Assange's crime here is embarrassing powerful people. On the one hand, we are never going to get a law that explicitly states this is a crime. On the other hand, that seems unlikely to matter. The US is apparently happy to literally scour the world for places where Assange has done something wrong if the Iceland claim is even a half-truth.<p>The basic issue that this article goes to is that the judge has broad discretionary power to hurry the defence along, and is using it. That is not unreasonable - defence by stalling tactics can't a legitimate strategy, so the judge must have those powers and be free to exercise them at her discretion. It is appropriate for the judge to have powers to guillotine witness time and to make procedural decisions. Even if they are unusual decisions.<p>The only thing Assange's defenders can hope for here is a great case study of how the US government doesn't care about details, they will reach out and try to grab anyone who makes it clear how they are operating. And then develop a rationalisation after the fact.<p>Really the most interesting thing in this article is the pervasive misspelling of "Sweden" as "the United States". I seem to recall a whole bunch of people arguing that Assange wasn't going to be extradited to the United States once they extracted him from the embassy. Possibly I am not remembering correctly and nobody admits to arguing that now.
Cases like these reveal the rot at the heart of western governments. In what sense is what Craig Murray has just relayed to us justice? It seems perfunctory, a stage play, to disguise the reality that the judgement has already been handed down.<p>I remember when it was denied, forcefully and repeatedly, for nearly a decade that the US was behind the Swedish extradition conspiracy. That there was no ongoing US attempt to get their hands on Julian. That he was in the embassy for no good reason. Now we see that there was very good reason for him to remain in that embassy. There is no justice when you cross a corrupt empire.
What a joke, with all the energy US and their friends put into it and they still have to use such shameful tactics to block a fair trial. The already poor image of Western powers is getting even worse, the fucking "values" are shown to be just a propaganda, if you upset the leaders you don't get poisoned but you get a similar bad faith( honestly I think if Assange was in US we would have gotten the news that he committed suicide and for some reason the cameras did not work and the guards were busy ).
The Assange saga is clearly very polarising. Different people have extremely strong views on both sides.<p>Trying hard to steer a neutral course in this comment, there are a few things that stand out to me in and about this article, and the case:<p>1. The author is clearly on one of those sides<p>2. The author, along with like-minded others, want and expect the court hearings around the extradition to consider the case(s) in some detail.<p>3. The state and, I'd guess other individuals with different views to the author, want the court hearings to focus narrowly on the technical aspects of the extradition process itself.<p>Personally I'm unconvinced by at least <i>some</i> of the arguments that the author puts forwards, and I would like to see further, more neutral reporting around the case. The partisanship of the author (whether justified or not) on at least some points makes it hard for me to have confidence in the rest of the post.
The Assange odyssey may be the Dreyfus Affair of our time.<p>As insane as this reads, the job of litigators is not to make sense, it is to press whatever possible advantage they can construe. They are not in the pursuit of truth, that is not what the court establishes. If a litigator is on the receiving end of public outrage for things like the absolutely insane assertions by the prosecution, they take it as credit for doing their job. This professional contempt for truth and principle outside the narrow constraints of legalism is what gives lawyers the reputation for being assholes, and what makes some of them insufferable when their work habits bleed into their personal lives.<p>The trouble in this case that I read from these updates is that the judge is clearly acting like a second prosecutor. I blame it on a generation of people who don't understand impartiality, and who see it as a weakness because they don't need to be impartial if they "know" what they are encountering. Once they have internalized the notion of history as progress, attacks on levers and institutions that can facilitate it are attacks on progress itself. They are litigating ideology, and law is just a host or vehicle. In exposing corruption in the most powerful institutions in the world, to his persecutors Assange's crimes are against progress itself, and I don't think they are capable of impartiality.
<a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/extradition" rel="nofollow">https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/extradition</a> has a lot of details on what an extradition court hearing can/must consider, and the legal basis of arguments against a non-consensual extradition (which this case clearly is).<p>It bears reading through, regardless of your personal views on the case, because this is what the UK's prosecution service thinks the law is. It's likely to be the same or close to the UK Government / 'state' view too and indicative of what the presiding magistrate in the case is working off.
The fact that this is a relatively obscure story and the otherwise vocal western media journalists who screech about press freedom when someone is mean to them are so silent about it by comparison, is frankly really disgusting to witness. It's embarrassing.
Live updates on twitter (by
Kevin Gosztola): <a href="https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1303251577344413696" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1303251577344413696</a><p>First day: <a href="https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1302888230115737600" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1302888230115737600</a>
Let's not forget this is a trial to shot the messenger of a war crime for which no one has been held accountable for.<p>Hillary Clinton and many others actually made the remark that what Assange is doing is putting American lives at risk. So in essence saying American lives are worth more than other humans.
A lot of time has past since the Assange saga started, and the pertinence to UK politics has gone from top-of-mind to minor. Combined with covid & brexit, this farce has an unthinkable chance of passing without much attention.<p>To anyone in the UK, please make an effort to stay informed. Thank you to the author for your coverage. You are a patriot, in George Orwell's sense of the term.
Also worth mentioning that Craig Murray is facing legal issues of his own in relation to the trial of Alex Salmond in Scotland: <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/craig-murray-defence-appeal-renewed/" rel="nofollow">https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/craig-murray...</a><p>//edit// I posted this in case anyone wanted to chip in for his defence fund, not to attack his credibility.
> Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations<p>wut?
The more of these I read the stranger I find the conduct of Baraitser as a Judge. I may not be an expert on English Law but it’s not hard to see how under any kind of argumentative process of adjudication, where two sides present their facts and are expected to cross examine, object, and argue as part of the process... that someone could make any of the sorts of pre-written statements that Baraitser has done on multiple occasions so far.<p>Baraitser continues to feel like someone who is merely going through the motions waiting for their pay check and who would much rather not even be there.<p>The pre-written statement stuff also has the stink of prejudice in the most literal sense of the word. So I just cannot even fathom how it hasn’t warranted immediate sanction given the stupid amount of evidence available.
<a href="https://outline.com/sVp2TY" rel="nofollow">https://outline.com/sVp2TY</a><p>For those who also can’t concentrate on just reading the article thanks to the scroll hijack
From the article:<p>"The reason given that only five of us were allowed in the public gallery of some 40 seats was social distancing; except we were allowed to all sit together in consecutive seats in the front row. The two rows behind us remained completely empty."<p>I'm trying to understand nonetheless why still they chose to sit together.
This story is pretty-much absent from the UK news. Radio 4's 6pm news had time to report a magnitude 3.3 earthquake in Leyton Buzzard (no structural damage), but a miscarriage of justice unrolling before their eyes? Not interested.
Can some legal eagle explain why a magistrate is presiding over the case, rather than a judge?<p>(For those who don't know, in the UK a magistrate is just a layperson volunteer, not a legally trained judge)
Anyone know what tech stack the original Wikileaks was built on? There's not much on Google, it seems, other than much later when the Panama Papers were released.
Assange is the litmus test that privacy concerns are not safe from being monopolised by one part of the political spectrum.<p>Before Trump and the Clinton leaks, Assange was a darling for the liberal media and even on the conservative ring. Then when the leaks came out, Assange became a figure of hate for the same liberal groups who were praising and supporting him before.<p>Now ironically its people on both sides of the fringe that have remained stalwart in supporting him. The middle have declared him "problematic" and have decided to throw him under the carpet along with all the privacy concerns and government overreach of surveillance that he and WikiLeaks had highlighted.<p>Sure this is just human nature that people come and go out of favour, but this 180 flip is just hypocritical (especially with the Guardian becoming hostile to him).<p>What we are seeing here in the court room, is powerful people who want rid of him, not even treating him like a bargaining chip. Just literally wanting to sweep him away like a nuisance.