DAY ONE: Assange Timeline Exposes US Motives
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February 20, 2024
Julian Assange’s attorneys on Tuesday argued earlier than the Excessive Courtroom about why the imprisoned writer have to be allowed to enchantment towards his extradition order, reviews Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria, in London, Consortium Information
On Day One among Julian Assange’s try and enchantment Britain’s order to extradite him to the US, his attorneys laid out a timeline that uncovered U.S. motives to destroy the journalist who revealed their high-level state crimes.
Earlier than two Excessive Courtroom judges within the cramped, wood-paneled Courtroom 5 on the Royal Courts of Justice, Assange’s attorneys argued on Tuesday that two judges had severely erred within the case on numerous grounds necessitating an enchantment of the house secretary’s resolution to extradite Assange to the US.
Excessive to the left of the courtroom, subsequent to oak cabinets with neat rows of legislation books, was an empty iron cage. The courtroom mentioned it had invited Assange to both attend in particular person or through video hyperlink from Belmarsh Jail, the place he has been locked up on remand for almost 5 years. However Assange mentioned he was too sick participate in any capability, his attorneys confirmed.
Vanessa Baraitser, the district choose who presided over Assange’s 2020 extradition listening to, and Jonathan Swift, a Excessive Courtroom choose, got here in for heavy criticism from Assange’s attorneys. Baraitser in January 2021 ordered Assange launched on well being grounds.
However she refused him bail whereas the U.S. appealed. On the idea of assurances that it will not mistreat Assange in the US, the Excessive Courtroom reversed Baraitser’s resolution. The U.Ok. Supreme Courtroom then refused to take Assange’s problem of the legality of those assurance and the house secretary signed the extradition order.
Assange’s final avenue of enchantment is of the house secretary’s order in addition to Baraitser’s 2021 resolution, by which, on each level of legislation and lots of of truth, she sided with the US. The appliance to pursue this enchantment was rejected by a single Excessive Courtroom choose, Swift, final June.
He permitted his rejection of the appliance to itself be appealed. That two-day listening to started Tuesday earlier than Justice Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp.
The Timeline
Assange lawyer Mark Summers made a forceful argument that the US in essence is treating Assange no otherwise than any authoritarian regime would take care of a dissident journalist who revealed its secret crimes.
“There was proof earlier than the district choose that this prosecution was motivated to punish and inhibit the publicity of American state-level crimes,” Summers instructed the courtroom. “There was unchallenged proof” throughout Baraitser’s 2020 extradition listening to “of crimes that sit on the apex of criminality,” he mentioned.
He mentioned there was a direct nexus between Assange’s work to reveal U.S. crimes and the U.S. pursuing him. “This can be a prosecution for these disclosures,” he mentioned. “There’s a straight-line correlation between these disclosures and the prosecution, however the district choose (Baraitser) addressed none of this and neither did Swift.”
Summers then sketched out a timeline of occasions displaying successive levels of motivation for the US to go after Assange. “There was compelling circumstantial proof why the U.S. introduced this case,” he mentioned.
First, he mentioned, there was no prosecution of Assange (regardless of the Obama administration empaneling a grand jury) till 2016, when the Worldwide Prison Courtroom introduced it will look into doable U.S. crimes in Afghanistan, following Assange’s disclosures. The U.S. then denounced him as a political actor.
Summers mentioned “that morphed into plans to kill or rendition Assange” from the Ecuadorian embassy, the place he had asylum, following the Vault 7 launch of C.I.A. spying instruments in 2017.
The then new C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo, in his first public look in that place, denounced WikiLeaks as a hostile, non-state intelligence service, a rigorously chosen authorized time period, Summers mentioned, that permitted taking covert motion towards a goal with out Congressional information.
As a result of these plans to kill or rendition Assange, requested for by President Donald Trump, raised alarms with White Home attorneys, a authorized prosecution was pursued as a technique to decide the place to place Assange if he had been renditioned to the U.S., Summers mentioned.
“This prosecution solely emerged due to that rendition plan,” he mentioned. “And the prosecution that emerged is selective and it’s persecution.” It was selective as a result of regardless that different retailers, equivalent to Freitag and cryptome.org,, had printed the unredacted diplomatic cables first, Assange was the one one charged.
“This isn’t a authorities performing on good religion pursuing a authorized” path, he mentioned……………………………………
Assange lawyer Edward Fitzgerald referred to as espionage, with which Assange is charged, a “pure political offense.” The difficulty is essential to Assange’s protection as a result of the U.S.-U.Ok. Extradition Treaty bars extraditions for political offenses.
Nevertheless, the Extradition Act, Parliament’s implementing laws of the Treaty, doesn’t point out political offenses. Baraitser dominated that the Act and never the Treaty ought to take priority.
Assange’s workforce has been arguing that he’s needed for a political crime and subsequently the extradition shouldn’t proceed. They argued that the Act bars extradition for “political opinion,” which they equate with “political offense.
A substantial period of time within the five-hour listening to was thus spent by Assange’s attorneys making the purpose that Assange’s costs are political. Fitzgerald argued that Britain has extradition treaties with 158 nations and in all however two (Kuwait and the UAE), political offenses are barred.
Assange’s work was to affect and alter U.S. coverage, Fitzgerald mentioned, subsequently his work was political and he couldn’t be extradited for his political opinions or opinions.
Informants!
Justices Johnson and Sharp seemed to be not extraordinarily well-versed within the Assange case and appeared at occasions stunned by what they had been listening to from Assange’s attorneys. However they’d been ready on the U.S. view of Assange allegedly harming U.S. informants.
What they didn’t know is that Assange had truly hung out redacting the names of U.S. informants from the Diplomatic Cables, whereas WikiLeaks‘ mainstream companions in 2010 didn’t.
Justice Johnson requested earlier than lunch whether or not there have been instances the place somebody had printed the names of informants and weren’t prosecuted. After the break, Summers provided the instance of Philip Agee, the ex-C.I.A. agent who revealed undercover brokers’ names, a few of whom had been harmed, however he was by no means indicted for it.
Summers additionally talked about The New York Instances publishing names of informants within the Pentagon Papers. “The New York Instances was by no means prosecuted,” Summers mentioned. Nevertheless, Richard Nixon certainly empaneled a grand jury in Boston to indict Instances reporters however after it was revealed the federal government tapped whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s telephone — and thus additionally the reporters’ — the case was dropped.
Regardless of their obvious unfamiliarity with the Assange case each judges appeared intrigued by its critical political, authorized and press freedom points. They’re senior judges who is perhaps much less vulnerable to political stress.
The Loss of life Penalty
The judges may have been stunned to study that below U.S. legislation and apply, (on this case with settlement from the British authorities), new costs might be added to Assange’s indictment after he would arrive in America. The Espionage Act, as an illustration, carries a provision for the dying penalty if dedicated throughout wartime.
Britain doesn’t have the dying penalty and can’t extradite somebody who might face capital punishment. Although the U.S. might provide Britain diplomatic assurances that it will not search the dying penalty towards Assange, to this point it has refused.
Fitzgerald additionally appeared to shock the courtroom by talking of situations in U.S. courts the place somebody convicted for one crime might at sentencing obtain time for one more offense she or he was by no means tried for.
He expressed concern that although Assange was by no means charged with the Vault 7 C.I.A. leak, he would possibly nonetheless be sentenced for it. He additionally mentioned that at sentencing the foundations of admissibility might be discarded, for instance to contemplate proof that was obtained by way of surveillance.
First Modification
The judges could have been stunned to listen to that the U.S. prosecutor in Virginia has mentioned he could deny Assange his First Modification rights throughout trial on U.S. soil as a result of he’s not a U.S. citizen. Pompeo acknowledged extra categorically that Assange can be with out First Modification safety.
Stripping the best of free speech is a violation of Article 10 of the European Courtroom of Human Rights, Assange’s attorneys argued.
What Strasbourg Would Do
Summers introduced the courtroom by way of a situation by which the European Courtroom of Human Rights had tried Chelsea Manning, as an alternative of a U.S. army courtroom. He mentioned whistleblower safety legal guidelines in Europe had superior to the purpose the place he believed the courtroom would have weighed the hurt finished by breaking a confidentiality settlement and the hurt prevented by blowing the whistle…….
The general technique of Assange’s attorneys seemed to be to make it apparent to those judges that there are huge grounds for enchantment in addition to arguments to toss the case (equivalent to proof of C.I.A. spying on Assange’s privileged conversations along with his attorneys)
Forseeable
Assange’s attorneys additionally argued that Article 7 of the European Conference on Human Rights says somebody should foresee that their habits is a criminal offense earlier than she or he might be charged with it.
They mentioned Assange couldn’t have identified that publishing his categorized disclosures might have led to prosecution below the Espionage Act as a result of no journalist or writer had ever been charged below it for possession and publication of categorized materials. Subsequently a violation of Article 7 ought to bar extradition, they are saying……………………
The listening to continues on Wednesday with attorneys representing the US presenting their arguments about why Assange shouldn’t be allowed to enchantment.
February 23, 2024 –
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Authorized, Reference, UK
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