition is pursued under the terms of that treaty, and as Craig has said, it is absurd to suggest that parts of that treaty can be disregarded.
Exactly, Alan.
Thank you so much for doing this
Maybe China and Xi wants to test their extradition with the UK directly for the vicious and lie laden Opinion piece published in todays Groaniad by ‘Ma Jian is an author from Qingdao, China. He left Beijing for Hong Kong in 1987 as a dissident,’
Wasn’t the HK ‘color’ agitation kicked off with US backing to OPPOSE extradition to the Mainland??
Should we get schoolkids to go on strike and stop traffic?
Extradition Extinction – anyone?
Come on you sjw’s and concerned humans
Why would the Chinese care what the Grauniad prints? No one in China will pay any attention to it, nor any other reasonable country. As for the people who do read the Grauniad, they are a lost cause.
All the legal arguments are beyond me, but I understand that justice has to be seen to be done. And so I ask, how can this even be happening when:
• Public access to the court is so restricted it can hardly be called an open hearing
• Baraitser is obviously biased
• ‘Lady’ Arbuthnot appears to have a conflict of interest
• The prosecution has been spying on every word and deed of the defendant
• The defendant is being tortured
• The defendant is not being given adequate resources or time with his legal team
• The record of conditions in US prisons, including torture, is such that nobody should be extradited there
Which is basically an admission of their own guilt of lying, cheating and killing in their wars of aggression.
If they had clean hands they would have wanted a clean court case.
Many thanks Craig. Wonderful and so necessary!
“All previous Extradition Acts had excluded extradition for political offences, so it must be the intention of the sovereign parliament that political offenders can now be extradited.”
This assumes that a change in the text is intended to ‘correct’ a previous version. That is an interpretation. While I’m not sure about the UK Interpretation Act, usually (e.g. in Canada) it is not legal to interpret a change as a correction. Changes must be taken strictly at face value unless there are substantive words to support that interpretation, usually in the Head notes if not in the body of the legislation. See the UK Interpretation Act 1978 section 16(1), Repeals: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1978/30
Statutory interpretation is a muddly – even by legal standards – part of the law, but the principle invoked here is not as such crazy. I don’t think it is correctly applied, but it is an existing canon of UK statutory interpretation. (As is consistency between statutes and international law, for example.)
All this goes to confirm one’s impression that the law in “Western” countries is rather like a hologram of a bridge. You think it will support you, but the moment you try to step onto it you are in for a long drop.
Security theatre, democracy theatre, military theatre, nuclear defence theatre, spy theatre… and now legal theatre.
It’s certainly worthwhile to get good legal advice if you can afford it…
Which the great majority can’t.
Normal justice requires that the defendant can hear and see what is going on in his own court case.
If he is excluded from participating/taking in all that occurs, then justice is being railroaded at his great inconvenience.
It sounds that this is what is happening.
What and who is Group 4?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G4S They run prisons too and were also employed at the 2012 Olympics. So useless that the military had to be sent in.
They were also employed by the Israeli government to train the police, run prisons and to control Palestinians at the checkpoints. Then they got out and sold the contract. https://www.ft.com/content/e162a99a-639a-11e6-a08a-c7ac04ef00aa
Elbit do Israel’s dirty work now.
They’re an ongoing joke of a security firm who are incompetent and deadly. They are closely connected to the Tory party and are awarded every security job that the govt has outsourced
There is that “Gestapo meets the Keystone Cops” theme again.
Judge Deborah Taylor was the judge who originally sent Julian to prison.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/sentencing-remarks-assange-010519.pdf
I am beginning to understand why we see no coverage of these proceedings in the main stream media, the courtroom in a prison, the difficulty in gaining access and above all a judge who compares unfavourably with the queen in the trial scene of Alice in Wonderland. The arcane legal language attempting to impose order on this weirdly surreal cross between the Theatre of the Absurd and the Theatre of Cruelty and the process itself, similar in so many ways to Kafka’s The Trial. The judge has appeared out of obscurity, its as though she had followed a dictum “try to be a person about whom nothing is known.” A search on her name in ancestry sites is unpromising, all I can find is links to sites about obscure rare congenital disorders. Does she have no history, has it all been wiped, I feel myself to be intensely curious to know how she sprang into being or if she was just pieced together like the creature in Mary Shelly’s novel.
Total admiration for Craig being there day after day and informing us of the developments, this is a show that will run and run.
You mean no coverage other than this?
https://www.google.com/search?q=assange&newwindow=1&rlz=1C1GCEV_enGB873GB873&tbm=nws&sxsrf=ALeKk03hOtwlI7pH27AzW1ecEKc1t2e_bA:1582809910729&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:w&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihiuez6vHnAhVLXMAKHfq8AZwQpwUIIA&biw=1920&bih=937&dpr=1
Your link is informative, Martinned. The recent news section lists bulletins from the Guardian, the Minnesota Lawyer, CNN International, Bangkok Post, and USA Today.
Of these, the only UK-based resource is the Guardian, which reports Assange’s whingeing about unfairness, and concludes uncritically with the prosecution lawyer’s statement: ““Which ever way one looks at it, the treaty has not given any rights whatsoever to Mr Assange.””
I don’t think that’s evidence of unbiased UK coverage.
Well, no. The British media hasn’t reported about anything in an unbiased way since sometime in the reign of Queen Victoria, if even then. Let’s not set unrealistic expectations. But the original claim was “no coverage”.
Thanks for pointing that out Justin.
By ‘no coverage’ I meant detailed and unbiased coverage, only the sensational and contentious bits were thought worth reporting and no context regarding the circumstances of how the trial was being conducted were discussed, we know full well what Craig’s views are on this matter and we do not expect to see the kind of report you could read in the Daily Express, different views give us a fuller sense of the picture as a whole. And no smart arsed legal mind splitting hairs about what ‘coverage’ might mean would lead me to think any coverage less than that would be adequate.
Pete wrote:
> and above all a judge who compares unfavourably with the queen in the trial scene of Alice in Wonderland.
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”
How many people realise that the former judge/chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot is overseeing the actions of Vanessa Baraitser, so is still involved in this case.
Emma Arbuthnot is married to ex Conservative MP James Arbuthnot who works for a strategy firm whose clients invest in Uber. It was Emma Arbuthnot who granted Uber a temporary licence to continue operating in London. A lawyer for London’s black cab drivers said she had failed to explain her potential conflict of interest. Lady Arbuthnot has said she was not aware of the connection with her husband’s work.
We therefore have proof that the English judiciary is totally corrupt.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Emma_Arbuthnot
“We therefore have proof that the English judiciary is totally corrupt”.
Or incredibly stupid.
Or, of course, both.
Hang on, so how am I misreading s. 81 of the Extradition Act 2003?
A person’s extradition to a category 2 territory is barred by reason of extraneous considerations if (and only if) it appears that —
(a) the request for his extradition (though purporting to be made on account of the extradition offence) is in fact made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing him on account of his (…) political opinions, or
(b) if extradited he might be prejudiced at his trial or punished, detained or restricted in his personal liberty by reason of his (…) political opinions.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/part/2/crossheading/the-extradition-hearing
They’re trying to make out it’s not the act but the treaty that applies I think. They say different things.
Craig wrote that:
from discussion in court it was plain that the prosecution argue that the Extradition Act of 2003, under which the court is operating, makes no exception for political offences.
I’m trying to understand how that fits with s. 81.
Actually Ms Baraitser claimed (according to Mr Murray’s report) that it is the act and not the treaty that applies.
Because the treaty explicitly forbids extradition for political crimes, but the act does not.
Yes, the UK has a dualist system whereby treaties cannot normally be invoked in domestic courts. (Although that legal rule, like all (British) legal rules, has loopholes.)
The words you quote refer explicitly to the person’s political opinions. As I understand it, the proposed US prosecution would rest on Mr Assange’s actions – specifically actions which they would claim to constitute the crimes of espionage, etc.
Those are precisely the actions that are defined as “purely political” offences.
I guess that distinction makes sense, although in practice the kinds of people who are prosecuted for their political actions will normally also have unwelcome political opinions…
And this is British legal justice? Cannot believe the way Julian is being treated for showing the video of USA airmen fireing at children while laughing and joking about it. Two reporters were killed – why is this not a war crime.
jacqui butterworth
because the US and its allies can never be prosecuted for war crimes at the Hague, due to an act brought about by George W Bush – The Hague Invasion Act.
O, and it is. But that’s irrelevant. The crimes of one person are no excuse for the (alleged) crimes of another.
To be fair, that’s not what he’s in trouble for.
Only because the US want it to look like Assange solicited the Iraq Rules of Engagement – and probably also because the US would rather not draw attention to the Collateral Murder video.
– “Summers argued that these had not been solicited from Manning, but had rather been provided by Manning in an accompanying file along with the Collateral Murder video that showed the murder of Reuters journalists and children. Manning’s purpose, as she stated at her court martial, was to show that the Collateral Murder actions breached the rules of engagement, even though the Department of Defense claimed otherwise. Summers stated that by not including this context, the US extradition request was deliberately misleading as it did not even mention the Collateral Murder video at all.”
After 23rd line break:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/02/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-2/