Extradition

Report, Tuesday, September 22: Julian Assange Hearing

September 23, 2020 Craig Murray. Educate! Extradition, health, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Julian is profoundly worried that his medical history will be used to discredit him and all that he has worked for, to paint the achievements of Wikileaks in promoting open government and citizen knowledge as the fantasy of a deranged mind. I have no doubt this will be tried, but fortunately there has been a real change in public understanding and acknowledgement of mental illness. I do not think Julian’s periodic and infrequent episodes of very serious depression will be successfully portrayed in a bad light, despite the incredibly crass and insensitive attitude displayed today in court by the US Government, who have apparently been bypassed by the change in attitudes of the last few decades.

Report, Monday, September 21: Julian Assange Hearing

September 22, 2020 Craig Murray. Educate! Court abuse, Extradition, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Monday was a frustrating day as the Assange Hearing drifted deep into a fantasy land where nobody knows or is allowed to say that people were tortured in Guantanamo Bay and under extraordinary rendition. The willingness of Judge Baraitser to accept American red lines on what witnesses can and cannot say has combined with a joint and openly stated desire by both judge and prosecution to close this case down quickly by limiting the number of witnesses, the length of their evidence, and the time allowed for closing arguments.

Julian Assange Trial: Monday, September 21, 2020

September 22, 2020 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Extradition, Julian Assange, mental health, Wikileaks

Prof. Michael Kopelman has been sworn in, standing in the actual wooden stand of the court, as the defense’s first witness on Tuesday. Kopelman is a professor of neuropsychology at King’s College, London. He testifies that Assange is suffering from severe depression with loss sleep, appetite and weight loss. He also found a high risk of suicide “if extradition appears imminent.” Kopelman said Assange has had a history of clinical depression and said his risk of suicide would increase if extradition was imminent. Consortium News is limiting the detail of testimony about Assange’s mental health conditions after an appeal from Kopelman and defense attorney Edward Fitzgerald to the media to do so.

Assange’s Removal From Embassy Was Directed By US President

September 22, 2020 Mohamed Elmaazi, Sputnik News. Educate! Extradition, Julian Assange, United States, Wikileaks

Julian Assange's removal from the Ecuadorian Embassy was done so "on direct orders from the [US] president", according to information provided to American journalist Cassandra Fairbanks. Ms Fairbanks' explosive testimony would appear to support to position that Mr Assange's prosecution has a political dimension and reflected a shift in the government's attitude with a change in administration from that of former president Barack Obama. According to Ms Fairbanks' witness statement, which was read into the court by the defence in Mr Assange's extradition hearing on 21 September 2020...

Call For Assange’s Immediate Release

September 21, 2020 Lawyers for Assange, Consortium News. Resist! Court abuse, Extradition, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

As Julian Assange fights U.S. extradition at the Old Bailey in London, over one hundred eminent political figures, including 13 past and present heads of state, numerous ministers, members of parliament and diplomats, have today denounced the illegality of the proceedings and appealed for Assange’s immediate release. The politicians from 27 different countries and from across the political spectrum have joined 189 independent international lawyers, judges, legal academics and lawyers’ associations by endorsing their open letter to the UK Government...

September 18: Julian Assange Hearing Report

September 19, 2020 Defend Wikileaks. Educate! Extradition, Julian Assange, Press Freedom, Wikileaks

New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager took to stand to testify about using WikiLeaks documents in his work. Hager published Other People’s Wars, New Zealand in Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terror, and said that WikiLeaks-released military and diplomatic files “greatly increased my understanding of the conduct of the war. It would have been impossible to write the book without these confidential and leaked sources.” In his written testimony, Hager explained, “It is in general impossible to research and write about war to a useful standard without access to sources that the authorities concerned regard as sensitive and out of bounds — and all the more so with the subject of war crimes.”

Day 12: Julian Assange Hearing

September 19, 2020 Craig Murray. Educate! Extradition, Iraq War, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Yet another shocking example of abuse of court procedure unfolded on Wednesday. James Lewis QC for the prosecution had been permitted gratuitously to read to two previous witnesses with zero connection to this claim, an extract from a book by Luke Harding and David Leigh in which Harding claims that at a dinner at El Moro Restaurant Julian Assange had stated he did not care if US informants were killed, because they were traitors who deserved what was coming to them. This morning giving evidence was John Goetz, now Chief Investigations Editor of NDR (German public TV), then of Der Spiegel.

Kafka On Acid: The Trial Of Julian Assange

September 19, 2020 Felicity Ruby, Arena Online. Educate! Court abuse, Extradition, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Julian Assange needs to wake before dawn to get from Belmarsh Prison to the Old Bailey courthouse, where his extradition hearing resumed on 7 September, for four weeks. He gets dressed for court only to be strip-searched before being placed in a ventilated coffin Serco van for a 90-minute trip across London in peak-hour traffic. After waiting handcuffed in the holding cells, he is placed in a glass box at the back of the courtroom. Then he is forced back into the Serco van to be strip-searched back at Belmarsh to face another night alone in his cell.

Assange Court Report September 16: Afternoon

September 17, 2020 Bridges for Media Freedom, Assange Court Report. Educate! Daniel Ellsberg, Extradition, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

A famous Vietnam era whistleblower, 89-year-old Daniel Ellsberg, has told a court that he feels “a great identification,” with both Julian Assange and his source Chelsea Manning, who, he said, “were willing to suffer the risk of imprisonment or even death to get information to the American public.” Ellsberg, a former US Marine officer who served with the US State Department in Vietnam during the war years, is best known for leaking a huge tranche of US government documents on the war to the New York Times in 1970, documents that showed that the government had been lying to the American people about the conflict from the beginning.

Assange Would Not Have Fair US Trial, Witness Tells Old Bailey

September 16, 2020 Thomas Scripps, WSWS. Educate! Extradition, health, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumed yesterday morning after a coronavirus test for a member of the prosecution’s legal team came back negative. Mark Summers QC, one of Assange’s lawyers, asked District Judge Vanessa Baraitser to give a direction mandating the use of masks for the remainder of the hearing. She responded that government guidance on wearing masks in public places in the Old Bailey “does not include the well of the court,” before saying, “those that wish to wear masks in the well of the court are welcome to do so” but “there is no obligation to do so, and I make no direction.”

Day Nine: Julian Assange Extradition Hearing

September 16, 2020 Craig Murray. Educate! Extradition, Journalism, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Things became not merely dramatic in the Assange courtroom today, but spiteful and nasty. There were two real issues, the evidence and the procedure. On the evidence, there were stark details of the dreadful regime Assange will face in US jails if extradited. On the procedure, we saw behaviour from the prosecution QC that went well beyond normal cross examination and was a real attempt to denigrate and even humiliate the witness. I hope to prove that to you by a straightforward exposition of what happened today in court, after which I shall add further comment.

Day Five: Julian Assange Case

September 15, 2020 AssangeDefense.org. Educate! Extradition, Julian Assange, Torture, Wikileaks

Paused last week due to a COVID19 scare, Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumed today with witness testimony from Eric Lewis, chairman of the board of Reprieve and a lawyer who “represents Guantanamo and Afghan detainees in litigation, seeking redress and accountability for torture and religious abuse while in US custody.” Lewis confirmed that before being asked to provide expert testimony on this case, he opined in the press that he believes Assange shouldn’t be extradited or prosecuted, and while he handled the facts objectively in providing his witness statement, those are still his views today.

Trump’s War On Journalism Takes Center Stage

September 14, 2020 Kevin Gosztola, Shadowproof. Educate! Extradition, Journalism, Julian Assange, Trump

In the last half-century, journalists James Bamford, Ben Bradlee, Seymour Hersh, and Neil Sheehan were each threatened with prosecution under the Espionage Act. But the U.S. government never followed through with Espionage Act charges against a journalist until 2019, when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested and charged. Trevor Timm, the executive director for the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), told a magistrate court judge, “[President Donald] Trump’s administration is moving to explicitly criminalize national security journalism, and if this prosecution is allowed to go forward, dozens of reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere would also be in danger.”

Assange Hearing Day Four

September 13, 2020 Consortium News. Educate! COVID-19, Extradition, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Judge Vanessa Baraitser has adjourned the hearing of Julian Assange until next Monday while a Covid-19 test result is awaited for a lawyer who appeared in the courtroom on Wednesday. Edward Fitzgerald, a lawyer for the defense, told the court: “We shouldn’t be here. Covid could be here in this courtroom. The staff and you yourself [addressing Baraitser] may be at risk, and finally our client whose vulnerabilities you are aware of, would be at risk. “Until we have a result we could make this remote, but you are aware of the technical difficulties and you have said the hearing” should be held in court,” Fitzgerald said. “It would not be fair if our client is not present.”

The Ongoing And Unjustifiable Persecution Of Julian Assange

September 10, 2020 Andy Worthington. Educate! Extradition, Human Rights, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

A hugely important struggle for press freedom is currently taking place in the Old Bailey in London, where, on Monday, three weeks of hearings began regarding the proposed extradition to the US of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. In 2010 and 2011, WikiLeaks published documents leaked by a serving member of the US military — Bradley, now Chelsea Manning — that exposed evidence of war crimes committed by the US and, in the case of my particular area of expertise, Guantánamo.

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