It has been a long and tiring day, with the startlingly unexpected decision to block Julian’s extradition. The judgement is in fact very concerning, in that it accepted all of the prosecution’s case on the right of the US Government to prosecute publishers worldwide of US official secrets under the Espionage Act. The judge also stated specifically that the UK Extradition Act of 2003 deliberately permits extradition for political offences. These points need to be addressed. But for now we are all delighted at the ultimate decision that extradition should be blocked.
The decision was based equally on two points; the appalling conditions in US supermax prisons, and the effect of those conditions on Julian specifically given his history of depression. The media has concentrated on the mental health aspect, and given insufficient attention to the explicit condemnation of the inhumanity of the US prison system.
I was the only person physically present in the public gallery inside the court, having been nominated by John Shiption to represent the family, aside from two court officials. I am quite sure that I again noted magistrate Baraitser have a catch in her throat when discussing the inhumane conditions in US supermax prisons, the lack of human contact, and specifically the fact that inmates are kept in total isolation in a small cage, and are permitted one hour exercise a day in total isolation in another small cage. I noted her show emotion the same way when discussing the al-Masri torture evidence during the trial, and she seemed similarly affected here.
Julian looked well and alert; he showed no emotion at the judgement, but entered into earnest discussion with his lawyers. The US government indicated they will probably appeal the verdict, and a bail hearing has been deferred until Wednesday to decide whether he will be released from Belmarsh pending the appeal – which court sources tell me is likely to be held in April in the High Court. I should be very surprised if Julian is not released on Wednesday pending the appeal. I shall now be staying here for that bail hearing.
I apologise for not giving a full analysis of the judgement yet, it has all been rather hectic, but wonderful. Here is a brief video giving more detail. I can produce a more considered piece tomorrow.
—————————————————–
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Etherium/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
It is great news for Assange and his family, but it is disturbing the judge swallowed the US position hook line and sinker – I can only imagine she is being pressured in some way.
Holding my breath that Julian will be out on bail and on the way to recovering from this ordeal soon. His lack of emotion at the verdict seems entirely natural. He must be drained of all feeling and numb to his core after so long.
Thank you again Mr Murray for your effort and sacrifices to bring the details of the case out when clearly there were those who were doing all in their power to keep it in the dark.
Good luck with your own trial.
It’s about saving face. She had pretty much acceptwd the US position from the outset. Thanks to the tireless efforts of campaigners and the extremely power voice of former Telegrapher political editor, Peter Oborne. It was becoming impossible for Barista to allow the extradition to continue but impossible for her to allow the defence to crush the US prosecution so she played the middle ground and gave Julian a get out of extradition card on ‘humanitarian’ grounds even though humanitarianism has clearly been in short supply.
In other words his death shall not be on her hands. As ever in the rogue state of Great Britain cowardliness and weasel words win the day.
I won’t be relieved until Julian is free, but it’s significant. Thank you to everyone. Just said that David Graeber isn’t here to see it.
Despite this reprieve, an appeal(s) should be lodged against EACH and EVERYONE of the judges fake rulings. It is imperative the rulings should be reversed for posterity and not serve as a precedent in any future cases. In fact a separate crowdfund setup specifically to pay for the appeals will find overwhelming support. Godspeed and a big thank you for all your work.
What a very weird post, Bounty punter. Does suggesting it be unpleasant nonsense, a double negative, render it something positive to be supported or is that notion a similar nonsense?
amanfromMars – I didn’t find it strange – and it reflected my own views.
Although the conclusion (that Assange should not be extradited) was correct, the judge ruled in favour of the Americans on all points that endanger press freedom. There must be an appeal against all these points in this judgement.
I fear that it will be very easy for the Americans to appeal against Baraitser’s conclusions about their penal facilities and about her conclusions on Julian Assange’s mental health – she found against them on the one point where they may have a chance of winning an appeal.
If Julian Assange’s team is complacent and does not appeal against all the points in this judgement where she agreed with the Americans then the USA establishment will win the appeal and Julian Assange will be extradited.
Howdy, James B,
If Uncle Sam wishes to jump the shark and vainly challenge UKGBNI justice, goodness knows what future unpleasantnesses lurk in the shadows to be empowered to deliver their just desserts.
The question then to consider is what part of the message delivering the judgement ….. Don’t continue flogging a dead horse ….. does Uncle Sam not understand?
And such then would have many reasonably thinking and realising that greater intelligence was definitely lacking in systems administrations across the pond and they be vulnerable to greater intelligence attacks which have them jousting at windmills with rapidly depleting resources exhausting their formerly once imagined almighty assets.
Notwithstanding all of that, the fact that Baraitser ignored all the elephants in the room which are systemic attacks on press freedoms which simply share the truth about crazy secrets held and wielded for the greater benefit of surprisingly small few, is unfortunate whenever there was such a marvellous opportunity to eloquently address and highlight it.
amanfromMars – I appreciate your point, but sadly I get the impression that Uncle Sam has been `jumping the shark’ for some time. There is (apparently) a saying in the army: if you shit yourself, then the best policy is not to move, because any movement will only make the situation worse. The USA/UK establishment doesn’t seem to have understood this.
That isn’t even grammatical. What are you saying?
Wonderful news!!!
Indeed. I almost sobbed with joy. Then I realized it was not over. Although he is suicidal and depressed at the moment this may not be the case in the future. The US have said they will hound him around the world and regrettably I don’t think they will let up. Hope I.m wrong.
Assange may very well be let go due to the prospect of a pardon from Trump ; letting him off the hook at this stage will not preclude him being charged again in future though.
I do not see any chance of a pardon from Trump. It is not like Assange killed someone, preferably a bunch of natives of a Muslim country.
My suspicion, voiced also by others, is that ever obedient Magistrate followed a cue from Washington, more precisely Biden’s team. Politically, Assange cause is a wedge issue WITHIN Democratic Party, and his presence in US jail may be bothersome for Administration with many worries on Day One.
She is not a Magistrate. She is a district judge. There are significant differences between the unpaid, voluntary justices of the peace who represent communities and, in this case, a lawyer plucked from the heart of the establishment to ensure the view of the State prevails. See the 2011 riot proceedings, which tore up the sentencing guidelines followed by JPs.
Bramble, your post is not quite right. She is a District Judge who sits in magistrates courts. There are paid, legally qualified magistrates, formerly called stipendiary magistrates, but now called District Judges (Magistrate Courts).
These judges are not to be confused with Justices of the Peace, also called magistrates who are not legally qualified, drawn from the communities and who hear cases in magistrates’ courts. They are advised on the law by clerks to the justices who are lawyers. So it is correct to refer to Baraitser as a magistrate, being a District Judge sitting in a magistrates court. Just saying…..
that’s how I read it: Trump was going to pardon him … when he loses his appeal, it is thought that Trump will be gone and hence no one present to pardon him. It’s all about timing.
there is no evidence whatever that trump was going to pardon him. trump was driving this latest phase of the per/pro secution. trump pardons war criminals, not people who expose their crimes.
This news that Julian Assange’s extradition was rejected by the British Court is an encouraging move, but I am still trying to decipher the motivation for this decision as the Judge was so clearly biased and totally devoid of compassion. This could be another attempt to manipulate the media as she has ruled in full agreement with the US charges demonizing Assange as guilty; is she just distracting with the faux concern over his welfare in a US Supertmax jail. It is certainly not as if she can honestly claim his treatment here in the UK at Belmarsh Prison has been significantly more humane!
I wrote earlier that I thought they would deny bail, so it is interesting to hear that Craig feels that they will let him out. It would be hard to justify jeeping him in jail, but that has not detered the Judge from making other unjust decesions in this case. I think the US are stymied and directing the Brits to stall for time, knowing Asange could win an appeal against his conviction. Are the Americans just trying to insure that Trump doesn’t outstage them with a last ditch pardon?
I agree that “Despite this reprieve, an appeal(s) should be lodged against EACH and EVERYONE of the judges fake rulings. It is imperative the rulings should be reversed for posterity and not serve as a precedent in any future cases.” It remains really important to fight every aspect of the decision over guilt.
The essence of this persecution of Assange is to use fear to gag other like-minded conscientious Whistleblowers and Investigative Journalists. Might we see a gross injustice corrected this New Year? I hope Craig is right and I commend him for his support. We all wish you well Julian; may you soon move on with your life as a free man…
I don’t really trust the court to grant bail (after all his prior conviction could be taken into account) or to just set it to an unaffordable level if that’s possible.
And that’s exactly what happened.
If I was to attempt to channel Judge Baraitser, she would say it is not my opinion that there should or should not be a political exemption to extradition, it is what the legislature have determined. If people think there should be such an exemption then they need to elect politicians that will express their will and pass legislation to instruct the courts accordingly.
Lower courts often feel they should be very conservative in creating new law, Judge Baraitser chose the sole ground available to her where there were strong precedents from higher courts. She has made finding of facts on Assange’s mental health that won’t be overturned on appeal, although there remains a danger that a higher court will accept the US government undertakings to take appropriate care of Assange.
It may well be that on appeal, if Assange’s legal team choses to cross-appeal, that a higher court will lay down something more far-reaching in the areas Baraitser didn’t touch. But Judge Baraitser was interpreting the law as she understood it and to the extent that she believes her position in the judicial hierarchy allows.
That fact that everything the defense was pretty well rejected strongly suggests he needs to get new lawyers.
Sean_Lamb
New lawyers. Imho the Defence followed Queensbury rules at all times, and they got a Queensbury verdict.
If you’re quibbling a real crime, as opposed to an Alice in Wonderland invented crime, yes , drop the Queensberries. Julian Assange’s legal team have behaved impeccably, which brought the power of sweet reason to a Kangaroo proceedings.
I think they have done brilliantly.
The US wanted to use this court to nail down its political fascism and overturn the American Constitution.which protects journalists rights. Vanessa Baraitser , finding herself inside a Lewis Carroll horror movie has bypassed the menacing spectre of fascism and in effect blocked the sinister purposes of the aggressive US power.
Her comments on US law have no weight or relevance
as it’s abundantly clear that she was parroting what she had been told to say by the US prosecutors. To me it looks as though she detested South Africa and the US in equal measure, but she knew how to play along with the Duchess’ chop off his head mantra.
They’ve set up the expectation that he would be expected to commit suicide if jailed if the appeal were to go against him.
I welcome the news too but there are a few points not being mentioned by Julian’s supporters so far:
I tend to agree, this feels like a political decision. Where the court upholds the US position yet can show humanity at the same time. The Democrats appear to hate Julian more than Trump, I think breaking Julian is more their intention as a message to others. If the press begin to feel threatened then this would look bad for the Democrats, especially with the current Trump/Democrat/Media/Fake news circus going on.
I can only hope Julian is released swiftly and is able to recover from his ordeals.
I think you’re on the button regarding the Court upholding the US position, but when it comes to the unjust treatment Mr Assange received from Judge Baraitser in a British court by making him sit in a glass bullet-proof box during the hearings without proper immediate access to his legal team removes any vestiges of humanity she, or her directors, might wish to display.
Too much is now on public record (thanks to Mr Murray’s contemporaneous reporting of the hearings) that these people who wanted to see Mr Assange extradited have no basis to claim the decision not to extradite him was for humanitarian reasons. Politics have ruled these events from the beginning and politics will surely see Mr Assange released to his family and the past events shoved under the carpet. These events are still a warning to other journalists not to go against any government narrative.
I don’t think Judge Baraitser was a high-profile magistrate before these hearings, but she will be forever now known as the judge who performed a government’s bidding in a political trial that went wrong for the Establishment.
I hope Mr Murray will get to use the next few weeks to devote to his own problems and try to recuperate from what has obviously been a very protracted and trying period.
In addition to this, the possibility that the UK govt are perfectly happy to extradite at any time, but have introduced an artificial hitch to give themselves a bargaining chip when establishing relations with the new presidential administration?
I don’t think we should ever forget the part played by Keir Starmer in all of this. Some sort of human rights lawyer so it’s said.
Do not forget Craig Murray’s evidence of the disturbing links between Kings College London and the US Defence Department, which have otherwise gone unnoticed.
David – could you give me a link for this? Thanks.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/assange-hearing/
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-10-02-revealed-key-assange-prosecution-witness-is-part-of-academic-cluster-which-has-received-millions-of-pounds-from-uk-and-us-militaries/
Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, “Revealed: Key Assange prosecution witness is part of academic cluster which has received millions of pounds from UK and US militaries”, Declassified UK [Fri 2 Oct 2020]
See particularly Jurgen Wullenwever’s comment:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/assange-hearing/comment-page-1/#comment-959111
Twirlip – many thanks for this – yes – that Declassified article is very interesting. The `publicity’ part, quoting sections 12.1 and 13.1.2 of the contract between Kings College and the MOD is also very interesting and sinister.
It is great news that the hearing has resulted in the extradition going ahead, but the cynic in me suspects that this is all part of a plan to have him extradited. When a ‘safer’ place can be demonstrated to exist in the US, then the US can appeal and this one last point then has no validity, leaving the rest of the pro-US rulings in place.
I sincerely hope he is freed soon.
Thanks again for your continued presence in this process, and for providing us information on it.
“It is great news that the hearing has resulted in the extradition going ahead…”
Uh?
If the closed-door deal is to let this fade away, the British way to get out of this ‘inconvenience’ would be to unintentionally of course mess up the appeal application paperwork just enough.
I wonder if the Americans have learned the arcane and stupid rules of 19th century realpolitik that we continue to use in the British empire.
The Judge’s decision was a red herring as soon as Julian Assange mental condition is improved they’ll be after him again and they have a full judgement on the side USA. The best thing Julian Assange could do is leave the UK asap and go where there is no extradition treaty with the USA or the UK as the Judge has found him guilty; the poor guy’s problems have only just started.
100% Yes
Shrinks love to compare mental health with physical.
Mental distress is reactive to circumstances. I believe in capitalism in a socialist society, like Mr Alibaba, you experience mental distress. Some people believe war is a civic duty and are proud to have trashed Iraq, Somalia etc. They experience mental stress when they see happy societies getting on fine.
Right now the sociopaths are on power. Julian Assange is experiencing severe mental stress from that fact, like any other sane person. If the sociopaths were not on power, Julian would be fine.
You can’t diagnose a Daesh. You just have to kill them off, because they are psychopaths, like Hitler. They like war, and they want you to fight them. In the end you have to give them the satisfaction of fighting them in order to remove them. That’s the problem with psychopaths, when you fight them , they say ,” oh , you see you’re also a psychopath. “
This is fantastic news. However, it’s not over yet. We can’t celebrate until we know for certain that there will be no appeal / an appeal is unsuccessful. Hopefully, in the meantime, Julian can be released while that is sorted out.
It is deeply concerning that the judge has ruled in favour of the legal grounds for seeking Julian Assange’s extradition. The UK is not a functioning democracy when people can face extradition and a life of mental torture at the hands of a foreign power for revealing crimes and abuses of power by that foreign power.
Agree with your second paragraph entirely. I think that puts the full thing into chilling perspective.
Wonderful news. I very much hope you are right in anticipating his release tomorrow!
Many thanks for your tireless efforts Craig. Fair coverage of this case, as you know, has been at a premium.
You don’t think that this will be snatched away? Like a mafioso giving hope to the victim first to maximize the pain and sicken others with their cruelty. Pour décourager les autres.?
I wouldn’t be surprised. British society is still democratic but the state doesn’t need to care a tuppenny damn about that.
Full text of judgement is here:
https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/usa-v-julian-assange/
Craig, I wonder if you can shed any light on some process questions.
If the US government wins the appeal, are there any appeal options available for the Assange team ?
Would one appeal option be to the European Court on Human Rights ?
It’s worrying, and suspicious, that the press freedom arguments were rejected. If the US government were to make assurances about how Julian was to be detained which addressed the reasons for the rejection, could that pave the way for a successful appeal ?
Shall be addressing these and other points in a post today
HM Prison Belmarsh may lose out to ADX Florence in achieving pure hell on earth, but it’s plenty horrid enough that – with concern for Assange’s capacity to survive incarceration ostensibly being the court’s sole and specific grounds for denying extradition – it would seem preposterous not to release him promptly, irrespective of any ongoing appeal.
If an appeal is taken, I’m sure the authorities can come up with effective and obnoxious restrictions to keep Assange from getting too close to any problematic borders or embassies. So it’s a matter of whether they’re going to keep him inside to max out the sadism while they have the chance.
And this is very speculative, but I’d say reversal on appeal of Hon. Vanessa’s judgment is quite unlikely, so if Julian can secure release now, thereby ending his torment at Belmarsh, we might see the U.S. losing interest in pursuing the case altogether.
Thank you Craig for your excellent reporting on Julian’s case. Very informative and very much appreciated.
Based on the years long history of Assange’s ruthless persecution by USA/UK/Sweden and Australia’s abhorrent lack of support for him, I am still very suspicious about what’s going to happen next.
I sincerely hope Julian will be a free man soon, but what will his future hold? Is the US prepared to give up on their effort to get Julian in their claws after all this time?
Other than that, I am over the moon for Assange that there is finally some good news for him. 2021 has been off to a good start for him, let’s hope it will continue. Fingers crossed.
I wouldn’t celebrate, all the USA need to do now is promise not to send him to a supermax (in the same way they promise no death sentence in other extradition cases) and then he’s on the next plane.
Just Me- I don’t think it’s quite that simple. As the USA lost in its application to extradite, it has to appeal. It has to do so on grounds that the judge got facts wrong or she was perverse, meaning no reasonable judge could have made the finding she did. As Martinned has pointed out earlier, the finding of Baraitser on the one aspect that led to Assange “winning”, is the most difficult to appeal.
The US can also give what is called an “assurance” of no ADSEG or SAMS as a condition of extradition, but the British courts still have to accept it.
I don’t think Epstein was in a supermax.
I can’t believe there will be an appeal. That would take it to a court where the judges are much less under control or the Intelligence services. As Craig says, there are some scandalous judgements in this release about US ability to charge who they like, where they like. A higher court is very likely to throw them out (and if they repeat the US jails not safe at that level it will be a diplomatic incident).
I don’t see any chance of Trump pardoning Assange. It’s his justice department that has pursued him and doubled down with new indictments when it became clear their original case was collapsing. It was clear from the evidence given in the trial that Obamas DoJ had no intention of prosecuting.
That’s because Obama was committed to open government. As he said in Jan 2009:
“The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”
He lived up to it by prosecuting more whistleblowers than every other US president combined. Yay, go Barack
yes they both sucked. in this particular case trump was willing to go even further than obama, in persecuting assange. obama killed more people if you don’t count the virus, so there’s that.
It appears the US Gov is already jettisoning Trump policy and US law in anticipation of a change of policy and law after 20 Jan. According to Bloomberg within days of the NYSE announcing that it was preparing to de-list 3 Chinese listed companies with links to the Chinese military (leading to those shares being dumped) then they announced a U turn (leading to those shares being re-purchased.
Thanks to Craig for his continued work in bringing this matter and all its issues to a wider audience.
The Judgment is worth reading. The Judge makes it very clear that from 1870 to 1987 the extradition legislation did not allow extradition for political offences i.e. she is implicitly asking “so what happened?!” She mentioned that legal writers have suggested that the inclusion of political offences in the EA2003 has been suggested to be “an international trend” but what does that mean? I hadn’t thought of British courts as mere followers of fashion and is there any such fashion or trend for political extradition? If so – so what.
More to the point how the fuck did it come about that Parliament passed the EA 2003 in contravention of the safeguard against political extradition within the Treaty? Someone negotiated that safeguard within the Treaty so why was it thrown away in the Act?
Was that changed debated in Parliament? Has anyone checked Hansard?
I vaguely recollect reading a suggestion that our EA was drafted by the US, that the initial Bill even contained American spelling and that it was presented to us to enact, but is that correct or have I mis-remembered?
Are any MPs actively looking to amend the EA? Does any party have a stated position on this?
I also noticed para 40 in which the Judge quotes Julian having said that Wikileaks is “an intelligence agency of the people”. I suspect there is something in that intriguing concept and that is at the heart of the opposition to Julian?
There is quite a bit in the Judgment about the extent to which Wikileaks was active in the hacking rather than simply a receiver of information and may have intended harm to the intelligence services rather than simply being intent to provide information in a journalistic way. I don’t know if those points are correct but they may muddy the water.
Finally, I was very surprised to read that the US would have greater difficulty in extraditing a US Citizen from the UK for a political offence than a UK Subject of the Crown.
Just correcting – my final point. Judgment doesn’t say that.
Wednesday, tomorrow, the day celebrated by western Christians as Epiphany, is the day of the expected Trump kook-out in Washington DC, as in “Hugo Chavez paid Congress and especially the Republican Party to run a fake election and steal the presidency from the US people, egged on by the Biden crime family and Pizza Hillary”. How will Trump respond if he sees on his Twitter feed that Julian Assange, his helper from 2016 but who is not exactly flavour of the week in US military circles, has walked out the front door of the court? Not long before we find out… The Assange case has always fundamentally been a US case.
assange wasn’t his helper. and trump has gone after him even harder than obama.
No apology then to the Judge who you insulted freely
Nor should there be.
I fail to see how this Judgment can stand, at least for one central reason, related not to the refusal to extradite but by reference to a proper interpretation of the law on extradition. It is no secret that there exists the political offence exemption from extraditing an offender. It is self-evident that alleged offences arising by reference to the US Espionage Act do have a distinct political element; clearly the US government was deeply embarrassed by the ‘rabbit hunt’ helicopter shooting of Iraqi civilians by US military personnel. Surely, Assange’s publication of such information was against the political state interest of the US and as such the publication would as a motivational factor of Assange – have promoted the call for better behaviour and political change from such actions of committing war crimes. Indeed, Assange was and is a ‘political offender’. Assange’s publication strikes directly at US government misconduct, through the US military’s action in Iraq, and thus proportionately the exposure makes the publication an extremely high political offence.
The finding that the UK Extradition Act of 2003 permits extradition for political offences would not be congruent with International Law as it presently exists.
It would indeed by a useful, necessary and important jurisprudential exercise to have this point addressed and clarified by a higher court. Bad precedent does not make good law.
Courtenay Barnett-I understand entirely what you’re saying but I’m not sure that a magistrate’s court judgment is binding on other magistrate courts and are therefore not capable of becoming precedents. At least that is my understanding as a civil law practitioner of 30plus years. I have to accept that I’ve not practiced in the criminal courts but my memory tells me that magistrates and county courts do not create precedents.
That being the case, the judge’s findings have not created a precedent. At least not as a matter of law. I accept the possible future political machinations (as well as the historical political fixing). I hope I’m not wrong.
Ingwe,
On reflection – I agree with you.
‘Persuasive authority’ would be the phrase to use ( i.e. non-binding).
Courtenay – thanks for troubling to reply.
I think that Baraitser’s judgment (unlikely to have been her own work following Craig Murray’s reports during both the interlocutory hearings and the main hearing that she appeared to read from a pre-written document that took no account of the submissions before her) reflect the UK state’s position that will be followed should similar case arise.
Now that counsel is required to provide skeleton arguments with authorities before hearings, there is plenty time for Baraiter’s superiors to prepare a ‘judgment’ for her to read out in court. Fools no-one.
Many thanks for the update Craig, and all your hard work on reporting on this trial without which Julian would be in a much worse position.
Thank you Craig for your reporting from the courtroom. You were a voice to the world.
Poor Julian. I just hope that he is not murdered by the forces of evil when (if) he finally is out of the nightmare. It’s not over yet!
Hansard records that the then Under Secretary of State at the Home Office Lord Filkin speaking in the Lords on 1st May 2003 at 3.32pm (para 855) said that the Bill would not allow for extradition or prosecution for holding political opinions.
Craig? Anything in this?