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The Assange Trial - more than meets the eye & ear - Peter Lemkin - 29-02-2020

ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Your Man in Public Gallery – Day No. 1
February 25, 2020 • 19 Comments
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[b]Craig Murray reports on Monday’s opening statements in court, where the mere act of being an honest witness was suddenly extremely important since the media had  abandoned that role.[/b]
[b]By Craig Murray[/b]
CraigMurray.org.uk
[b][Image: CraigMurray-100x100.jpg]W[/b]oolwich Crown Court is designed to impose the power of the state. Normal courts in this country are public buildings, deliberately placed by our ancestors right in the center of towns, almost always just up a few steps from a main street. The major purpose of their positioning and of their architecture was to facilitate public access in the belief that it is vital that justice can be seen by the public. 
Woolwich Crown Court, which hosts Belmarsh Magistrates Court, is built on totally the opposite principle. It is designed with no other purpose than to exclude the public. Attached to a prison on a windswept marsh far from any normal social center, an island accessible only through navigating a maze of dual carriageways, the entire location and architecture of the building is predicated on preventing public access. It is surrounded by a continuation of the same extremely heavy-duty steel paling barrier that surrounds the prison. It is the most extraordinary thing, a courthouse which is a part of the prison system itself, a place where you are already considered guilty and in jail on arrival.
Woolwich Crown Court is nothing but the physical negation of the presumption of innocence, the very incarnation of injustice in unyielding steel, concrete and armored glass. It has precisely the same relationship to the administration of justice as Guantanamo Bay or the Lubyanka. It is in truth just the sentencing wing of Belmarsh prison.
[Image: Woolwich-Crown-Court-scaled.jpg]Woolwich Crown Court, where Assange will be tried on the extradition request. (Joe Lauria)
When enquiring about facilities for the public to attend the hearing, an Assange activist was told by a member of court staff that we should realize that Woolwich is a “counter-terrorism court.” That is true de facto, but in truth a “counter-terrorism court” is an institution unknown to the U.K. constitution. Indeed, if a single day at Woolwich Crown Court does not convince you the existence of liberal democracy is now a lie, then your mind must be very closed indeed.
Extradition hearings are not held at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. They are always held at Westminster Magistrates Court as the application is deemed to be delivered to the government at Westminster. Now get your head around this. This hearing is at Westminster Magistrates Court. It is being held by the Westminster magistrates and Westminster court staff, but located at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. All of which weird convolution is precisely so they can use the “counter-terrorist court” to limit public access and to impose the fear of the power of the state.
One consequence is that, in the courtroom itself, Julian Assange is confined at the back of the court behind a bulletproof glass screen. He made the point several times during proceedings that this makes it very difficult for him to see and hear the proceedings. The magistrate, Vanessa Baraitser, chose to interpret this with studied dishonesty as a problem caused by the very faint noise of demonstrators outside, as opposed to a problem caused by Assange being locked away from the court in a massive bulletproof glass box. 
[b]Publisher in Bulletproof Box[/b]
Now there is no reason at all for Assange to be in that box, designed to restrain extremely physically violent terrorists. He could sit, as a defendant at a hearing normally would, in the body of the court with his lawyers. But the cowardly and vicious Baraitser has refused repeated and persistent requests from the defense for Assange to be allowed to sit with his lawyers. Baraitser of course is but a puppet, being supervised by Chief Magistrate Lady Arbuthnot, a woman so enmeshed in the defense and security service establishment I can conceive of no way in which her involvement in this case could be more corrupt. 
It does not matter to Baraitser or Arbuthnot if there is any genuine need for Assange to be incarcerated in a bulletproof box, or whether it stops him from following proceedings in court. Baraitser’s intention is to humiliate Assange, and to instill in the rest of us horror at the vast crushing power of the state. The inexorable strength of the sentencing wing of the nightmarish Belmarsh Prison must be maintained. If you are here, you are guilty. 
It’s the Lubyanka. You may only be a remand prisoner. This may only be a hearing not a trial. You may have no history of violence and not be accused of any violence. You may have three of the country’s most eminent psychiatrists submitting reports of your history of severe clinical depression and warning of suicide. But I, Vanessa Baraitser, am still going to lock you up in a box designed for the most violent of terrorists. To show what we can do to dissidents. And if you can’t then follow court proceedings, all the better.
You will perhaps better accept what I say about the court when I tell you that, for a hearing being followed all round the world, they have brought it to a courtroom which had a total number of 16 seats available to members of the public. Sixteen.
To make sure I got one of those 16 and could be your man in the gallery, I was outside that great locked iron fence queuing in the cold, wet and wind from 6 a.m. At 8 a.m. the gate was unlocked, and I was able to walk inside the fence to another queue before the doors of the courtroom, where despite the fact notices clearly state the court opens to the public at 8 a.m, I had to queue outside the building again for another hour and 40 minutes. Then I was processed through armored airlock doors, through airport type security, and had to queue behind two further locked doors, before finally getting to my seat just as the court started at 10 a.m. By which stage the intention was we should have been thoroughly cowed and intimidated, not to mention drenched and potentially hypothermic. 
There was a separate media entrance and a media room with live transmission from the courtroom, and there were so many scores of media I thought I could relax and not worry as the basic facts would be widely reported. In fact, I could not have been more wrong. I followed the arguments very clearly every minute of the day, and not a single one of the most important facts and arguments has been reported anywhere in the mainstream media. That is a bold claim, but I fear it is perfectly true. So, I have much work to do to let the world know what actually happened. The mere act of being an honest witness is suddenly extremely important, when the entire media has abandoned that role.
[b]Opening Statement for the Prosecution[/b]
[Image: lewis.jpg]James Lewis QC.
James Lewis QC made the opening statement for the prosecution. It consisted of two parts, both equally extraordinary. The first and longest part was truly remarkable for containing no legal argument, and for being addressed not to the magistrate but to the media.
It is not just that it was obvious that is where his remarks were aimed, he actually stated on two occasions during his opening statement that he was addressing the media, once repeating a sentence and saying specifically that he was repeating it again because it was important that the media got it.
I am frankly astonished that Baraitser allowed this. It is completely out of order for a counsel to address remarks not to the court but to the media, and there simply could not be any clearer evidence that this is a political show trial and that Baraitser is complicit in that.
I have not the slightest doubt that the defense would have been pulled up extremely quickly had they started addressing remarks to the media. Baraitser makes zero pretence of being anything other than in thrall to the Crown, and by extension to the US Government.
The points which Lewis wished the media to know were these: it is not true that mainstream outlets like The Guardianand New York Timesare also threatened by the charges against Assange, because Assange was not charged with publishing the cables but only with publishing the names of informants, and with cultivating Manning and assisting him to attempt computer hacking. Only Assange had done these things, not mainstream outlets.
Lewis then proceeded to read out a series of articles from the mainstream media attacking Assange, as evidence that the media and Assange were not in the same boat. The entire opening hour consisted of the prosecution addressing the media, attempting to drive a clear wedge between the media and WikiLeaksand thus aimed at reducing media support for Assange. It was a political address, not remotely a legal submission. At the same time, the prosecution had prepared reams of copies of this section of Lewis’ address, which were handed out to the media and given them electronically so they could cut and paste.
[b]Official Secrets Act[/b]
Following an adjournment, magistrate Baraitser questioned the prosecution on the veracity of some of these claims. In particular, the claim that newspapers were not in the same position because Assange was charged not with publication, but with “aiding and abetting” Chelsea Manning in getting the material, did not seem consistent with Lewis’ reading of the 1989 Official Secrets Act, which said that merely obtaining and publishing any government secret was an offence. Surely, Baraitser suggested, that meant that newspapers just publishing the Manning leaks would be guilty of an offence?
This appeared to catch Lewis entirely off guard. The last thing he had expected was any perspicacity from Baraitser, whose job was just to do what he said. Lewis hummed and hawed, put his glasses on and off several times, adjusted his microphone repeatedly and picked up a succession of pieces of paper from his brief, each of which appeared to surprise him by its contents, as he waved them haplessly in the air and said he really should have cited the Shayler case but couldn’t find it. It was liking watching Columbo with none of the charm and without the killer question at the end of the process.
Suddenly Lewis appeared to come to a decision. Yes, he said much more firmly. The 1989 Official Secrets Act had been introduced by the Thatcher government after the Ponting Case, specifically to remove the public interest defense and to make unauthorized possession of an official secret a crime of strict liability – meaning no matter how you got it, publishing and even possessing made you guilty. Therefore, under the principle of dual criminality, Assange was liable for extradition whether or not he had aided and abetted Manning. Lewis then went on to add that any journalist and any publication that printed the official secret would therefore also be committing an offence, no matter how they had obtained it, and no matter if it did or did not name informants.
[b]Contradicting Statement to Media[/b]
Lewis had thus just flat out contradicted his entire opening statement to the media stating that they need not worry as the Assange charges could never be applied to them. And he did so straight after the adjournment, immediately after his team had handed out copies of the argument he had now just completely contradicted. I cannot think it has often happened in court that a senior lawyer has proven himself so absolutely and so immediately to be an unmitigated and ill-motivated liar. This was undoubtedly the most breathtaking moment in Monday’s court hearing.
Yet remarkably I cannot find any mention anywhere in the mainstream media that this happened at all. What I can find, everywhere, is the mainstream media reporting, via cut and paste, Lewis’s first part of his statement on why the prosecution of Assange is not a threat to press freedom; but nobody seems to have reported that he totally abandoned his own argument five minutes later. Were the journalists too stupid to understand the exchanges?
The explanation is very simple. The clarification coming from a question Baraitser asked Lewis, there is no printed or electronic record of Lewis’ reply. His original statement was provided in cut and paste format to the media. His contradiction of it would require a journalist to listen to what was said in court, understand it and write it down. There is no significant percentage of mainstream media journalists who command that elementary ability nowadays. “Journalism” consists of cut and paste of approved sources only. Lewis could have stabbed Assange to death in the courtroom, and it would not be reported unless contained in a government press release.
I was left uncertain of Baraitser’s purpose in this. Plainly she discomfited Lewis very badly on this point, and appeared rather to enjoy doing so. On the other hand, the point she made is not necessarily helpful to the defense. What she was saying was essentially that Julian could be extradited under dual criminality, from the U.K. point of view, just for publishing, whether or not he conspired with Chelsea Manning, and that all the journalists who published could be charged too. But surely this is a point so extreme that it would be bound to be invalid under the Human Rights Act? Was she pushing Lewis to articulate a position so extreme as to be untenable – giving him enough rope to hang himself – or was she slavering at the prospect of not just extraditing Assange, but of mass prosecutions of journalists? 
The reaction of one group was very interesting. The four U.S. government lawyers seated immediately behind Lewis had the grace to look very uncomfortable indeed as Lewis baldly declared that any journalist and any newspaper or broadcast media publishing or even possessing any government secret was committing a serious offence. Their entire strategy had been to pretend not to be saying that.
Lewis then moved on to conclude the prosecution’s arguments. The court had no decision to make, he stated. Assange must be extradited. The offense met the test of dual criminality as it was an offence both in the USA and U.K.
U.K. extradition law specifically barred the court from testing whether there was any evidence to back up the charges. If there had been, as the defense argued, abuse of process, the court must still extradite and then the court must pursue the abuse of process as a separate matter against the abusers. (This is a particularly specious argument as it is not possible for the court to take action against the U.S. government due to sovereign immunity, as Lewis well knows). Finally, Lewis stated that the Human Rights Act and freedom of speech were completely irrelevant in extradition proceedings.
[b]Opening Statement for Defense[/b]
Edward Fitzgerald then arose to make the opening statement for the defense. He started by stating that the motive for the prosecution was entirely political, and that political offences were specifically excluded under article 4.1 of the U.K./U.S. extradition treaty. He pointed out that at the time of the Chelsea Manning trial and again in 2013 the Obama administration had taken specific decisions not to prosecute Assange for the Manning leaks. This had been reversed by the Trump administration for reasons that were entirely political.
Quote:[Image: Fe00yVS2_bigger.png]
WikiLeaks

✔@wikileaks

 · Feb 24, 2020



Defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald: The extradition is for political purposes and that’s prohibited under US/UK treaty.#DontExtraditeAssange #Freepress #FreeAssange
Quote:[Image: Fe00yVS2_bigger.png]
WikiLeaks

✔@wikileaks


Defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald: This prosecution is not about criminal justice, it is due to underlying political motives of the US government.

382
3:26 PM - Feb 24, 2020
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[url=https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1231948532413816832]



On abuse of process, Fitzgerald referred to evidence presented to the Spanish criminal courts that the CIA had commissioned a Spanish security company to spy on Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and that this spying specifically included surveillance of Assange’s privileged meetings with his lawyers to discuss extradition. For the state trying to extradite to spy on the defendant’s client-lawyer consultations is in itself grounds to dismiss the case. (This point is undoubtedly true. Any decent judge would throw the case out summarily for the outrageous spying on the defense lawyers).
Fitzgerald went on to say the defense would produce evidence the CIA not only spied on Assange and his lawyers, but actively considered kidnapping or poisoning him, and that this showed there was no commitment to proper rule of law in this case.
[b]Deliberate Misrepresentation in Framing the Case[/b]
Fitzgerald said that the prosecution’s framing of the case contained deliberate misrepresentation of the facts that also amounted to abuse of process. It was not true that there was any evidence of harm to informants, and the U.S. government had confirmed this in other fora, e.g. in Chelsea Manning’s trial. There had been no conspiracy to hack computers, and Chelsea Manning had been acquitted on that charge at court martial. Lastly it was untrue that WikiLeakshad initiated publication of unredacted names of informants, as other media organizations had been responsible for this first.
Again, so far as I can see, while the U.S. allegation of harm to informants is widely reported, the defense’s total refutation on the facts and claim that the fabrication of facts amounts to abuse of process is not much reported at all. Fitzgerald finally referred to U.S. prison conditions, the impossibility of a fair trial in the U.S., and the fact the Trump administration has stated foreign nationals will not receive First Amendment protections, as reasons that extradition must be barred. You can read the whole defense statement, but in my view the strongest passage was on why this is a political prosecution, and thus precluded from extradition.
Quote:
“For the purposes of section 81(a), I next have to deal with the question of how
this politically motivated prosecution satisfies the test of being directed against
Julian Assange because of his political opinions. The essence of his political
opinions which have provoked this prosecution are summarised in the reports
of Professor Feldstein [tab 18], Professor Rogers [tab 40], Professor Noam
Chomsky [tab 39] and Professor Kopelman:-
i. He is a leading proponent of an open society and of freedom of expression.
ii. He is anti-war and anti-imperialism.
iii. He is a world-renowned champion of political transparency and of the
public’s right to access information on issues of importance – issues such
as political corruption, war crimes, torture and the mistreatment of
Guantanamo detainees.
5.4.Those beliefs and those actions inevitably bring him into conflict with powerful
states including the current US administration, for political reasons. Which
explains why he has been denounced as a terrorist and why President Trump
has in the past called for the death penalty.
5.5.But I should add his revelations are far from confined to the wrongdoings of
the US. He has exposed surveillance by Russia; and published exposes of Mr
Assad in Syria; and it is said that WikiLeaks revelations about corruption in
Tunisia and torture in Egypt were the catalyst for the Arab Spring itself.
5.6.The US say he is no journalist. But you will see a full record of his work in
Bundle M. He has been a member of the Australian journalists union since
2009, he is a member of the NUJ and the European Federation of Journalists.
He has won numerous media awards including being honoured with the
highest award for Australian journalists. His work has been recognised by the
Economist, Amnesty International and the Council of Europe. He is the winner
of the Martha Gelhorn prize and has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize, including both last year and this year. You can see from the
materials that he has written books, articles and documentaries. He has had
articles published in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post
and the New Statesman, just to name a few. Some of the very publications for
which his extradition is being sought have been refereed to and relied upon in
Courts throughout the world, including the UK Supreme Court and the
European Court of Human Rights. In short, he has championed the cause of
transparency and freedom of information throughout the world.
5.7.Professor Noam Chomsky puts it like this: – ‘in courageously upholding
political beliefs that most of profess to share he has performed an
enormous service to all those in the world who treasure the values of
freedom and democracy and who therefore demand the right to know
what their elected representatives are doing’ [see tab 39, paragraph 14].
So Julian Assange’s positive impact on the world is undeniable. The hostility
it has provoked from the Trump administration is equally undeniable.
The legal test for ‘political opinions’
5.8.I am sure you are aware of the legal authorities on this issue: namely whether
a request is made because of the defendant’s political opinions. A broad
approach has to be adopted when applying the test. In support of this we rely
on the case of Re Asliturk [2002] EWHC 2326 (abuse authorities, tab 11, at
paras 25 – 26) which clearly establishes that such a wide approach should be
adopted to the concept of political opinions. And that will clearly cover Julian
Assange’s ideological positions. Moreover, we also rely on cases such as
Emilia Gomez v SSHD [2000] INLR 549 at tab 43 of the political offence
authorities bundle. These show that the concept of “political opinions” extends
to the political opinions imputed to the individual citizen by the state which
prosecutes him. For that reason the characterisation of Julian Assange and
WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence agency” by Mr Pompeo makes
clear that he has been targeted for his imputed political opinions. All the
experts whose reports you have show that Julian Assange has been targeted
because of the political position imputed to him by the Trump administration –
as an enemy of America who must be brought down.” 
[b]Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.[/b]
This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.

RE: The Assange Trial - more than meets the eye & ear - Peter Lemkin - 08-03-2020

Great audio interview with eight persons on the Assange Trial! https://covertactionmagazine.com/index.php/2020/03/05/whistleblowers-and-their-warriors-episode-10-of-julian-assange-countdown-to-freedom/

RE: The Assange Trial - more than meets the eye & ear - Peter Lemkin - 09-09-2020

[img=564x0]https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/ef2dee0d-e115-4b39-bf18-969cc052e116.png[/img]
Having reported the long, epic ordeal of Julian Assange, John Pilger gave this address outside the Old Bailey as the political 'trial of the century' got under way.

THE STALINIST TRIAL OF JULIAN ASSANGE.
WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

[img=334x0]https://mcusercontent.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/3d14c53c-91e9-46e2-9677-d27b535f91ec.jpg[/img]
When I first met Julian Assange more than ten years ago, I asked him why he had started WikiLeaks. He replied: "Transparency and accountability are moral issues that must be the essence of public life and journalism."
 
I had never heard a publisher or an editor invoke morality in this way. Assange believes that journalists are the agents of people, not power: that we, the people, have a right to know about the darkest secrets of those who claim to act in our name.
 
If the powerful lie to us, we have the right to know. If they say one thing in private and the opposite in public, we have the right to know. If they conspire against us, as Bush and Blair did over Iraq, then pretend to be democrats, we have the right to know.
 
It is this morality of purpose that so threatens the collusion of powers that want to plunge much of the world into war and wants to bury Julian alive in Trump's fascist America.
 
In 2008, a top secret US State Department report described in detail how the United States would combat this new moral threat. A secretly-directed personal smear campaign against Julian Assange would lead to "exposure [and] criminal prosecution".
 
The aim was to silence and criminalise WikiLeaks and its founder. Page after page revealed a coming war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and democracy.
 
The imperial shock troops would be those who called themselves journalists: the big hitters of the so-called mainstream, especially the "liberals" who mark and patrol the perimeters of dissent.
 
And that is what happened. I have been a reporter for more than 50 years and I have never known a smear campaign like it: the fabricated character assassination of a man who refused to join the club: who believed journalism was a service to the public, never to those above.
 
Assange shamed his persecutors. He produced scoop after scoop. He exposed the fraudulence of wars promoted by the media and the homicidal nature of America's wars, the corruption of dictators, the evils of Guantanamo.
 
He forced us in the West to look in the mirror. He exposed the official truth-tellers in the media as collaborators: those I would call Vichy journalists. None of these imposters believed Assange when he warned that his life was in danger: that the "sex scandal" in Sweden was a set up and an American hellhole was the ultimate destination. And he was right, and repeatedly right.
 
The extradition hearing in London this week is the final act of an Anglo-American campaign to bury Julian Assange. It is not due process. It is due revenge. The American indictment is clearly rigged, a demonstrable sham. So far, the hearings have been reminiscent of their Stalinist equivalents during the Cold War.
 
Today, the land that gave us Magna Carta, Great Britain, is distinguished by the abandonment of its own sovereignty in allowing a malign foreign power to manipulate justice and by the vicious psychological torture of Julian - a form of torture, as Nils Melzer, the UN expert has pointed out, that was refined by the Nazis because it was most effective in breaking its victims.  
 
Every time I have visited Assange in Belmarsh prison, I have seen the effects of this torture. When I last saw him, he had lost more than 10 kilos in weight; his arms had no muscle. Incredibly, his wicked sense of humour was intact.
 
As for Assange's homeland, Australia has displayed only a cringeing cowardice as its government has secretly conspired against its own citizen who ought to be celebrated as a national hero. Not for nothing did George W. Bush anoint the Australian prime minister his "deputy sheriff".
 
It is said that whatever happens to Julian Assange in the next three weeks will diminish if not destroy freedom of the press in the West. But which press? The Guardian? The BBC, The New York Times, the Jeff Bezos Washington Post?
 
No, the journalists in these organisations can breathe freely. The Judases on the Guardian who flirted with Julian, exploited his landmark work, made their pile then betrayed him, have nothing to fear. They are safe because they are needed.
 
Freedom of the press now rests with the honourable few: the exceptions, the dissidents on the internet who belong to no club, who are neither rich nor laden with Pulitzers, but produce fine, disobedient, moral journalism - those like Julian Assange.
 
Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to stand by a true journalist whose sheer courage ought to be inspiration to all of us who still believe that freedom is possible. I salute him.

RE: The Assange Trial - more than meets the eye & ear - Lauren Johnson - 09-09-2020

Craig Murray on Day 6

I went to the Old Bailey today expecting to be awed by the majesty of the law, and left revolted by the sordid administration of injustice.
There is a romance which attaches to the Old Bailey. The name of course means fortified enclosure and it occupies a millennia old footprint on the edge of London’s ancient city wall. It is the site of the medieval Newgate Prison, and formal trials have taken place at the Old Bailey for at least 500 years, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. For the majority of that time, those convicted even of minor offences of theft were taken out and executed in the alleyway outside. It is believed that hundreds, perhaps thousands, lie buried under the pavements.

The hefty Gothic architecture of the current grand building dates back no further than 1905, and round the back and sides of that is wrapped some horrible cheap utility building from the 1930’s. It was through a tunnelled entrance into this portion that five of us, Julian’s nominated family and friends, made our nervous way this morning. We were shown to Court 10 up many stairs that seemed like the back entrance to a particularly unloved works canteen. Tiles were chipped, walls were filthy and flakes of paint hung down from crumbling ceilings. Only the security cameras watching us were new – so new, in fact, that little piles of plaster and brick dust lay under each.

Court 10 appeared to be a fairly bright and open modern box, with pleasant light woodwork, jammed as a mezzanine inside a great vault of the old building. A massive arch intruded incongruously into the space and was obviously damp, sheets of delaminating white paint drooping down from it like flags of forlorn surrender. The dock in which Julian would be held still had a bulletproof glass screen in front, like Belmarsh, but it was not boxed in. There was no top to the screen, no low ceiling, so sound could flow freely over and Julian seemed much more in the court. It also had many more and wider slits than the notorious Belmarsh Box, and Julian was able to communicate quite readily and freely through them with his lawyers, which this time he was not prevented from doing.

Rather to our surprise, nobody else was allowed into the public gallery of court 10 but us five. Others like John Pilger and Kristin Hrafnsson, editor in chief of Wikileaks, were shunted into the adjacent court 9 where a very small number were permitted to squint at a tiny screen, on which the sound was so inaudible John Pilger simply left. Many others who had expected to attend, such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, were simply excluded, as were MPs from the German federal parliament (both the German MPs and Reporters Without Borders at least later got access to the inadequate video following strong representations from the German Embassy).

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.

To finish scene setting, Julian himself looked tidy and well groomed and dressed, and appeared to have regained a little lost weight, but with a definite unhealthy puffiness about his features. In the morning he appeared disengaged and disoriented rather as he had at Belmarsh, but in the afternoon he perked up and was very much engaged with his defence team, interacting as normally as could be expected in these circumstances.

Proceedings started with formalities related to Julian’s release on the old extradition warrant and re-arrest under the new warrant, which had taken place this morning. Defence and prosecution both agreed that the points they had already argued on the ban on extradition for political offences were not affected by the superseding indictment.

Magistrate Baraitser then made a statement about access to the court by remote hearing, by which she meant online. She stated that a number of access details had been sent out by mistake by the court without her agreement. She had therefore revoked their access permissions.
As she spoke, we in the court had no idea what had happened, but outside some consternation was underway in that the online access of Amnesty International, of Reporters without Borders, of John Pilger and of forty others had been shut down. As these people were neither permitted to attend the court nor observe online, this was causing some consternation.

Baraitser went on to say that it was important that the hearing was public, but she should only agree remote access where it was “in the interests of justice”, and having considered it she had decided it was not. She explained this by stating that the public could normally observe from within the courtroom, where she could control their behaviour. But if they had remote access, she could not control their behaviour and this was not in the “interests of justice”.

Baraitser did not expand on what uncontrolled behaviour she anticipated from those viewing via the internet. It is certainly true that an observer from Amnesty sitting at home might be in their underwear, might be humming the complete soundtrack to Mamma Mia, or might fart loudly. Precisely why this would damage “the interests of justice” we are still left to ponder, with no further help from the magistrate. But evidently the interests of justice were, in her view, best served if almost nobody could examine the “justice” too closely.

The next “housekeeping issue” to be addressed was how witnesses should be heard. The defence had called numerous witnesses, and each had lodged a written statement. The prosecution and Baraitser both suggested that, having given their evidence in writing, there was no need for defence witnesses to give that evidence orally in open court. It would be much quicker to go straight to cross-examination by the prosecution.
For the defence, Edward Fitzgerald QC countered that justice should be seen to be done by the public. The public should be able to hear the defence evidence before hearing the cross-examination. It would also enable Julian Assange to hear the evidence summarised, which was important for him to follow the case given his lack of extended access to legal papers while in Belmarsh prison.

Baraitser stated there could not be any need for evidence submitted to her in writing to be repeated orally. For the defence, Mark Summers QC was not prepared to drop it and tension notably rose in the court. Summers stated it was normal practice for there to be “an orderly and rational exposition of the evidence”. For the prosecution, James Lewis QC denied this, saying it was not normal procedure.

Baraitser stated she could not see why witnesses should be scheduled an one hour forty five minutes each, which was too long. Lewis agreed. He also added that the prosecution does not accept that the defence’s expert witnesses are expert witnesses. A Professor of journalism telling about newspaper coverage did not count. An expert witness should only be giving evidence on a technical point the court was otherwise unqualified to consider. Lewis also objected that in giving evidence orally, defence witnesses might state new facts to which the Crown had not had time to react. Baraitser noted that the written defence statements were published online, so they were available to the public.

Edward Fitzgerald QC stood up to speak again, and Baraitser addressed him in a quite extraordinary tone of contempt. What she said exactly was: “I have given you every opportunity. Is there anything else, really, that you want to say”, the word “really” being very heavily emphasised and sarcastic. Fitzgerald refused to be sat down, and he stated that the current case featured “substantial and novel issues going to fundamental questions of human rights.” It was important the evidence was given in public. It also gave the witnesses a chance to emphasise the key points of their evidence and where they placed most weight.

Baraitser called a brief recess while she considered judgement on this issue, and then returned. She found against the defence witnesses giving their evidence in open court, but accepted that each witness should be allowed up to half an hour of being led by the defence lawyers, to enable them to orient themselves and reacquaint with their evidence before cross-examination.

This half hour for each witness represented something of a compromise, in that at least the basic evidence of each defence witness would be heard by the court and the public (insofar as the public was allowed to hear anything). But the idea that a standard half hour guillotine is sensible for all witnesses, whether they are testifying to a single fact or to developments over years, is plainly absurd. What came over most strongly from this question was the desire of both judge and prosecution to railroad through the extradition with as little of the case against it getting a public airing as possible.

As the judge adjourned for a short break we thought these questions had now been addressed and the rest of the day would be calmer. We could not have been more wrong.

The court resumed with a new defence application, led by Mark Summers QC, about the new charges from the US governments new superseding indictment. Summers took the court back over the history of this extradition hearing. The first indictment had been drawn up in March of 2018. In January 2019 a provisional request for extradition had been made, which had been implemented in April of 2019 on Assange’s removal from the Embassy. In June 2019 this was replaced by the full request with a new, second indictment which had been the basis of these proceedings before today. A whole series of hearings had taken place on the basis of that second indictment.

The new superseding indictment dated from 20 June 2020. In February and May 2020 the US government had allowed hearings to go ahead on the basis of the second indictment, giving no warning, even though they must by that stage have known the new superseding indictment was coming. They had given neither explanation nor apology for this.

The defence had not been properly informed of the superseding indictment, and indeed had learnt of its existence only through a US government press release on 20 June. It had not finally been officially served in these proceedings until 29 July, just six weeks ago. At first, it had not been clear how the superseding indictment would affect the charges, as the US government was briefing it made no difference but just gave additional detail. But on 21 August 2020, not before, it finally became clear in new US government submissions that the charges themselves had been changed.

There were now new charges that were standalone and did not depend on the earlier allegations. Even if the 18 Manning related charges were rejected, these new allegations could still form grounds for extradition. These new allegations included encouraging the stealing of data from a bank and from the government of Iceland, passing information on tracking police vehicles, and hacking the computers both of individuals and of a security company.

“How much of this newly alleged material is criminal is anybody’s guess”, stated Summers, going on to explain that it was not at all clear that an Australian giving advice from outwith Iceland to someone in Iceland on how to crack a code, was actually criminal if it occurred in the UK. This was even without considering the test of dual criminality in the US also, which had to be passed before the conduct was subject to extradition.

It was unthinkable that allegations of this magnitude would be the subject of a Part 2 extradition hearing within six weeks if they were submitted as a new case. Plainly that did not give the defence time to prepare, or to line up witnesses to these new charges. Among the issues relating to these new charges the defence would wish to address, were that some were not criminal, some were out of time limitation, some had already been charged in other fora (including Southwark Crown Court and courts in the USA).

There were also important questions to be asked about the origins of some of these charges and the dubious nature of the witnesses. In particular the witness identified as “teenager” was the same person identified as “Iceland 1” in the previous indictment. That indictment had contained a “health warning” over this witness given by the US Department of Justice. This new indictment removed that warning. But the fact was, this witness is Sigurdur Thordarson, who had been convicted in Iceland in relation to these events of fraud, theft, stealing Wikileaks money and material and impersonating Julian Assange.

The indictment did not state that the FBI had been “kicked out of Iceland for trying to use Thordarson to frame Assange”, stated Summers baldly.

Summers said all these matters should be ventilated in these hearings if the new charges were to be heard, but the defence simply did not have time to prepare its answers or its witnesses in the brief six weeks it had since receiving them, even setting aside the extreme problems of contact with Assange in the conditions in which he was being held in Belmarsh prison.

The defence would plainly need time to prepare answers to these new charges, but it would plainly be unfair to keep Assange in jail for the months that would take. The defence therefore suggested that these new charges should be excised from the conduct to be considered by the court, and they should go ahead with the evidence on criminal behaviour confined to what conduct had previously been alleged.
Summers argued it was “entirely unfair” to add what were in law new and separate criminal allegations, at short notice and “entirely without warning and not giving the defence time to respond to it. What is happening here is abnormal, unfair and liable to create real injustice if allowed to continue.”

The arguments submitted by the prosecution now rested on these brand new allegations. For example, the prosecution now countered the arguments on the rights of whistleblowers and the necessity of revealing war crimes by stating that there can have been no such necessity to hack into a bank in Iceland.

Summers concluded that the “case should be confined to that conduct which the American government had seen fit to allege in the eighteen months of the case” before their second new indictment.

Replying to Summers for the prosecution, Joel Smith QC replied that the judge was obliged by the statute to consider the new charges and could not excise them. “If there is nothing proper about the restitution of a new extradition request after a failed request, there is nothing improper in a superseding indictment before the first request had failed.” Under the Extradition Act the court must decide only if the offence is an extraditable offence and the conduct alleged meets the dual criminality test. The court has no other role and no jurisdiction to excise part of the request.

Smith stated that all the authorities (precedents) were of charges being excised from a case to allow extradition to go ahead on the basis of the remaining sound charges, and those charges which had been excised were only on the basis of double jeopardy. There was no example of charges being excised to prevent an extradition. And the decision to excise charges had only ever been taken after the conduct alleged had been examined by the court. There was no example of alleged conduct not being considered by the court. The defendant could seek extra time if needed but the new allegations must be examined.

Summers replied that Smith was “wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong”. “We are not saying that you can never submit a new indictment, but you cannot do it six weeks before the substantive hearing.” The impact of what Smith had said amounted to no more than “Ha ha this is what we are doing and you can’t stop us.” A substantive last minute change had been made with no explanation and no apology. It could not be the case, as Smith alleged, that a power existed to excise charges in fairness to the prosecution, but no power existed to excise charges in fairness to the defence.

Immediately Summers sat down, Baraitser gave her judgement on this point. As so often in this hearing, it was a pre-written judgement. She read it from a laptop she had brought into the courtroom with her, and she had made no alterations to that document as Summers and Smith had argued the case in front of her.

Baraitser stated that she had been asked as a preliminary move to excise from the case certain conduct alleged. Mr Summers had described the receipt of new allegations as extraordinary. However “I offered the defence the opportunity to adjourn the case” to give them time to prepare against the new allegations. “I considered of course that Mr Assange was in custody. I hear that Mr Summers believes this is fundamental unfairness”. But “the argument that we haven’t got the time, should be remedied by asking for the time.”

Mr Summers had raised issues of dual criminality and abuse of process; there was nothing preventing him for raising these arguments in the context of considering the request as now presented.

Baraitser simply ignored the argument that while there was indeed “nothing to prevent” the defence from answering the new allegations as each was considered, they had been given no time adequately to prepare. Having read out her pre-prepared judgement to proceed on the basis of the new superseding indictment, Baraitser adjourned the court for lunch.

At the end of the day I had the opportunity to speak to an extremely distinguished and well-known lawyer on the subject of Baraitser bringing pre-written judgements into court, prepared before she had heard the lawyers argue the case before her. I understood she already had seen the outline written arguments, but surely this was wrong. What was the point in the lawyers arguing for hours if the judgement was pre-written? What I really wanted to know was how far this was normal practice.

The lawyer replied to me that it absolutely was not normal practice, it was totally outrageous. In a long and distinguished career, this lawyer had very occasionally seen it done, even in the High Court, but there was always some effort to disguise the fact, perhaps by inserting some reference to points made orally in the courtroom. Baraitser was just blatant. The question was, of course, whether it was her own pre-written judgement she was reading out, or something she had been given from on high.

This was a pretty shocking morning. The guillotining of defence witnesses to hustle the case through, indeed the attempt to ensure their evidence was not spoken in court except those parts which the prosecution saw fit to attack in cross-examination, had been breathtaking. The effort by the defence to excise the last minute superseding indictment had been a fundamental point disposed of summarily. Yet again, Baraitser’s demeanour and very language made little attempt to disguise a hostility to the defence.

We were for the second time in the day in a break thinking that events must now calm down and get less dramatic. Again we were wrong.
Court resumed forty minutes late after lunch as various procedural wrangles were addressed behind closed doors. As the court resumed, Mark Summers for the defence stood up with a bombshell.

Summers said that the defence “recognised” the judgement Baraitser had just made – a very careful choice of word, as opposed to “respected” which might seem more natural. As she had ruled that the remedy to lack of time was more time, the defence was applying for an adjournment to enable them to prepare the answers to the new charges. They did not do this lightly, as Mr Assange would continue in prison in very difficult conditions during the adjournment.

Summers said the defence was simply not in a position to gather the evidence to respond to the new charges in a few short weeks, a situation made even worse by Covid restrictions. It was true that on 14 August Baraitser had offered an adjournment and on 21 August they had refused the offer. But in that period of time, Mr Assange had not had access to the new charges and they had not fully realised the extent to which these were a standalone new case. To this date, Assange had still not received the new prosecution Opening Note in prison, which was a crucial document in setting out the significance of the new charges.

Baraitser pointedly asked whether the defence could speak to Assange in prison by telephone. Summers replied yes, but these were extremely short conversations. They could not phone Mr Assange; he could only call out very briefly on the prison payphone to somebody’s mobile, and the rest of the team would have to try to gather round to listen. It was not possible in these very brief discussions adequately to expound complex material. Between 14 and 21 August they had been able to have only two such very short phone calls. The defence could only send documents to Mr Assange through the post to the prison; he was not always given them, or allowed to keep them.

Baraitser asked how long an adjournment was being requested. Summers replied until January.

For the US government, James Lewis QC replied that more scrutiny was needed of this request. The new matters in the indictment were purely criminal. They do not affect the arguments about the political nature of the case, or affect most of the witnesses. If more time were granted, “with the history of this case, we will just be presented with a sleigh of other material which will have no bearing on the small expansion of count 2”.

Baraitser adjourned the court “for ten minutes” while she went out to consider her judgement. In fact she took much longer. When she returned she looked peculiarly strained.

Baraitser ruled that on 14 August she had given the defence the opportunity to apply for an adjournment, and given them seven days to decide. On 21 August the defence had replied they did not want an adjournment. They had not replied that they had insufficient time to consider. Even today the defence had not applied to adjourn but rather had applied to excise charges. They “cannot have been surprised by my decision” against that application. Therefore they must have been prepared to proceed with the hearing. Their objections were not based on new circumstance. The conditions of Assange in Belmarsh had not changed since 21 August. They had therefore missed their chance and the motion to adjourn was refused.

The courtroom atmosphere was now highly charged. Having in the morning refused to cut out the superseding indictment on the grounds that the remedy for lack of time should be more time, Baraitser was now refusing to give more time. The defence had called her bluff; the state had apparently been confident that the effective solitary confinement in Belmarsh was so terrible that Assange would not request more time. I rather suspect that Julian was himself bluffing, and made the call at lunchtime to request more time in the full expectation that it would be refused, and the rank hypocrisy of the proceedings exposed.

I previously blogged about how the procedural trickery of the superseding indictment being used to replace the failing second indictment – as Smith said for the prosecution “before it failed” – was something that sickened the soul. Today in the courtroom you could smell the sulphur.
Well, yet again we were left with the feeling that matters must now get less exciting. This time we were right and they became instead excruciatingly banal. We finally moved on to the first witness, Professor Mark Feldstein, giving evidence to the court by videolink for the USA. It was not Professor Feldstein’s fault the day finished in confused anti-climax. The court was unable to make the video technology work. For ten broken minutes out of about forty Feldstein was briefly able to give evidence, and even this was completely unsatisfactory as he and Mark Summers were repeatedly speaking over each other on the link.

Professor Feldstein’s evidence will resume tomorrow (now in fact today) and I think rather than split it I shall give the full account then. Meantime you can see these excellent summaries from Kevin Gosztola or the morning and afternoon reports from James Doleman. In fact, I should be grateful if you did, so you can see that I am neither inventing nor exaggerating the facts of these startling events.

If you asked me to sum up today in a word, that word would undoubtedly be “railroaded”. it was all about pushing through the hearing as quickly as possible and with as little public exposure as possible to what is happening. Access denied, adjournment denied, exposition of defence evidence denied, removal of superseding indictment charges denied. The prosecution was plainly failing in that week back in Woolwich in February, which seems like an age ago. It has now been given a new boost.

How the defence will deal with the new charges we shall see. It seems impossible that they can do this without calling new witnesses to address the new facts. But the witness lists had already been finalised on the basis of the old charges. That the defence should be forced to proceed with the wrong witnesses seems crazy, but frankly, I am well past being surprised by anything in this fake process.


https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-the-assange-hearing-day-6/

RE: The Assange Trial - more than meets the eye & ear - Lauren Johnson - 10-09-2020

Excellent source: https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1303616216196509698

RE: The Assange Trial - maybe nearing the end.... - Peter Lemkin - 04-07-2021

FBI collusion with discredited witness may undermine entire Assange extradition case
[Image: Julian-Assange-1.jpg]


A star prosecution witness in the US extradition case brought against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has admitted he lied in his testimony to US authorities. But there’s another dimension too, as previously leaked emails clearly show that the witness was groomed by the FBI.
Altogether, this may provide an opportunity for a legal challenge to the prosecution’s case.
Lied
Stundin exclusively published details of how the witness, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, lied to US authorities.
WikiLeaks tweeted that the fabrication of evidence was in exchange for a deal with the FBI:

Quote:BREAKING: Lead witness in US case against Julian Assange admits to fabricating evidence against him in exchange for a deal with the FBI #Assange https://t.co/kZxsTi62q0
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 26, 2021

Icelandic MP and WikiLeaks volunteer Birgitta Jonsdottir said she was suspicious about Thordarson from the beginning:
Quote:I warned Julian from day one, there’s something not right about this guy… I asked not to have him as part of the Collateral Murder team
As reported by The Canary, Thordarson is a convicted felon in relation to several offences, including paedophilia. He pleaded guilty to these offences. Also, in December 2014, Thordarson was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison on 18 charges of embezzlement, theft, and fraud.
Groomed
These two extracts from emails understood to be between Thordarson and FBI agents provide an insight into their relationship:
[Image: FBI-1-720x301.jpg]
[Image: FBI2-1-720x212.jpg]
But as Wired pointed out, Thordarson was not just groomed by email. Rather, “The FBI flew [Thordarson] internationally four times for debriefings, including one trip to Washington D.C.”. And as part of their ongoing communications with Thordarson, the FBI paid him $5k.
Forewarned
In June 2019, WikiLeaks published a press statement claiming the US department of justice (DoJ) would be using Thordarson in its prosecution case as part of an “FBI entrapment operation”:

Quote:Press Release: DoJ preparing to file additional indictment against Assange.
The Trump´s DoJ is so desperate to build its case against Assange that it is using as star witness a sociopath, convicted conman and sex criminal, involved in an FBI entrapment operation against WikiLeaks pic.twitter.com/DX0hIDSJRr
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 7, 2019

Significantly, the press release added:
Quote:While the case would collapse in the U.S. due to the prosecution’s reliance on testimony by Thordarson and [Hector] Monsegur, who are not credible witnesses, the United States can conceal their witnesses’ identities during UK extradition proceedings in order to boost their chances of winning.
And this reflects to some extent what happened in the superseding indictment, with Thordarson referred to as “Teenager” and Monsegur as his nickname “Sabu”.
Legal challenge?
Under English law, where a law enforcement agency is shown to have directly fabricated or colluded in the fabrication of evidence, there are grounds to seek dismissal of convictions or the prosecution case.
A famous example of this was the Guildford Four case. Alastair Logan, one of the solicitors who represented the defendants, summed up:
Quote:The case against the Guildford Four involved massive failure to disclose evidence, the disappearance of material evidence, perjury, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perversion of the course of justice, forgery, criminal behaviour towards people in detention, withholding and concealment of the alibi evidence in relation to Gerard Conlon [one of the four], witness tampering, concealment of evidence, misuse of the powers under the Prevention of Terrorism Act to intimidate alibi witnesses and destroy their credibility, threatening and interfering with witnesses, fabrication of evidence and conspiracy.
In 1989 at the Old Bailey, police evidence against the Guildford Four was shown to have been fabricated. Consequently, the Guildford Four had their convictions quashed and were freed.
The end?
As for Thordarson’s alleged admissions, they may provide a further opportunity for the defence to challenge the veracity of the prosecution case as a whole.
Indeed, barrister Greg Barns SC, adviser to the Australian Assange campaign, told The Canary:
Quote:The admission by a key witness that he was not a witness of the truth is a blow to the extradition case. No doubt US department of justice lawyers will have to assess if there is a case at all which can be brought against Assange. More broadly this development points again to the fact that the Assange case is pure politics.
Moreover, on hearing of the alleged admissions by Thordarson, exiled NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden tweeted:

Quote:This is the end of the case against Julian Assange. https://t.co/bhFCfVBuq0
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) June 26, 2021

There are many other alleged flaws and errors in the US case, as well as UK procedural irregularities.
Meanwhile, Assange continues to be held in arbitrary detention, a practice condemned by UN rapporteur Nils Melzer. This farce must end.

RE: The Assange Trial - more than meets the eye & ear - Peter Lemkin - 11-12-2021

With its decision to extradite Julian Assange to the United States, Britain’s High Court wasted a precious opportunity to save what is left of the honour of Britain’s courts after so many years of their complicity in the slow murder of a man whose only crime was to reveal our governments’ crimes against humanity – on Human Rights Day, of all days.
From today, no free-thinking person, no conscientious journalist can sleep – let alone work – safely or easily.
From today, the United States shadowy security apparatus has been granted by Britain High Court the legal right to kidnap anyone, from any part of the world, dares expose their ugliest deeds – indeed, their crimes against humanity.
DiEM25 and the Progressive International declare that we are not going to take this verdict lying down. We shall take the campaign to save Julian Assange, to free him at long last, onto American soil, while also running parallel campaigns all over the world.
The struggle for free speech and journalism continues.
The struggle to save Julian continues.

RE: The Assange Trial - more than meets the eye & ear - Peter Lemkin - 11-12-2021

Assange's most vocal and visible supporters are even 'fair-game' for the UK-USA intelligence gangsters

Craig Murray joins Julian Assange behind bars
Laura Tiernan

3 August 2021
[*]
[*]
Former British diplomat and whistleblower Craig Murray has begun serving an eight-month prison sentence in Scotland over his supposed “jigsaw identification” of witnesses in a failed sexual assault case against former Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond.
Murray’s jailing for contempt of court is a settling of scores over his long record of exposing the crimes of British and US imperialism.
He surrendered himself to St Leonard’s police station in Edinburgh Sunday. Surrounded by supporters, the 62-year-old, whose pleas for mitigation on health grounds were rejected by courts in Scotland and England, embraced his wife Nadira and their two young children.
Since 2002, Murray has earned the enmity of the British state, its intelligence services, judiciary and media over his exposure of human rights abuses by the imperialist powers extending from Central Asia to London’s Belmarsh Prison.
As British Ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2002, Murray exposed British and US complicity in torture as part of the “war on terror.” One year after the US invasion of Afghanistan, he blew the whistle on the widespread use of torture by the US-backed regime of Islam Karimov, including “rape with objects such as broken bottles; asphyxiation; pulling out of fingernails; smashing of limbs with blunt objects; and use of boiling liquids including complete immersion of the body.”
Murray’s exposé cut across long-term strategic plans set in motion after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Within weeks of 9/11, Karimov allowed the US to establish a military base in southern Uzbekistan, with the US funnelling $79 million to Uzbekistan’s security forces. Torture was used to extract false confessions, with information fed to British and US intelligence, and used to justify the invasion and military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2018, Murray used his knowledge of the intelligence services to expose British imperialism’s efforts to utilise the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia to ramp up hostilities against Russia, skewering their lurid claims that Moscow had manufactured and deployed “Novichoks” on British soil.
[Image: 99b90c24-76d4-4a9a-899c-32a84ff396d1?ren...=image1280]
Left, Craig Murray and his family outside St Leonard's police station Edinburgh on the day of his incarceration for contempt of court. (Wikimedia Commons). Right, Julian Assange
But it was in 2019 that Murray came to worldwide prominence for his eloquent defence of persecuted WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange. After Assange was seized from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London by a police snatch-squad in April and indicted under the Espionage Act for his exposure of US war crimes, Murray’s defence of his friend was unrelenting. His daily reports during extradition hearings in February and September 2020 won an audience of millions, cutting through the lies, filth and hypocrisy of British judicial proceedings overseen by the CIA.
In 2020, Murray’s exposure of #MeToo-style court proceedings against Salmond provided the ruling class with its opportunity to silence him. The former SNP leader was charged with rape and sexual assault in 2019 based on allegations passed to police by the Scottish government. Murray later reported “with a high degree of certainty” that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Chief of Staff, Liz Lloyd, was behind reports in the Scottish press in 2018 alleging sexual assault by Salmond.
Despite a massive police operation to encourage women to testify against Salmond, including some 400 police interviews, the jury exonerated him. Witnesses made claims that were impossible to verify, were frequently implausible and were sometimes disproven in court. But while Salmond was proven innocent, Murray was charged with contempt over his supposed “jigsaw identification” of witnesses—a claim that he has comprehensively refuted.
Murray’s jailing is a further milestone in the collapse of democracy. Lady Leeona Dorrian, who presided over the Salmond trial and later sentenced Murray, is leading efforts to abolish jury trials in sexual assault cases. As Murray wrote Sunday, “We will then have a situation where, as established by my imprisonment, no information at all on the defence case may be published in case it contributes to ‘jigsaw identification’, and where conviction will rest purely on the view of the judge…
“The right to have the facts judged in serious crime allegations by a jury of our peers is a glory of our civilisation. It is the product of millennia, not lightly to be thrown away and replaced by a huge increase in arbitrary state power. That movement is of course fuelled by current fashionable political dogma which is that the victim must always be believed. That claim has morphed from an initial meaning that police and first responders must take accusations seriously, to a dogma that accusation is proof and it is wrong to even question the evidence, which is of course to deny the very possibility of false accusation.”
Like Assange, who was targeted via state manufactured sexual assault allegations in Sweden, Murray is a victim of the state’s utilisation of gender politics to suppress fundamental democratic rights, aimed above all at silencing those who expose the crimes of imperialism.
The sentencing of Murray has set a dangerous precedent above all in its singling out of independent media. The judges’ June 8 High Court ruling insisted, “it is relevant to distinguish his [Murray’s] position from that of the mainstream press, which is regulated, and subject to codes of practice and ethics in a way in which those writing as the applicant does are not.”
This is sickening hypocrisy. What “codes of practice” and “ethics” were the mainstream press exhibiting when they recycled state propaganda about Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction”—lies used to illegally invade, occupy and destroy an oppressed country leading to 1 million dead?
Murray’s imprisonment extends the precedent set by Assange’s indictment under the Espionage Act. Amid a pandemic that has triggered an historic breakdown of the world capitalist order, the ruling class fears the eruption of mass working class opposition to malignant social inequality, austerity, police violence and authoritarianism, and the escalating drive to war.
In 2010, WikiLeaks’ exposures of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture, rendition and state corruption sparked mass movements of the working class and oppressed in Tunisia that led to the Arab Spring. The ruling class responded by designating Assange a “high-tech terrorist,” in the words of Joe Biden, with former CIA Director Leon Panetta telling German public broadcaster ARD that Assange was being targeted to “send a message to others not to do the same thing.”
Last Thursday, Murray issued a press statement that was ignored by the mainstream media, “I believe this is actually the state’s long sought revenge for my whistleblowing on security service collusion with torture and my long-term collaboration with Wikileaks and other whistleblowers. Unfortunately important free speech issues are collateral damage.”
In January 2018, the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site [url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/01/23/pers-j23.html]issued a call for an international movement to fight internet censorship. Describing efforts by Google, Facebook and Twitter to suppress access to socialist and anti-war news sites throughout the world, the WSWS warned, “the technological scaffolding of a 21st century capitalist police state is being erected.”
The WSWS has itself been a central target of corporate censorship, through Google’s deliberate suppression of search results via algorithms and an army of censors. Of the 150 top Google search terms generating traffic to the WSWS prior to April 2017, by the summer of that year 145 no longer produced even a single search result for our website. These restrictions, coordinated by state intelligence agencies in the US and Europe, have tightened further, with the ICFI’s German section, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), designated an extremist organisation by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) in 2018.
The WSWS has insisted that the defence of democratic rights must be waged by the working class against the capitalist state and independently of all of its political defenders. We urge workers and youth throughout the world to raise the demand for the immediate release of Murray and Assange as the spearhead of the struggle against imperialist war and authoritarianism.