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Assange in Court

craigmurray.org.uk

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Re: Assange in Court

#121

Post by whamlastxmas »

FireBeyond wrote: post #98
roenxi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems that if he is found guilty, nobody will accept that. It depends what they find him guilty of and what the sentence is. It is unacceptable to have someone on trial for openly telling the truth about what a foreign country is doing. He went into the Ecuadorian embassy saying that the Swedish case against him was basically trumped up and that he was going to be extradited to the United States. His justificati…

> The US is reaching out and nabbing him on the flimsiest of pretexts; more a process crime than doing anything material. Allegedly actively assisting a US military member to a) crack other military passwords, and b) work with them on covering said attempts is a mere "flimsy pretext, [not] material"?

Telling someone to Google a publicly available tool is hardly assisting in any criminal way

Re: Assange in Court

#122

Post by whamlastxmas »

vintermann wrote: post #82
LandR wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt most people care. Outside of a few friends, I doubt most people I know know that this is 1) going on and 2) who Assange even is.

It's ten years since he was arrested (just weeks after the Cablegate release - but they'll have you believe that was a complete coincidence). Kids who were 8 years old at the time can vote now. It makes you wonder what the world would have looked like, had Wikileaks not been shattered. It's not just Assange. Arjen Kamphuis disappeared without a trace on a trip in Norway. Ola Bini is jail in Ecuador. Aaron Swartz and…

Chelsea Manning is in jail yet again because they're forcing her to testify again and she's refusing

Re: Assange in Court

#123

Post by roenxi »

isostatic wrote: post #80
mrkeen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author here is painting the UK as rolling over and doing whatever the US says, rather than applying proper justice. This is why people were skeptical of the Sweden charges. It was commonly believed that the point of those charges (whether they were true or not) was to get Assange to Sweden, at which point Sweden could roll over, do the US's bidding and extradite him to the US.

> It was commonly believed that the point of those charges (whether they were true or not) was to get Assange to Sweden, at which point Sweden could roll over, do the US's bidding and extradite him to the US. Which was always ridiculous, as it was based on the idea that Sweden would be more willing to extradite than the UK, a ridiculous notion.

Sweden is one of a number of nations who have cooperated with US Extraordinary Renditions in the past [0] and also has an extradition treaty with the United States. The extradition request probably has a similar chance of success in both countries.

It is a notion that can be very reasonably entertained; especially since there are a very limited number of Swedish lawyers on HN who can interpret the extradition treaty. Sweden could easily fold like an origami under US pressure regardless of the law too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Sweden

Re: Assange in Court

#124

Post by matthewheath »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #90
marcus_holmes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further complicated by diplomatic immunity in this case. If it was just an extradition case the US would probably be more willing to play ball.

Of course, she never had diplomatic immunity - her husband works for the NSA, and was not on the official list of diplomats (those whose credentials are presented and accepted at the Court of St James).

You don't need to be on the official list to acquire diplomatic immunity (that would be an easy way for foreign regimes to deny diplomatic immunity). There are chefs, drivers, etc. who have diplomatic immunity but are not on the official list (because that would unreasonably lengthen it).

Additionally, the RAF base her husband was stationed at is legally considered an annex of the US Embassy in London, so arguably she did have diplomatic immunity at that point in time.

She has since returned to the US which means diplomatic immunity no longer applies to her, but as far as I can see, she was covered by immunity at the time of the incident.

Re: Assange in Court

#125

Post by matthewheath »

skratchpixels wrote: post #117
antihero wrote: post #18

Bear in mind that with Lauri Love, while the case was lost in 2016 and a judge ruled that he could be extradited, it then went to the high court and was overturned two years later.

Lauri Love is a British national while Assange is a Australian national. Would the nationality of the defendant have an impact on the Westminster Magistrates' Court's decision?

In theory, no. Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. The nationality of the subject isn't a factor that would have a particular bearing either way. The courts are supposed to look at where it makes sense to try the crime, rather than the nationality of the offender.

In this case, most of the evidence is presumably in the United States so it doesn't make sense for the trial to happen in the United Kingdom, assuming the United Kingdom has the relevant offence too (I haven't looked it up, but I presume it would be breaching the Official Secrets Act or something along those lines).

Obviously, it is more persuasive to have a British national tried at home (especially with comparative legal systems, e.g. the offence exists in both countries) rather than a foreign judicial system. The same cannot be said for a foreign national, especially if the foreign prosecuting authority will have a much stronger case built up than a domestic prosecuting authority could achieve.

Re: Assange in Court

#126

Post by deelowe »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #107
peltier wrote: post #86

Following the WikiLeaks story from its early days until today leave me incredibly demoralized and to be frank, angry. If I where to list the amount of injustices WikiLeaks and those who have associated with them have suffered, I would sit here all night, and I strongly suspect that is by intelligent design. This story, if the end of it is as it seems, it will mark a shift in the perceived ideals of the "free world".

It further erodes any case 'the West' has to argue against the behaviour of China. And that is a sad indictment on the path the 'victors' of WWII have followed. (Edited to add: if the account given in the article is relatively accurate)

> It further erodes any case 'the West' has to argue against the behaviour of China.

Can we just stop with this? Bringing this up distracts from the issue at hand, which has nothing to do with China or 'The West's' opinions of it. Regardless, is it not quite clear at this point that the issue is the elite of the world and not one specific nation?

Re: Assange in Court

#127

Post by matthewheath »

thepete2 wrote: post #99

Can someone explain to me why there is apparently no footage of this? Aren't court hearings supposed to be public or was filming simply not allowed?

It is illegal to record proceedings in a court within the UK under S41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 (no photography or drawings) and S9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (no sound recordings or public playing of recordings).

Courts may choose to televise their own proceedings (for example, the Supreme Court in the UK televises its hearings) but they are not obliged to. This happens under S32 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

The hearing was public (most court hearings are public): you could go and sit in the public gallery if you so wished (space permitting), but you are not allowed to film or record the proceedings without the permission of the court.

Re: Assange in Court

#128

Post by ur-whale »

newnewpdro wrote: post #39
henearkr wrote: post #6

How is it possible there is not yet a huge mob gathering near the court and threatening to burn everything. Because, this is literally revolting. How many people support that? And how many people are disgusted by that? Would nobody regret doing nothing?

Most people don't even know the difference between Snowden and Assange, if they recognize the names at all.

You are correct. And it's the downside of living in an hyper-connected world: there is so much going on that the vast majority of people are numb to everything happening in the world, important or not unless it affects them directly (and I don't count in that "directly" things that will affect them 5 years down the road)

Re: Assange in Court

#129

Post by ur-whale »

matthewheath wrote: post #127
thepete2 wrote: post #99

Can someone explain to me why there is apparently no footage of this? Aren't court hearings supposed to be public or was filming simply not allowed?

It is illegal to record proceedings in a court within the UK under S41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 (no photography or drawings) and S9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (no sound recordings or public playing of recordings). Courts may choose to televise their own proceedings (for example, the Supreme Court in the UK televises its hearings) but they are not obliged to. This happens under S32 of the Crime and Cour…

Wow. I didn't know that. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I thought England self-styled itself a "democracy", but it looks like putting together kangaroo courts is ridiculously easy over there.

Re: Assange in Court

#130

Post by Darvon »

pjc50 wrote: post #37
chippy wrote: post #9

"The charge against Julian is very specific; conspiring with Chelsea Manning to publish the Iraq War logs, the Afghanistan war logs and the State Department cables. The charges are nothing to do with Sweden, nothing to do with sex, and nothing to do with the 2016 US election" I'd like to call out the popular and prolific users of hacker news who previously were all about Sweden, sex and election interference and who…

The Swedish case was a separate issue; he hid in the embassy until the clock ran out on that. It's difficult to say how differently things would have gone if he'd simply gone to Sweden, but I would have expected them to be less likely to re-extradite than the UK. It's perfectly possible for the US to be overreaching in its "national security" prosecutions and also for Assange to have sexually assaulted someone in Swe…

“Please do not think that the case is being dealt with as just another extradition request,” wrote a lawyer for the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in 2011, without explaining why, or why the CPS would spent the next few years arguing against their Swedish colleagues questioning Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in order to resolve the matter. In 2013, when Swedish prosecutors proposed to drop extradition proceedings against Assange, it was the CPS who persuaded them to continue.

In 2017, having finally questioned Assange after refusing to do so for more than six years, the Swedish authorities dropped the investigation altogether. Both the accusers and the accused were denied any chance of justice through the incomprehensible delaying tactics of the prosecutors in both countries.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2018/07/25/wikileaks-political-ror... Author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ludlam

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