> Clive Stafford Smith said he had been “profoundly shocked” by the crimes committed by the US government against his clients. These included torture, kidnapping, illegal detention and murder. The murder of one detainee at Baghram Airport in Afghanistan had been justified as a permissible interrogation technique to put fear into other detainees. In 2001, he would never have believed the US Government could have done such things.<p>This is odious, and it's just one of the things in just this article. The amount of human rights violations going on seems staggering.
It's difficult for me to read this objectively, because I "know in my heart" that the persecution of Assange is unjust. Nevertheless, it is important to put that aside and absorb the information without bias. Let the prosecution make its best case without attachment to outcome.<p>Still, there are some rather shocking revelations about the conduct of the government of my homeland. Torture, of course; but also murder of a detainee to terrify other detainees; "puerile attitude to killing, with juvenile nicknames given to assassination targets"; the attempted murder without trial of a US citizen, also a journalist; the attempts to block and cover these actions, which suggests that the perpetrators and enablers themselves knew they were crimes.
One interesting snippet, which gets to the one of the key areas around this case for me (I know there are more issues here than just this one):<p>> Mark Summers then re-examined Professor Feldstein. He said that Lewis had suggested that Assange was complicit in Manning obtaining classified information but the New York Times was not. Is it your understanding that to seek to help an official leaker is a crime<p>> Professor Feldstein replied “No, absolutely not”.<p>> “Do journalists ask for classified information?”<p>> “Yes.”<p>> “Do journalists solicit such information?”<p>> “Yes.”<p>> “Are you aware of any kind of previous prosecution for this kind of activity.”<p>> “No. Absolutely not.”<p>> “Could you predict it would be criminalised?”<p>> “No, and it is very dangerous.”<p>There are clearly two sides to this argument, but the chilling effect around the prosecution of journalists gaining access to classified information is a worry for me.<p>I realise that the US Government might claim that Assange isn't a journalist. They're certainly claiming that he crossed the line from journalism into hacking, but that line seems to be blurrier and more arbitrary than it used to be (at least from where I sit in the cheap seats).
"The cross-examinations showed the weakness of the thirty minute guillotine adopted by Baraitser, with really interesting defence testimony cut short, and then unlimited time allowed to Lewis for his cross examination. This was particularly pernicious in the evidence of Mark Feldstein. In James Lewis’ extraordinary cross-examination of Feldstein, Lewis spoke between five and ten times as many words as the actual witness. Some of Lewis’s “questions” went on for many minutes, contained huge passages of quote and often were phrased in convoluted double negative. Thrice Feldstein refused to reply on grounds he could not make out where the question lay. With the defence initial statement of the evidence limited to half an hour, Lewis’s cross examination approached two hours, a good 80% of which was Lewis speaking. "<p>Sad...
I really hope people don’t take from this that the U.K. legal system is being applied in a biased way. The laws themselves may be wrong — and that’s a matter for government. But these write-ups do tend do suggest that the laws are being misapplied through manipulating the process.<p>I’m not a lawyer, but I am in the UK and I do know people who are lawyers so I’ve talked about their court work with them. From what little I know, the processes (the backs and forth, the judgements, and arguments over procedure) are all typical.
Taken from the Crown Prosecution Service guidance[0], which isn't gospel, but is usually a pretty accurate reflection of the law, the grounds the court must consider are:<p>- the conduct described in the warrant amounts to an extradition offence;<p>- any of the statutory bars to extradition apply;<p>- there is prima facie evidence of guilt (if applicable, see below);<p>- extradition would be disproportionate or would be incompatible with the requested person’s human rights.<p>The statutory bars to extradition, taken from the same document include whether the subject would face the death penalty.<p>It's not clear to me from this article which of the points of law above is being argued. Some of the testimony appears (or at least the reporting of it) appears to include an element of trying to demonstrate that the extradition is politically motivated. It probably is, but they'll have to establish one of the above specific points.<p>Note that I'm not claiming that the above points can't be established here - I'm just not seeing the direct link from the reporting on the case, in this article and others, to how they're attacking the legal aspect.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/extradition" rel="nofollow">https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/extradition</a>
There doesn't seem to be a trace of Vanessa Baraitser anywhere on the internet outside a couple of mentions of other extradition proceedings and the Assange case. There are only three known photographs of her[1], and only one including her face.<p>She isn't even registered as a practising solicitor with the SRA [2].<p>It's difficult to see how in today's world a person with a career in "public service" (and with such an unusual name) can leave such little trace online.<p>[1] <a href="https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Vanessa_Baraitser" rel="nofollow">https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Vanessa_Baraitser</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register/</a>
"You are free to republish this article, including in translation, without further permission. A brief note left in comments below detailing where it is republished is appreciated."<p>Really nice!
This comment in the article made my day:<p>>the US Government changes its indictment in this case about as often as Kim Kardashian changes her handbag.
Source here is Craig Murray who is possibly the most extreme-biased source one could imagine. Nevertheless it's good to get primary source information from the hearing.