Reporting on Julian Assange’s extradition hearings has become a vocation that has now stretched over five years. From the very first hearing, when Justice Snow called Assange “a narcissist” before Julian had said anything whatsoever other than to confirm his name, to the last, when Judge Swift had simply in 2.5 pages of glib double-spaced A4 dismissed a tightly worded 152-page appeal from some of the best lawyers on earth, it has been a travesty and charade marked by undisguised institutional hostility.
We were now on last orders in the last chance saloon, as we waited outside the Royal Courts of Justice for the appeal for a right of final appeal.
The architecture of the Royal Courts of Justice was the great last gasp of the Gothic revival; having exhausted the exuberance that gave us the beauty of St Pancras Station and the Palace of Westminster, the movement played out its dreary last efforts at whimsy in shades of grey and brown, valuing scale over proportion and mistaking massive for medieval. As intended, the buildings are a manifestation of the power of the state; as not intended, they are also an indication of the stupidity of large scale power.
Court number 5 had been allocated for this hearing. It is one of the smallest courts in the building. Its largest dimension is its height. It is very high, and lit by heavy mock medieval chandeliers hung by long cast iron chains from a ceiling so high you can’t really see it. You expect Robin Hood to suddenly leap from the gallery and swing across on the chandelier above you. The room is very gloomy; the murky dusk hovers menacingly above the lights like a miasma of despair; below them you peer through the weak light to make out the participants.
A huge tiered walnut dais occupies half the room, with the judges seated at its apex, their clerks at the next level down, and lower lateral wings reaching out, at one side housing journalists and at the other a huge dock for the prisoner or prisoners, with a massy iron cage that looks left over from a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
This is in fact the most modern part of the construction; caging defendants in medieval style is a Blair era introduction to the so-called process of law.
Rather incongruously, the clerks’ tier was replete with computer hardware, with one of the two clerks operating behind three different computer monitors and various bulky desktop computers, with heavy cables twisting in all directions like sea kraits making love. The computer system seems to bring the court into the 1980’s, and the clerk behind it looked uncannily like a member of a synthesiser group of that era, right down to the upwards pointing haircut.
In period keeping, this computer feed to an overflow room did not really work, which led to a number of halts in proceedings.
All the walls are lined with high bookcases, housing thousands of leather bound volumes of old cases. The stone floor peeks out for one yard between the judicial dais and the storied wooden pews, with six tiers of increasingly narrow seating. The barristers occupied the first tier and their instructing solicitors the second, with their respective clients on the third. Up to ten people per line could squeeze in, with no barriers on the bench between opposing parties, so the Assange family was squashed up against the CIA, State Department and UK Home Office representatives.
That left three tiers for media and public, about thirty people. There was however a wooden gallery above which housed perhaps twenty more. With little fuss and with genuine helpfulness and politeness, the court staff – who from the Clerk of Court down were magnificent – had sorted out the hundreds of those trying to get in, and we had the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, we had 16 Members of the European Parliament, we had MPs from several states, we had NGOs including Reporter Without Borders, we had the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, and we had, (checks notes) me, all inside the Court.
I should say this was achieved despite the extreme of official unhelpfulness from the Ministry of Justice, who had refused official admission and recognition to all of the above, including the United Nations. It was pulled together on the day by the police, court staff and the magnificent Assange volunteers led by Jamie. I should also acknowledge Jim, who with others spared me the queue all night in the street which I had undertaken at the International Court of Justice, by volunteering to do it for me.
This sketch captures the tiny non-judicial portion of the court brilliantly. Paranoid and irrational regulations prevent publication of photos or screenshots.
My rough sketch while trying to listen on a difficult audio feed.
At front two Counsels for #Assange, to right behind them Gareth Perice, then from right John Shipton, @GabrielShipton, @Stella_Assange, behind them @ChrisLynnHedges. Also saw @CraigMurrayOrg and @suigenerisjen. pic.twitter.com/pNI2mHMRHW
— Matt Ó Branáin (@MattOBranain) February 20, 2024
The acoustics of the court are simply terrible. We are all behind the barristers as they stood addressing the judges, and their voices were at the same time muffled yet echoing from the bare stone walls.
I did not enter with a great deal of hope. As I have explained in How the Establishment Functions, judges do not have to be told what decision is expected by the Establishment. They inhabit the same social milieu as ministers, belong to the same institutions, attend the same schools, go to the same functions.
The United States’ appeal against the original blocking of Assange’s extradition was granted by a Lord Chief Justice who is the former room-mate, and still best friend, of the minister who organised the removal of Julian from the Ecuadorean Embassy.
The blocking of Assange’s appeal was done by Judge Swift, a judge who used to represent the security services, and said they were his favourite clients. In the subsequent Graham Phillips case, where Mr Phillips was suing the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for sanctions being imposed upon him without any legal case made against him, Swift actually met FCDO officials – one of the parties to the case – and discussed matters relating to it privately with them before giving judgment. He did not tell the defence he had done this. They found out, and Swift was forced to recuse himself.
Personally I am surprised Swift is not in jail, let alone still a High Court judge. But then what do I know of justice?
The Establishment politico-legal nexus was on even more flagrant display today. Presiding was Dame Victoria Sharp, whose brother Richard had arranged an £800,000 loan for then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and immediately been appointed Chairman of the BBC, (the UK’s state propaganda organ). Assisting her was Justice Jeremy Johnson, another former barrister representing MI6.
By an amazing coincidence, Justice Johnson had been brought in seamlessly to replace his fellow ex-MI6 hiree Justice Swift, and find for the FCDO in the Graham Phillips case!
And here these two were now to judge Julian!
What a lovely, cosy club is the Establishment! How ordered and predictable! We must bow down in awe at its majesty and near divine operation. Or go to jail.
Well, Julian is in jail, and we stood ready for his final shot for an appeal. We all stood up and Dame Victoria took her place. In the murky permanent twilight of the courtroom, her face was illuminated from below by the comparatively bright light of a computer monitor. It gave her a grey, spectral appearance, and the texture and colour of her hair merged into the judicial wig seamlessly. She seems to hover over us as a disturbingly ethereal presence.
Her colleague, Justice Johnson, for some reason was positioned as far to her right as physically possible. When they wished to confer he had to get up and walk. The lighting arrangements did not appear to cater for his presence at all, and at times he merged into the wall behind him.
Dame Victoria opened by stating that the court had given Julian permission to attend in person or to follow on video, but he was too unwell to do either. After that disturbing news, Edward Fitzgerald KC rose to open the case for the defence to be allowed an appeal.
There is a crumpled magnificence about Mr Fitzgerald. He speaks with great authority and a moral certainty that compels belief. At the same time he appears so large and well-meaning, so absent of vanity or pretence, that it is like watching Paddington Bear in a legal gown. He is a walking caricature of Edward Fitzgerald.
Barristers’ wigs have tight rolls of horsehair stuck to a mesh that stretches over the head. In Mr Fitzgerald’s case, the mesh has to be stretched so far to cover his enormous brain, that the rolls are pulled apart, and dot his head like hair curlers on a landlady.
Fitzgerald opened with a brief headline summary of what the defence would argue, in identifying legal errors by Judge Swift and Magistrate Baraitser, that meant an appeal was viable and should be heard.
Firstly, extradition for a political offence was explicitly excluded under the UK/US Extradition Treaty which was the basis for the proposed extradition. The charge of espionage was a pure political offence, recognised as such by all legal authorities, and Wikileaks’ publications had been to a political end, and even resulted in political change, so were protected speech.
Baraitser and Swift were wrong to argue that the Extradition Treaty was not incorporated in UK domestic law and therefore “not justiciable”, because extradition against its terms engaged Article V of the European Convention (on Human Rights on Abuse of Process) and Article X (on Freedom of Speech).
The Wikileaks revelations had revealed serious state illegality by the government of the United States, up to and including war crimes. It was therefore protected speech.
Article III and Article VII of the ECHR were also engaged because in 2010 Assange could not possibly have predicted a prosecution under the Espionage Act, as this had never been done before despite a long history in the USA of reporters publishing classified information in national security journalism. The “offence” was therefore unforeseeable. Assange was being “Prosecuted for engaging in the normal journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information”.
The possible punishment in the United States was entirely disproportionate, with a total possible jail sentence of 175 years for those “offences” charged so far.
Assange faced discrimination on grounds of nationality, which would make extradition unlawful. US authorities had declared he would not be entitled to First Amendment protection in the United States because he is not a US citizen.
There was no guarantee further charges would not be brought more serious than those which had already been laid, in particular with regard to the Vault 7 publication of CIA secret technological spying techniques. In this regard, the United States had not provided assurances the death penalty could not be invoked.
The CIA had made plans to kidnap, drug and even to kill Mr Assange. This had been made plain by the testimony of Protected Witness 2 and confirmed by the extensive Yahoo News publication. Therefore Assange would be delivered to authorities who could not be trusted not to take extrajudicial action against him.
Finally, the Home Secretary had failed to take into account all these due factors in approving the extradition.
Fitzgerald then moved into the unfolding of each of these arguments, opening with the fact that the US/UK Extradition Treaty specifically excludes extradition for political offences, at Article IV.
Fitzgerald said that espionage was the “quintessential” political offence, acknowledged as such in every textbook and precedent. The court did have jurisdiction over this point because ignoring the provisions of the treaty rendered the court liable to accusations of abuse of process.
He noted that neither Swift nor Baraitser had made any judgment on whether or not the offences charged were political, relying on the argument the treaty did not apply anyway.
But the entire extradition depended on the treaty. It was made under the treaty. “You cannot rely on the treaty, and then refute it”.
This point brought the first overt reaction from the judges, as they looked at each other to wordlessly communicate what they had made of it. It was a point of which they had felt the force.
Fitzgerald continued that when the 2003 Extradition Act, on which the Treaty depended, had been presented to Parliament, ministers had assured parliament that people would not be extradited for political offences. Baraitser and Swift had said that the 2003 Act had deliberately not had a clause forbidding extradition for political offences. Fitzgerald said you could not draw that inference from an absence. There was nothing in the text permitting extradition for political offences. It was silent on the point.
Nothing in the Act precluded the court from determining that an extradition contrary to the terms of the treaty under which the extradition was taking place, would be a breach of process. In the United States, there had been cases where extradition to the UK under the treaty had been prevented by the courts because of the ‘no political extradition’ clause. That must apply at both ends.
Of the UK’s 158 extradition treaties, 156 contained a ban on extradition for political offences. This was plainly systematic and entrenched policy. It could not be meaningless in all these treaties. Furthermore this was the opposite of a novel argument. There were a great many authoritative cases, stretching back centuries, in the UK, US, Ireland, Canada, Australia and many other countries in which “no political extradition” was firmly established jurisprudence. It could not suddenly be “not justiciable”.
It was not only justiciable, it had been very extensively adjudicated.
All of the offences charged were as “espionage” except for one. That “hacking” charge, of helping Chelsea Manning in receiving classified documents, even if it were true, was plainly a similar allegation of a form of espionage activity.
The indictment describes Wikileaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence agency”. That was plainly an accusation of espionage. This is self-evidently a politically motivated prosecution for a political offence.
Julian Assange is a person in political conflict with the view of the United States, who seeks to affect the policies and operations of the US government.
Section 87 of the Extradition Act 2003 provides that a court must interpret it in the light of the defendant’s human rights as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights. This definitely brings in the jurisdiction of the court. It means all the issues raised must be viewed through the prism of the ECHR and from no other angle.
To depend on the treaty yet ignore its terms is abuse of process and contrary to the ECHR. The obligation in UK law to respect the terms of the extradition treaty with the USA while administering an extradition under it, was comparable to the obligation courts had found to follow the Modern Slavery Convention and Refugee Convention.
Mark Summers KC then arose to continue the case for Assange. A dark and pugnacious character, he could be well cast as Heathcliff. Summers is as blunt and direct as Fitzgerald is courteous. His points are not so much hammered home, as piledriven.
This prosecution, Summers began, was “intended to prohibit and punish the exposure of state level crime”. The extradition hearing had heard unchallenged evidence of this from many witnesses. The speech in question was thus protected speech. This extradition was not only contrary to the US/UK Extradition Treaty of 2007, it was also plainly contrary to Section 81 of the Extradition Act of 2003.
This prosecution was motivated by a desire to punish and suppress political opinion, contrary to the Act. It could be shown plainly to be a political prosecution. It had not been brought until years after the proposed offence; the initiation of the charges had been motivated by the International Criminal Court stating that they were using the Wikileaks publications as evidence of war crimes. That had been immediately followed by US government denunciation of Wikileaks and Assange, by the designation as a non-state hostile intelligence agency, and even by the official plot to kidnap, poison, rendition or assassinate Assange. That had all been sanctioned by President Trump.
This prosecution therefore plainly bore all of the hallmarks of political persecution.
The magistrates’ court had heard unchallenged evidence that the Wikileaks material from Chelsea Manning contained evidence of assassination, rendition, torture, dark prisons and drone killings by the United States. The leaked material had in fact been relied on with success in legal actions in many foreign courts and in Strasbourg itself.
The disclosures were political because the avowed intention was to effect political change. Indeed they had caused political change, for example in the Rules of Engagement for forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and in ending drone killings in Pakistan. Assange had been highly politically acclaimed at the time of the publications. He had been invited to address both the EU and the UN.
The US government had made no response to any of the extensive evidence of United States state level criminality given in the hearing. Yet Judge Baraitser had totally ignored all of it in her ruling. She had not referred to United States criminality at all.
At this point Judge Sharp interrupted to ask where they would find references to these acts of criminality in the evidence, and Summers gave some very terse pointers, through clenched teeth.
Summers continued that in law it is axiomatic that the exposure of state level criminality is a political act. This was protected speech. There were an enormous number of cases across many jurisdictions which indicate this. The criminality presented in this appeal was tolerated and even approved by the very highest levels of the United States government. Publication of this evidence by Mr Assange, absent any financial motive for him to do so, was the very definition of a political act. He was involved, beyond dispute, in opposition to the machinery of government of the United States.
This extradition had to be barred under Section 81 of the Extradition Act because its entire purpose was to silence those political opinions. Again, there were numerous cases on record of how courts should deal, under the European Convention, with states reacting to people who had revealed official criminality.
In the judgment being appealed Judge Baraitser did not address the protected nature of speech exposing state criminality at all. That was plainly an error in law.
Baraitser had also been in error of fact in stating that it was “Purely conjecture and speculation” that the revelation of US war crimes had led to this prosecution. This ignored almost all of the evidence before the court.
The court had been given evidence of United States interference with judicial procedure over US war crimes in Spain, Poland, Germany and Italy. The United States had insulated its own officials from ICC jurisdiction. It had actively threatened both the institutions and employees, of the ICC and of official bodies of other states. All of this had been explained in detail in expert evidence and had been unchallenged. All of it had been ignored by Baraitser.
Following the publication of the Manning material, there had been six years of non-prosecution of Assange. Why was there then a prosecution after six years? What had changed?
Following the declaration by the International Criminal Court that it would use Wikileaks material to investigate US government officials for war crimes, US officials described Assange as “a political actor”. This period saw the origin of the phrase “non-state hostile intelligence agency”. Assange had been accused of “working with Russia” and “trying to take down the USA”.
Baraitser had acknowledged in her judgment the hostility from the CIA but stated that “the CIA does not speak on behalf of the US administration”.
It was important to note that it was after the Baraitser judgment that Yahoo News had published its investigation into the US government plot against Assange.
The court had heard of CIA action against Assange from Protected Witness No.2, but that had only gone to unlawful surveillance at the Ecuadorean Embassy and elsewhere. He did not know of the kidnap and kill plot. This was very real, and it was chilling. Indeed, the prosecution and extradition request was only initiated in order to provide a framework for the rendition attempt.
Political persecution was also apparent in the highly selective prosecution of the appellant. Numerous newspapers had also published the exact same information, as had other websites. Yet only Assange was being prosecuted. Baraitser had simply ignored numerous facts which were key to the case, and therefore her judgment was plainly wrong.
The European Court of Human Rights had ruled that, under Article 7 of the Convention, a prosecution must be foreseeable, for the act committed to be criminal. This prosecution failed the foreseeability test because no journalist had ever before been prosecuted under the US Espionage Act. Baraitser was obliged to rule on this but instead had simply said it would be a matter for the US court.
Publication of leaks was routine. National security journalism is a thing. It was a well established aspect of the profession in the USA. Encouraging those in possession of classified material to reveal it, is routine journalistic practice. Whistleblowers themselves had been frequently prosecuted. But no publisher or journalist had ever been prosecuted for obtaining or publishing classified state material.
Baraitser had heard much unchallenged evidence on this point. A prosecution which has never happened before is not foreseeable.
At this point, Judge Johnson intervened to ask whether the publication of so many unredacted names of informants had not also been unprecedented, and if this may have been expected to trigger an unprecedented response?
Summers replied there had indeed been other examples of publication of names.
At this point, the court broke up for lunch.
It had been a strong start to the case by the defence. The judges had appeared to pay increasing attention as the case went on, and at times seemed surprised by some of the assertions made. The first substantive question from the judges, coming just on the lunch break, was however plainly intended to be hostile to Assange.
We left the courtroom and headed for the canteen. This has no frills and a very limited menu, designed to shove the food out quick. I was with John Shipton and German MP Sevim Dagdelen, who kindly paid for lunch, thus immediately distinguishing herself from all the British MPs I have known.
I asked for a baked potato with cheese, but it turned out that baked beans and cheese were not a choice but a pre-mix, and the potato came covered in this bright orange mess. I accidentally got some on my thumb, which despite the passage of 48 hours and frequent washing, remains the colour of Donald Trump’s face.
After lunch, Mark Summers was able to return to the question raised about the release of names of agents and informants.
He said there were many examples in the past of such names being published, including en masse, and it had never resulted in the Espionage Act or any other charges being brought against a publisher. In the case of Philip Agee, the publication of names had led to revocation of the article but no prosecution of the publisher. Daniel Ellsberg had in fact given evidence in this very case that publication of the Pentagon Papers had revealed numerous names, for which there had been no prosecution of the New York Times.
He suggested it was also worth noting there is currently no prosecution of Cryptome, which published the unredacted Manning material before Wikileaks, and still carries it. There has, since these events, been a law passed in the United States specifically outlawing the publishing of the names of secret service officers and sources, but this legislation is specifically limited to officers of the state only and specifically does not include publishers or journalists.
This prosecution therefore remains unprecedented and unforeseeable. No American case has ever sought to prosecute publishers who publish state secrets. The governing principle remained as famously defined by Justice Stewart “The autonomous press may publish what it knows and seek to learn what it can”.
Against this great raft of practice and jurisprudence, continued Summers, all the US government had managed to produce was a court of first instance case named Rosen, in which the court had “entertained the possibility” that the receipt and passing of classified information, not by the whistleblower, might be an offence. But that case was about corporate lobbyists and not about journalism or publishing, it had anyway never concluded and it was from a court with a comparative authority to Truro Magistrates Court.
That was literally the only argument the US government had to offer. Yet Baraitser had found in their favour.
Judge Johnson now interrupted to ask how this related to the theft of information aspect of the charges against Assange, and assisting Manning to crack a hashtag? Taken at its highest, was this not conspiracy to get hold illegally of state material?
Summers responded that it was standard journalistic practice to encourage and assist whistleblowers to obtain material for the press. There were a very large number of such instances, but in 2010 there had never been a prosecution. The US government had asserted two examples of such prosecutions, but there were from 2012 and 2016, and they were not relevant to whether such a prosecution could have been foreseeable to Julian Assange in 2010.
At this point Summers appeared very exasperated indeed. He addressed the judges as though he were a leading astrophysicist who, for some reason, found himself teaching elementary mathematics to an unruly remedial class at a young offenders’ institution. His jaw was set and his hands clenched and unclenched. I would not have bet any significant sum against his next words being “listen, you bloody fool”. Every now and then there was a menacing pause while he lent forward and rested his weight on fists bearing down on the desk in front of him, which seemed to help control his anger.
Gathering himself, he continued:
It was the duty of Judge Baraitser to ensure that the extradition did not breach the ECHR Article VII on the rule of law. If the prosecution were unforeseeable – as it was – that was a breach. Baraitser’s ruling left the decision on this point to be decided by the court in the United states. But she could not abdicate responsibility in this way. She had an explicit duty to offer ECHR protection and consider the point herself. By not doing this, she had erred in law. The Court cannot be absolved of its duty to deal with Convention rights.
Summers continued: the Court had a duty to consider the case the way that Strasbourg would judge the case, applying “European values”. Justice Johnson asked whether that applied to all the charges of the indictment. Summers answered simply “all of them”. Dame Victoria then asked whether it made a difference whether Ms Manning had come across the information in the ordinary course of her employment, or had actively sought it out.
Summers replied that what the court at Strasbourg would say on this is that there was a “proportionality balance”.
Manning had revealed massive state level criminality going to the very heart and purpose of the organisation for which she worked. Of course she was entitled actively to look for evidence of it. Manning’s exposures were conscience driven and from no other motive. There was plainly enormous public interest in the publication.
On the question of public interest the Strasbourg jurisprudence differs radically from English domestic legislation on official secrets, but in considering Convention rights the court is obliged to look at it through the Strasbourg lens.
The question was this: “Is the public interest in the disclosure sufficient to outweigh the duty of confidentiality of the employee?”
Strasbourg judgments made plain it was not enough just to say “national security”. The actions of governments, especially when it came to state crime, must be subject to scrutiny by the public.
Justice Johnson then intervened to ask how this related to the harm caused to human sources whose names were revealed in the publication?
Summers again controlled himself, and then said there had been no evidence presented, at these hearings or at the trial of Chelsea Manning, that any harm had actually occurred to any named individual. There was no allegation, in all the United States case, that any individual had actually come to harm. The allegation was they were put at risk.
What had been exposed was state-level crime on a massive scale, including very grave war crimes. Set against that was a potential risk to individuals involved in those crimes. In considering the balance, Strasbourg would consider that they themselves as a court had made use of the Manning material in several very important legal cases. The International Criminal Court has similarly used the material.
Manning was a whistleblower and her material was of enormous, the greatest, public interest. That would weigh very heavily in the balance of proportionality, compared to the disproportionate American sentencing for disclosure.
More fundamentally, Manning was a whistleblower who had revealed state level serious criminality. The publications were therefore protected speech and Strasbourg would rule there should be no prosecution at all. And the answer to Dame Victoria’s question, Summer concluded, is this:
“If the speech is protected, then helping it cannot be criminal”.
Assange’s intention was political and the effects were political. These had included an end to drone killing in Pakistan, changes to the Rules of Engagement for US forces in Afghanistan and even arguably they had helped bring an end to the war in Iraq. There was no doubt the public interest in this eclipses all the other arguments.
While, unlike Manning, Assange had been under no duty of secrecy to the US government of any kind.
Dame Victoria interrupted to say that Judge Baraitser had dealt with all of these arguments at para 110 of her judgment.
Summers looked at her pityingly. “No, she doesn’t,” he said “she just looks at the Official Secrets Act plus Shayler. Nowhere does she ever acknowledge the public interest in the disclosures. She just recognises everything in the other side of the balance. She does not do the required balancing exercise at all. She never understands the test she has to apply and to judge public interest on the facts of the case.”
Plainly in the lunch period the judges had returned to their corner stools, where they had been given smelling salts, splashed with water and instructed to come out swinging. Judge Johnson asked with extra sarcasm: “So, revealing the identities of informants. How do you balance that?”
Dame Victoria said that Judge Baraitser had noted that this was a matter of “indiscriminate disclosure” that had been condemned by the New York Times, the Guardian and Mr Assange’s other media partners.
Summers replied that the risk to those people named simply formed a part of the balancing exercise which Judge Baraitser had failed to carry out. It had to be set against the value of disclosing ongoing war crimes. And you are talking about a potential risk to US informants who might come to harm, against actual war crimes which really had happened. Thousands of people who had been assassinated, tortured, renditioned etc.
Baraitser’s failure to carry out the balancing exercise on public interest and the rule of law under Article 7 of the Convention was blatant, but even more so was that she had failed to engage at all with Article X – Freedom of Speech. She had stated that whether Assange was entitled to First Amendment protection in the United States was for the American judge to decide, but had ignored her own duty to consider the same freedom of speech arguments under Article X of the Convention.
There was established Strasbourg jurisprudence that showed that news gathering activity was as much a part of the act of protected speech as the publication of the information. The allegation in the indictment ftom the USA that Assange helped Manning with hashtag hacking could bear two interpretations. It was either news gathering, or providing the source with protection. Both were legitimate.
The court had also to consider the enormity of the sentence Assange could face. This was so disproportionate, at up to 175 years as currently charged, that it should itself fall foul of Article III of ECHR. There was also the question of the sheer chilling effect of this kind of prosecution and sentence, on other journalists and publishers. That too had to be considered in the balance of public interest.
Summers now finished and sat down. We looked around, and were rather relieved to find that it appeared that he had got through his performance without any actual physical harm coming to anybody.
But Summers very definitely had an effect. The attitude and the body language of the judges had changed. It was perfectly plain that he had presented them with facts about the case that they had never heard before, and arguments that they found cogent. Their interchange of glances with each other became more frequent, and at times Johnson had walked over to confer. They looked things up and moved papers and furrowed brows. It was obvious they had a great deal of respect for Summers, even though, if it were mutual, he hid that fact very well.
Edward Fitzgerald stood up again and the whole court relaxed. Everybody’s shoulders lowered an inch. Both judges looked at him fondly, as at a beloved uncle getting to his feet after an excellent Christmas lunch, who is now going to do conjuring tricks for the family, which everyone knows will go hilariously wrong in the middle but be spectacularly successful in the end.
For some reason, Fitzgerald was carrying the desktop lectern in the crook of his elbow as he started to address the judges, gradually sorting out this and his boxes of papers as he went along. He said that the extradition must be blocked because Assange faced discrimination on grounds of nationality. In his affidavit for the prosecution, Deputy Attorney General Kronberg stated that it may be held that Assange was not entitled to First Amendment rights and protections for free speech, as he was a foreign national. This had also been stated by Mike Pompeo, a senior administration official.
Judge Baraitser had said that the USAID case on this point was not relevant as it only applied to companies outside the United States. But the very affidavit setting out the indictment stated that the US might apply this to Assange, and so had Pompeo. So Baraitser was plainly wrong.
Dame Victoria interjected that Judge Baraitser had also said that the US government position is that this case is not really a First Amendment case at all. Fitzgerald replied that it most certainly is at least arguably a First Amendment case on freedom of speech; that the defence wished to argue the First Amendment. The prosecution themselves said there was at the least an option to deny this defence to Julian Assange on discriminatory grounds of nationality.
If the defendant’s preferred defence were blocked on the grounds of nationality, that was enough to deny the extradition. The notion of an unfair process was not dependent on its result.
The point had been extensively raised and the United States had given no assurances that they would not treat Assange in this discriminatory way.
This was another point where the judges looked at each other, clearly perplexed. This case was not as simple to dismiss as they had expected.
Fitzgerald then said that, contrary to Articles VI and VII of ECHR, it was possible in the USA to be sentenced for conduct with which you have not been charged or of which you have even been acquitted. This could occur at “sentencing enhancement”, where a judge could bring in other alleged conduct which had not been in the trial, to affect the sentence. As this was done on a “balance of probabilities” basis, there were even many cases where the judge had sentenced people for offences of which they had been acquitted by the jury on the measure of “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Fitzgerald gave the example of a person accused of dealing cannabis who had been sentenced for a second degree murder which had never been prosecuted. He said that in the Assange case, this was particularly likely to happen. None of the charges now before the court related to the Vault 7 leaks, but the defence believed these had motivated the prosecution. It was following the Vault 7 publication that Pompeo designated Wikileaks a “non-state hostile intelligence agency”. It was very likely Assange could be sentenced for the Vault 7 leaks with which he had never been charged. Joshua Schulte, the supposed Vault 7 leaker, had just been sentenced to 40 years in jail.
These kind of arrangements certainly reached the bar of a “flagrant denial of justice” which the courts had set as necessary to prevent an extradition on grounds of lack of due process.
Dame Victoria asked whether this would extend so far as to put aside extradition in every US criminal case? Fitzgerald replied no, you would have to look at each individual case and assess how great the risk. She asked whether the Vault 7 disclosures created the risk in this case, and Fitzgerald replied yes, though there were also other factors.
Fitzgerald then moved to the evidence of Protected Witness 2 and the issue of illegal surveillance of Assange in the Embassy, including of his legal consultations, and the plot to kidnap and even kill him, by the authorities of the state that was seeking his extradition. Baraitser’s answer to this was not to take it into account because it was the subject of criminal proceedings in Spain, but (said Fitzgerald) “that cannot be a reason not to look at it”.
In considering real danger to life when issues of human rights and political motivation are concerned, the strict rules of legal evidence, as in a criminal court case, do not apply. The Yahoo News article would be considered acceptable evidence in weighing an asylum application under the Refugee Convention, and it should be given the same weight now. Pompeo had himself confirmed that some of it is true.
If removed to the USA there is a real danger that Assange’s life could be targeted by US intelligence organisations. The CIA also has a major role in prison allocation and the imposition of Special Administrative Measures, defined by the UN as tantamount to torture.
Dame Sharp said that the US prosecution had said Assange could be transferred to prison in Australia. Fitzgerald said that was a highly conditional suggestion. Assange would be in any event liable for two years or more pre-trial detention in the USA, then years more if an appeal was to be heard. The conditions of transfer between the USA and Australia would be subject to diplomatic negotiation. All the time Assange would be subject to the “real possibility of extrajudicial attack”, while being held in the USA.
Finally, Fitzgerald turned away from the grounds on which appeal should be allowed against Baraitser’s judgment, to the grounds where the Home Secretary (Priti Patel I think – they come and go so fast) had failed in her duty by authorising the extradition.
Fitzgerald said the Home Secretary had a separate obligation to enforce Article 4 of the Extradition Treaty, as she was executing an instrument under the Treaty. She had failed to do so. She had also not exercised her own judgment, as she ought to have done on the Gary McKinnon precedent. The Secretary of State must also act in conformity at all times with the ECHR.
Separately, the Secretary of State had failed in her specific duty to obtain assurances that the death penalty would not be implemented, before agreeing an extradition. The United States could add further charges at any time were Assange in the US, including aiding and abetting treason or other Espionage Act charges which attract the death penalty. It was routine in these circumstances to obtain assurances against the death penalty, and it was sinister they had not been obtained.
The law on this point was very clear; in the absence of assurances against the death penalty, the extradition must be stopped by the Home Secretary and the defendant discharged.
On this rather sombre point, Judge Sharp called the end of the day, and we staggered out into a wet London evening. It was a huge amount to pack into our heads in a day for those of us with brains smaller than Mr Fitzgerald, and the large crowd that roared its approval as we emerged hardly registered with me at all.
It had gone better than I expected.
For the first time in the five years of these extradition hearings, I felt that the judges were genuinely listening and engaged. It was obvious that they had been briefed by the security services beforehand, that the only issue in this case was the placing at risk of US informants whose names had been revealed. It was also plain that they had read very little of the documentation, as they continually asked for references and seemed unacquainted with many basic facts of the case. But as the day went on, they had discovered that there was very much more to be considered, and they looked like they were considering it.
You may think this strange, but they also both came over as rather nice people. They were unfailingly polite, and it did not seem a pretence. They both found the odd moment amusing that was natural to be amusing, and engaged sympathetically with the defence team throughout. Of course, I do not pretend that any of that is more powerful than the Establishment desire to see Julian crushed, and I am well aware they both have truly Deep State backgrounds. But I left encouraged.
Julian remained in his tiny cold cell. The next day would be the US government response.
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I read your reports of what has been going on with interest.
But in truth every single one of us should be enraged at the vicious inhuman deprivement of liberty dished out to Julian Assange.
The UK and the US are no different from the Nazi’s. Their methods and morals exactly the same. That they have not come for us too does not mean that they want.
The country is in the grip of a fascist state where Orwellian levels of surveillance are everywhere, where the masses get fed a political line distributed by a controlled media, where an apartheid police force carries out whatever repression the elites require jailing and prosecuting political protestor.
Democracy is a sham.. A device to keep control. And like Assange, Alex Salmond could have been locked up.
And they try to say Britain is a democracy.. That’s like saying Mussolini and Hitler were democrats.
“The UK and the US are no different from the Nazi’s. Their methods and morals exactly the same.”
They are – in a word – evil. And evil just lurves being evil. What they did to Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone and many others was just pure evil. As with Craig himself, and Julian, of course.
The only difference is that they have to ‘work’ within certain parameters and boundaries, but they are becoming increasingly unrestrained as time goes by. It wasn’t the antisemites that came out of the woodwork when Jeremy was elected leader, it was the fascists!
@Willie: you have not lived in the Third Reich and have no moral right to make this comparison. Your idiotic words are an insult to the 17 million people murdered by the Nazis in the span of 12 years. That makes 1.5 million victims a year. The UK is nothing like that.
MR12, the UK is far worse than that and has killed far more people and condemned many more to death than the Nazis ever did. Our leaders today will doubtlessly be remembered the worst mass murderers in history, far worse than they were. It is impossible for this not to be the case unless one is extremely lenient on the definition of murder when the crime is committed by the state.
Look at the countless lives they knowingly cut short, not by mistake or incompetence, but intentionally through the policies they choose to support and implement. It is premeditated. They have access to all the same information we do, more in fact, yet they choose to kill people. The UK is among the worst plunderers of the globe that have chosen death over life, and it works tirelessly following along like the US’ little puppy dog to help kill, rob, and extinguish people all over the world, as after all, it did all this first.
“When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.”— Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
Let us not forget, by the way, that the Nazis’ greatest supporters and teachers were all either American or British, and not a single one of them ever suffered retribution for it even when their support was direct and intentional. Our leaders did all they could to recruit Nazi scientists and the Wehrmacht leadership itself after the war, and the Germans even eliminated the death penalty because their far right party was outraged at all the Nazis being executed. They did not want Jewish refugees because they were leftists (and hence partitioned Palestine for them), yet they took German refugees; in Canada, having an SS tattoo was considered the best way to get accepted into the country, because then they would know you are anti-communist.
The descendants of the Nazis are still among us and control powerful corporations, global institutions, and governments. Eugenics is back in vogue and popular, having been renamed to transhumanism by its proponents like Julian Huxley and other proponents of cybernetic government after the Nazis made it unfashionable. There was never a real victory over them, and their successors are worse having had decades and generations to hone their craft and improve on everything that went wrong with their first little experiment.
I may not live in the Third Reich either, MR12, but I do live in the Fourth where my government invites Zelensky to applaud along with him for men who ran SS death squads burning Jews and Poles alive in their better days they remember most fondly, a state with multiple SS memorials across it (which provoke a police response if you commit the hate crime of vandalising them for being “Nazi monuments”), even a war veterans’ group for Nazis, and not to mention my government helps train neo-Nazis abroad. Did I mention how we euthanise invalids with doctors and nurses openly suggesting it to people, even the mentally ill, and children, the last of which the state produces helpful colouring books on to help them better understand “medical assistance in dying”?
The UK is controlled by the same groups of people and interests, if you have any doubt. It is terrifying to live in this reality while people like you defend our murderous masters and call accurate comparisons idiotic.
Excellent post, Emma. The way I see it is that the Nazis were – and ARE – role models for the psychopaths, especially the elite thereof. And just as with Hitler and Co., the vast majority of people haven’t got a clue as to what they have done, and how they are duped and misled, or what they actually are, thanks to their propaganda machine, the MSM.
Thank you Emma for bringing the Daffodil Standards into the state murder reckoning. While the devastation delivered by German and Russian armies across Eastern Europe was immeasurable, because it allowed no trace to remain of entire villages, feudal castles and peasants, or roving gypsy communities to remain, overtly slaughtering according to their land grabbing marauding, today we have a class system which allows children to go hungry, homeless people to perish, and which actively slaughters older people by tricking them into signing Do Not Resuscitate Orders, and Power of Attorney forms, giving doctors the power to make decisions which they consider to be in older people’s best interests, with a choice of 4 chemical cosh murder weapons which they mislead older people and their relatives into accepting. The power of the state has willing executioners, and honest journalists like Julian are needed to bring standard malpractice out into the open. Covid treatments or the lack thereof, and mRNA vaccine injuries, will be another area of malpractice to bring to light in due course. Government choices have departed away from the national interests, in the interests of profit for corporation shareholders and financial expediency.
It’s a massive legal contradiction that Julian Assange is being extradited to face charges based on a US Espionage Act (does this US Act cover the entire Globe?) as non-US Citizen, but he is being judged in the US as if he is an American Citizen under the Act but cannot plead the 5th because he is a not an American Citizen.
Is that legally logical even to a bad Judge?
Doesn’t matter Mark. When do fascists ever bother about the law?
The law is only there to be used when the fascists require it to be used, or disregarded when they don’t require it to be used.
The law in the US and the UK is an utter sham and but a tool in the hands of the fascist.
Lawfare, warfare, extra-judicial killing, media control, extra-judicial jailing, a hollowed-out sham political system, are all the ways of the UK and US states.
Bravo, Craig. Your next bulletin is eagerly awaited.
Thank you Craig for an atmospheric rendition of the proceedings.
I think it is clear the judges will make the decision expected of them by the UK and US governments and not what is said in this hearing. Whether that is to allow the extradition or deny it I don’t know. It feels like it would be rather embarrassing for the US to have Assange in their legal system. Though the US has demonstrated many times they can be the highest of hypocrites.
I prey that Assange’s ordeal is over soon and he can recuperate and see his family again.
The biggest revelation Julian’s case has exposed is just how corrupt the entire British justice system has become. The punishment by process has gone on too long and too systemically to be simple incompetence. This is deliberate, persistent and clearly politically driven at the highest levels.
The continued vengeful persecution has not only kept the US war crimes in focus, an issue that many would have moved past long ago, but has now highlighted the cowardly subservience of both UK and Australian governments to the US empire.
Julian’s sacrifice has opened the world’s eyes to the depth of their evils. We owe him an enormous debt, and pray it does not come at the cost of his life.
Deepest thanks from Australia to Craig Murray for his most excellent reportage. And bouquets to Edward Fitzgerald KC for such a compelling appeal. Bravo to you both.
Brilliant prose – best courtroom sketch I’ve read in years.
You have a great eye for detail and observational skills to
Match.
I’ve sat in that court on several occasions and your article propelled me right back.
The incestuous network, couplings and framework is
Quite baroque. Thanks for cutting through to le coeur du sujet. You’ve got my attention & I’m bloody furious that journalism is in the dock.
Eagerly awaiting your next despatch.
Thank you Craig. You are great treasure.
Anne Sacoolas of the USA who murdered British Teenager, Harry Dunn, in a hit and run crime has been protected by the US injustice system, other rogue US permanent govt depts and the Uniparty regime; they refuse to extradite her to face justice proceedings. This alone should be grounds to dismiss the CIA extradition case.
Anne Sacoolas was protected by the Deep States of both countries. She was an employee either of NSA or of the CIA. Neither country wants it to come out what she was doing in the UK.
Have a look at various reports on USA behaviour in Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan. The agreements made with the Japanese government essentially protect all troops from prosecution, regardless of what they do: murder, rape, robbery, etc.
We do what we like, you do what you’re told. Suck it up.
Or, as Noam Chomsky puts it, “What we say, goes”.
One guy I knew in Dunoon, Scotland was raped by 4 sailors from the American base. The shore patrol caught them easily but they were not charged with this assault. Instead they were spirited back to the States.
Not uncommon.
So British citizens get exactly the same treatment as Okinawans, Iraqis, etc. Good to know.
I wonder what are the chances of getting those sailors extradited. Should be easy – rape isn’t political, and the treaty is bidirectional…
In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down a scheduled Iranian Airbus in the Persian Gulf, killing 300+ people on board. The captain of the Vincennes at that time just retired from the US Navy last year.
Still, I don’t think he made admiral.
The captain of “Vincennes” was decorated shortly after, though – along with many members of the crew. Another brick in the wall of making the USA universally hated and despised.
Many more bricks have been added since then.
According to Wikipedia, Captain Rogers retired from the Navy in 1991. What did he retire from last year? Was he working as a civilian for the Navy?
I once spoke about Rogers with a high Pentagon official. It was well-known in the military that he was trigger-happy.
I once read a devastating piece about Rogers and the Vincennes in the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute by a Commander Carlson, who had commanded the USS Sides, which sailed alongside the Vincennes at the time.
“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Such a concise and wry account. Almost entertaining, were it not so horrifying. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Just came across this Daily Mail article posted yesterday evening:
Julian Assange faces ‘a living death sentence’ of 175 years in a concrete coffin cell – with a window just four inches wide… as America’s revenge for exposing its dirty secrets
Just days from now, Wikileaks boss Julian Assange could be standing shackled on a British airfield preparing to board a plane to the US. Once he disembarks and the sound-proofed door of a supermax prison cell closes behind him, the man who’s made himself America’s most wanted will – finally – be silenced.
Lawyers fear the 52-year-old could be confined alone in a ‘concrete coffin’, a 12ft by 7ft chamber – with a window 3ft high but just four inches wide, designed to ensure that the inmate has no view other than sky or wall. Inside it, his bed, desk and stool will be made of poured concrete too.
Under this regime, meals are passed through a slot in the door and inmates use a stainless steel sink, toilet and shower inside their cell, meaning they don’t even leave to eat or wash.
And that’s as much as you can see, because it then says: Subscribe to Mail+ to continue First monthth free and then £4.99 a month – ie the Mail now has a paywall, so I don’t know if the article goes on to say he was accused of rape etc, etc, etc. Or should I say… blah, blah, blah:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13109341/Julian-Assange-concrete-coffin-hellhole-Supermax-prison.html
It’s been a few years since I last checked out UK newspaper circulation figures, and most had been in decline for twenty years or more when I did. But it must be so bad for some of them now that they don’t even release their circulation figures any more, as I just found out. In the Mail’s case it’s fallen from 1,169,241 in 2020 to 735,857 this year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation
And the Mail on Sunday has fallen by nearly 200,000 in two years!
Just spotted this in the recommends on youtube. Craig is up second at 3mins 40secs:
Speeches outside England’s High Court about Julian Assange today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScrvC7VWXuc
Really good to see so many people there.
Thanks for the link to the speeches this morning Allan, very refreshing to hear voices from around the globe speaking up for an end to this political persecution.
Good to hear that the NUJ finally found its voice realising what Julian has done for free speech and public information. Maybe now they can come round to the idea of approving Craig as a member of the NUJ.
Nice speech indeed. Let’s hope this doesn’t lead to another contempt of Court trial though.
Of course, Switzerland does not have an extradition treaty with the UK
Why am I reminded of “The Man in the Iron Mask”?
“Put him in the lowest dungeon of the Bastille and throw away the key”.
Am I wrong in remembering that the Storming of the Bastille to overthrow the tyrannical regime was greeted with jubilation by the American revolutionaries? Yet now they take pride in their own Bastille and their own lettres de cachet.
The British and US governments seem to be adept students of Cardinal Richelieu, who boasted,
“If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged”.
Maybe Mike Pompeo (“We lied, we cheated, we stole…”) is the new Richelieu.
“In the Mail’s case it’s fallen from 1,169,241 in 2020 to 735,857 this year”.
Why should they care if they have any subscribers, when government can bribe them with our money?
Archive.is your friend! See https://archive.is/Rnn9h No paywalls here…
Daily Mail: “Julian Assange faces ‘a living death sentence’ of 175 years in a concrete coffin cell – with a window just four inches wide… as America’s revenge for exposing its dirty secrets”, By SARAH OLIVER (21 Feb 2024)
It didn’t ask me to subscribe and I could see the whole article but here is an unpaywalled link:
https://archive.ph/Rnn9h
Thank you so much Craig, for being at Assange and ICJ hearings and giving us not only first hand information but also an explanation of law and proceedings. This is otherwise unavailable to most people (I regard myself as most people) and without your dedication we’d be left, we are left, to the mercy of the media.
I can’t help seeing parallels between the Russian Putin-controlled court system and the UK for cases like Assange. Like Russia, the judges are discredited stooges.
Difference is the British media derides only the Russian establishment, four thousand miles away and with bugger all authority over our legal system or our lives in general.
Why do you think that is?
Meh, using the Russians as an emotional support boogyman, is wearing quite thin these days. Particularly since a thick smog of black propaganda obfuscates an already foreign place.
Still if you take the time to look. The UK actually may seem worse upon examination, as the Russian judiciary, law enforcement & penal system have been improving. Since the late Soviet/early post-Soviet period.
Crime rates & Incarnation rates have plummeted (even for those labeled dissenters rightly or wrongly) conditions and public trust have improved.
A downward slide is worse than imperfect improvement. In my estimation.
recent example shows actual espionage sentences practically the same in Russia and US.
Debbins – US, 15 years 6 months for espionage.
Whelan – Russia, 16 years for espionage
compare the sentences for fake espionage next. Assange: Life in prison, possibly death in prison. Lira: Beaten to death in Ukrainian custody. are there any counterparts in Russia?
Er, John, how do you know the Russian court system is controlled by Putin? I ask only because I want to know. It seems a difficult, and rather odd, thing to be so certain about.
Because we’re using Discworld logic, where gods are conceived, moulded and empowered by the number & intensity of mortal belivers.
Hence we have Pu-Tin. A malevolent god of corruption, oppression and subversion. Who presents to the world in mortal disguise.
I’m only half -joking, the media do rather present him like a supernatural force or god-king.
Just wait till Pu-Steel shows up!
He’s an alloy of plutonium (94-Pu)?
I like it, Clark! 😎
My recent favourite:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/644adbf98189d239f177522f4f567dcc223f88fe48fb81f948609fa3be3fa19b.jpg?w=800&h
Why, that’s actually easy to know, because Putin controls everything, of course.
Reliable journalism has also confirmed what Ukrainian intelligence has informed us of, which is that there are several Putins thanks to Russian doppelgänger technology (I’m not sure what the technology is, but MSN says it is one, so it’s probably top secret), and obviously that’s how he’s capable of controlling and doing everything—personally, even—because there are multiple Putins, all with different backgrounds, expertise, mannerisms, and gaits. It’s been confirmed the real one went missing in 2023, so now all that’s left is Putin’s doppelgängers that have replaced him.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-doubles-down-on-claims-putin-has-at-least-three-doppelg%C3%A4ngers/ar-AA1mpgN4
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-body-doubles-doppelgangers-health-ukraine-secret-service-1805591
https://news.yahoo.com/putin-least-three-body-doubles-171200722.html
Putin really ought to be a plural if one wants to be accurate talking about him—them, I mean—they are the Putins. It’s therefore more accurate to say the Russian court system is controlled by Putins.
Someone needs to write to Obama and get him to make it all into an educational Hollywood movie already—not that there’s any other kind—since if the public isn’t better informed by what has been confirmed in order to be wise to it, before we know it, world leaders will be dropping like flies as the FSB chops their heads off and replaces them with squads of Russian doppelgängers.
I must credit it to Yahoo, least informative article of the three but definitely the most artistic with that beautiful photo of the little dog urinating on a wall with art of some Putin or another (it doesn’t specify which). Of course, MSN is where the real journalists are at, the ones who’ve confirmed all this, and no doubt after Julian Assange, they will be next, because they’ve told us the truth (that sentence pained my soul a little to write, the marker of when you know your satire has gone too far).
America has this doppelgänger technology as well Emma. In his last visit to Kiev “ Pres Biden” was marching around the city, straight-backed and serious, wearing shades and not stumbling. Take a look at a clip of the visit – I don’t think it was Biden. What it was I don’t know.
In “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956) the doppelgängers were grown from “giant sea cabbages” to produce an organic product. Technology moves on and I wouldn’t be suprised if today’s doppelgängers are robots – solid-state terminators – the “Biden” I saw in the footage from Kiev was robotic in it’s head movements and the movement of it’s limbs as it marched through the unshelled streets of the city.
Hooray for “President Biden” – whatever it is
Lyndon Johnson used a look-alike cousin as a double. Name of J. Bert Peck. So you can’t use the fact that “LBJ” was observed by the press at a Houston hotel the night before the JFK assassination to prove that he could not have been at the notorious party that night at Clint Murchison’s Dallas estate that night, despite the testimony of LBJ’s longtime mistress.
Peck made the mistake of contacting the press about his role as a double. Soon after, he died in a most suspicious murder.
I first became aware of US presidents using doubles when press observed “Bill Clinton” entering US1 in New Delhi on his way to visit Pakistan, and then it came out that the real Bill Clinton had flown to Pakistan in a Learjet.
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin apparently used several body doubles.
Hollywood is said to make extensive use of body doubles to protect stars. I wonder if that is where the body snatchers idea came from.
I think it was one of those ideas that was around a while, waiting for it’s moment, which came with the advent of the Cold War – in the 1956 film, the doppelgängers are physically identical to those they replace but they have no “souls” – no individual identity, they are part of a collective. A motif tailor-made for the McCarthy madness that was 1950’s America – the enemy is grown from a vegetable and when grown is soulless. How would you treat a homocidal soulless vegetable that was trying to replace you and your family with other soulless vegetables? Atom bombs are too good for these abominations,
Robert Heinlein wrote a SF novel called “The Puppet Masters” (1951). Here, the aliens are little 12 inch slugs that can get up the body to the back of the neck and take control of the human, who is now “hag-ridden”, enslaved to these mind-bugs which make the victim do unspeakable things! The story concerns humanity’s battle against the hag-riders. The slugs can hide in hair or clothing, so to fight the battle the heavily armed police agencies and I think the entire population, has to go about completely naked. Like most of Heilein’s stuff I’ve read, virulently anti-commie, vicious and mean but hilarious though I am not sure if he meant it to be funny
Your descriptions that border on caricature are truly illuminating and riveting!
I feel transported to Dickens and the Inns of Chancery.
Julian warned us that for the state-military-industrial complex it is not about winnable war but endless war. This feels like the same in terms of lawfare – they don’t necessarily need to win the case against Julian, but drag it out endlessly. They want Julian to die so they can avoid having to make a judgement.
Your dropdown box is not working, Craig
[Mod: Thanks – fixed]
I put this here so many may take notice:
part 2 of yesterday´s great round table, now on day #2
with:
Matt Kennard, journalist at Declassified UK
Dustin Hoffman, parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament
Richard Medhurst, independent journalist and commentator
Professor Richard Werner, economy at f Linacre College, Oxford University
journalist Mohamed Elmaazi
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/22/watch-reporters-roundtable-assange-day-2/
p.s. part 1 was:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZMzlnqaVU8
Taylor Hudak, Host, Journalist, AcTVism Munich
Craig Murray, Former British Ambassador, Human Rights Activist & Journalist
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-winning Journalist
Emmy Butlin, Human Rights Activist, Committee to Defend Julian Assange
Joe Lauria, Journalist, Consortium News
Cathy Vogan, Journalist, Consortium News
Fidel Narvaez, Former Consul, Embassy of Ecuador, London
Mohamed Elmazzi, Journalist, Chief Editor of Truth Defence
Both highly recommended.
Can’t recommend these enough 👍🏼✨
How I wish I could read journalism of this calibre in the MSM.
Thank you Craig.
Me too, kevin, Sadly the MSM are now paid to keep such journalism OUT of their publications.
Why do they not include the act of spying on Assange and his lawyer.
To me that is equivalent to breaking into a psychologist’s office to get dirt on Daniel Ellsberg causing the case against him to be THROWN OUT.
P. Hertel,
“Why do they not include the act of spying on Assange and his lawyer.”
Sounds about right for reason that this denies lawyer/client privilege and thus goes against the right to a fair trial and strikes at the heart of due process.
All along the case seems to be filled with gaping holes – for at a fundamental level by way of long established legal rules – one cannot be extradited for reason of a political offence – and the Americans are clearly getting back at Assange for centrally political reasons.
In so many ways this case exposes ab initio British justice as having been compromised.
Mr Nixon established the principle that “if the President does it, it’s not illegal”.
Progress has been made since then, and today “if the government does it, it’s not illegal”.
Ah, I see that you are remembering the time before the judiciary was swallowed by the executive. In those good old days, judges occasionally paid attention to evidence and rendered proper verdicts.
Tom Walsh
True.
So are we surprised that Netanyahu and his crazy friends have copied the US?
The protests by the Middle Class Israelis were very big and growing and out of the blue………………………
Not saying that is true but it is, as they say, ‘coincidental’ and these coincidences always lie at the heart of any Conspiracy Theory.
Combine that with no belief in politicians and the democratic process and you have a recipe for trouble. Unfortunately from the right though.
Gantz could replace Netanyahu and nothing would change – he would pardon his old mate.
Wonderful report – hope for more and will give a bank draft donation
Cm Sandercock
I don’t know how everyone else feels, but I am suffering an unpleasant feeling of “appealus interruptus”. Two short days, with insufficient time to present even the main grounds of appeal – merely begging for permission to submit an appeal – and now everything stops for an indeterminate period. Will the judges condescend to announce their decision next week? Next month? Or not until after the US election?
In any case, any reasonable person informed of the main facts of the case would unhesitatingly free Mr Assange, with an apology and 7-digit compensation. What is there to think about, other than the consequences of defying the dangerous people in Washington?
What became of the legal principle that “Justice delayed is justice denied”? Today, not just in the UK but in many other countries, justice seems to be indefinitely delayed whenever it suits the authorities. Indeed Clause 40 of Magna Carta reads, “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice”. It’s very sad that the UK today should have sunk so far below the standards of 1215.
Perhaps what is needed to redress the balance is a law that if justice is delayed for any reason whatsoever, for more than – let’s say one year – all charges must be automatically dismissed and the prisoner released without a stain on his character. A year is obviously far too long, but we have to start somewhere. Maybe some small reforms might be made, too: for instance, when someone has been awaiting justice for too long, judges should be allowed only 10 minutes for lunch.
On the other hand, since research has shown that judges become less fair and crueller as they become more tired and as they have to wait for refreshment…
Pleased to see some of the pleadings around political grounds – treaty vs the act – seemed to mirror some of my suggestions (for whatever reason). For example here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/06/assange-an-unholy-masquerade-of-tyranny-disguised-as-justice/comment-page-1/#comments
and here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/01/trains-mostly-planes-and-automobiles-part-5/
If an appeal hearing is granted I would like to see more arguments about how even if everything in the prosecution brief were true, it was still manifestly insufficient to establish a hacking charge. For example, the fact that the half password was never cracked meant we can never be sure if Julian Assange might not have interrogated Chelsea Manning on the intended use – if fact the only evidence we have shows Assange did ask questions (not answered) about the what this hash represented.
Also, as presumably this took place in Iceland, if the prosecution has shown it was against Icelandic law, as I believe for an extradition to succeed his actions have to be criminal in the jurisdiction it took place in. As well as drilling down as to whether Assange’s actual conduct, rather than what we think in intended to do, breached a UK law
From Chris Hedges.
“The prosecution for the U.S., which is seeking to deny Julian Assange’s appeal of an extradition order, begun by the Trump administration and embraced by the Biden administration, grounded its arguments on Wednesday in the dubious affidavits filed by a U.S. federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, Gordon Kromberg.
The charges articulated by Kromberg — often false — to make the case for extradition did not fly with the two High Court judges, Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp, who are overseeing Julian’s final appeal in the British courts.
The prosecuting attorneys, under questioning from the judges, were knocked off balance when challenged about the veracity of several of the claims which Kromberg made in support of the indictment against Julian.
This was especially the case when the attorneys argued that the classified documents Julian released in 2010 — known as the Iraq and Afghan war logs — were not redacted. These unredacted documents, they told the court, jeopardized the lives of those named in the documents and caused some to “disappear.”
As defense lawyers Edward Fitzgerald KC and Mark Summers KC made clear, and the judges seemed to acknowledge, the documents were indeed redacted by Julian as he worked with media partners, such as The Guardian and The New York Times, when WikiLeaks published classified military documents concerning the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, along with U.S. State Department cables.
The unredacted versions were first published by the website Cryptome after two reporters from The Guardian published a book with the passcode to the documents, leading to their publication by other online organizations.
Julian contacted the U.S. government, as Summers told the court, and spoke to them at length, in an attempt to prevent the unredacted cables from being published. In the end, the U.S. State Department chose not to act.
U.S. officials have sheepishly admitted they have no evidence of anyone named in the documents being harmed. Other allegations — such as that Julian tried to help Chelsea Manning, who leaked the documents, decode a password hash to access documents or protect her identity, or that he sought to conspire with computer hackers — have also been debunked. ”
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/22/chris-hedges-julian-assanges-grand-inquisitor/
I read that one of these ‘helpful’ journalists was Luke Harding, who now has articles in The Guardian.
His side kick – his name I don’t know, but that’s what I have read.
He’s something to do with Spooks, I hear. Well paid ‘Useful idiots’
They would claim to be Patriots no doubt any of these people but they work for other countries under the delusion that they are doing their Patriotic Duty.
Russian Patriots are looked at differently. Of course.
Support from Rusbridger for journalists and freedom to report truth
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/23/julian_assange_alan_rusbridger
I hope that when the history of the dark moment is written you are given the credit you most clearly deserve. No disrespect but you’re a chap in his autumn years and yet you endure physical hardship to ensure you get to report and then you do so in detail and with an elegance that belies the conditions. Plus, you seemingly do it from memory! It’s awesome and inspiring and a constant reminder that most journalists are greedy fools. Please keep up the essential work but equally, please look after yourself.
Hear hear.
I am surprised that Julian’s lawyers did not cite Witness 2 testimony archived by Tareq Haddad that at least partially confirmed the discussion of plans to kidnap and poison Assange.
Protected witness 2 testified to overhearing such plans at the 2020 extradition hearing, (Testimony of Witness 2 extradition hearing 2020. [online] 30 September 2020. p.7 Available from https://www.tareqhaddad.com/the-archives/#WEEK-FOUR (accessed 30 August 2023)):
“I recall that on one occasion, in Jerez de la Frontera, at the UC Global headquarters, around December 2017, David said that the Americans were desperate and that they had even suggested that more extreme measures should be employed against the “guest” to put an end to the situation of Assange’s permanence in the embassy. Specifically, the suggestion that the door of the embassy could be left open, which would allow the argument that this had been an accidental mistake, which would allow persons to enter from outside the embassy and kidnap the asylee; even the possibility of poisoning Mr. Assange was discussed, all of these suggestions Morales said were under consideration during his dealing with his contacts in the United States.”
Excellent, Craig. The detail is fascinating – most of us have no idea what the inside of these courts are like and how they are arranged. It does sound incredibly Dickensian, as already noted, and almost surreal in its eccentric rituals and customs.
However the game they are playing is obviously deadly serious, literally, and I was, like you I think, cheered in some small measure by the comprehensive demolition of the Crown’s case by Summers and the obvioulsy startled and baffled reaction by the judges. In any system that values reason and logic, there is so clearly a cast iron case for a comprehensive appeal that to deny it will, of course, deny justice as well as free and open discussion of our laws and the treaties we are party to. We can only hope that they recognise that too, and that by refusing the appeal they will confirm their willingness to be party to state persecution with no justice. Little wonder the lengths the system has gone to keep out the public and kill any open reporing or debate – not that the press or media has needed much persuasion.
Once again, it seems incredible that a private citizen, with none of the financial and administrative resources available to the press, media and government is the only source of reliable reporting of the proceedings and arguments, and just as importantly the circus that we call our courts. Any editor who actually cares about some of the most important issues around justice, freedom, accountability and the law in this country would be running pieces of reportage and opinion reflecting its importance not just to one man’s life and liberty, but to the press as a whole and the future conduct of UK and US governments – which will have real and dangerous repercussions for them and freedom of information and reporting.
The fact that they display a studied indifference to these matters betrays them all as stooges for the ruling class, with absolutely no interest or more importantly, responsibility, for reporting on clearly vital issues for us all – if, that is, we value, freedom of the press and freedom of information. It is pathetic how uninterested they are, meanwhile reeling off acres of coverage on Navalny, as if he and Assange were not intimately linked as ‘enemies’ of the state.
We are very grateful to you for your perseverance and integrity in this case, and demonstrating how corrupt and incompetent the system we are all judged under is. And how appallingly served we are by the so-called news industry and its collusion in the persecution of one man who has annoyed them by exposing their covert actions.
Correction:
The venerable Duncan Campbell, who used to cover this kind of case regularly, has an excellent piece in The Guardian today:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/24/julian-assange-court-hearing-extradition-death-sentence
“ Once again, it seems incredible that a private citizen, with none of the financial and administrative resources available to the press, media and government is the only source of reliable reporting of the proceedings and arguments, and just as importantly the circus that we call our courts.”
Ian, I am going to reflect on not just the implications of this statement but its actuality. It is profound.
Apropos Mr Assange’s rights under the US Constitution, is it relevant that the 14th Amendment says (in Section 1):
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.
The relevant words are:
“No State shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.
Previously reference is made to “citizens”, but these words refer to “any person” – which clearly means any human being, regardless of origin or country of citizenship. Thus it embraces Mr Assange.
Or does that provision apply only to the states, not the federal government?
Since the US Declaration of Independence made much of “all men being created equal” and having been endowed by their Creator with certain “unalienable rights” and that this document provided the ideological basis for the revolution against British rule and for the Constitution along with the Bill of Rights that replaced it, one would consider that the 14th Amendment must bind the actions of the federal government no less than that of individual states. However, given that slavery and a genocidal campaign against the North American aboriginals were deemed compatible with both documents and that the fight to have legal recognition of the supposedly divinely invested rights granted to mankind in the case of black Americans is far from won, it must be naive to harbour any but the most meagre hope in any appeal based on this provision
I forgot about the clock ticking and hadn´t finished editing the errors –
A tour de force of reporting. Cheering so far. I heard someone commenting that in any case Biden would not want Assange in chains arriving before the election because many Trump supporters are ferocious free-speech and Trump would exploit this to attack Biden. However, does Biden really grasp what’s going on anyway? He seems to be well progressed on the dementia track.
I enjoyed the first (unfinished) draft, but the final version is simply stunning.
And incredibly witty – there is something strange about roaring with laughter over such a tale of evil intentions and wicked deeds (on the part of the US and its supporters – in the courtroom and without), but it does help ease the tension we all feel in relation to this never-ending case.
Thank you Craig.
Glad you put that up Fleur, I was caught in the same boat – blown away by the telling of something terrible. I agree, stunning is a word not to be used lightly but yes stunning. Thanks Mr Murray – here’s to hoping.
Hi Craig, thanks for this wonderful report. I am disgusted that the judges did not seem well briefed on the case, but pleased that they realized they weren’t and asked questions. I do hope Julian will be freed soon. We all need good news and he needs to return to his family and sanity.
I did read that the CIA chief Burns was sent to be part of the Palestinian Israeli negotiations regarding Gaza recently. Surely, the CIA chief was speaking on behalf of the US Administration in this case which would seem to negate Baraitser’s statement: Baraitser had acknowledged in her judgment the hostility from the CIA but stated that “the CIA does not speak on behalf of the US administration”.
“the CIA does not speak on behalf of the US administration”.
It would be nearer the truth to say that the US administration speaks on behalf of the CIA. Tail, dog.