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Craig Murray of Information Clearing House writes about his observation at Westminster Magistrates Court:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52433.htm
Before I get on to the blatant lack of fair process, the first thing I must note was Julian's condition. I was badly shocked by just how much weight my friend has lost, by the speed his hair has receded and by the appearance of premature and vastly accelerated ageing. He has a pronounced limp I have never seen before. Since his arrest he has lost over 15 kg in weight.
But his physical appearance was not as shocking as his mental deterioration. When asked to give his name and date of birth, he struggled visibly over several seconds to recall both. I will come to the important content of his statement at the end of proceedings in due course, but his difficulty in making it was very evident; it was a real struggle for him to articulate the words and focus his train of thought.
Until yesterday I had always been quietly sceptical of those who claimed that Julian's treatment amounted to torture – even of Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture – and sceptical of those who suggested he may be subject to debilitating drug treatments. But having attended the trials in Uzbekistan of several victims of extreme torture, and having worked with survivors from Sierra Leone and elsewhere, I can tell you that yesterday changed my mind entirely and Julian exhibited exactly the symptoms of a torture victim brought blinking into the light, particularly in terms of disorientation, confusion, and the real struggle to assert free will through the fog of learned helplessness.
I had been even more sceptical of those who claimed, as a senior member of his legal team did to me on Sunday night, that they were worried that Julian might not live to the end of the extradition process. I now find myself not only believing it, but haunted by the thought. Everybody in that court yesterday saw that one of the greatest journalists and most important dissidents of our times is being tortured to death by the state, before our eyes. To see my friend, the most articulate man, the fastest thinker, I have ever known, reduced to that shambling and incoherent wreck, was unbearable. Yet the agents of the state, particularly the callous magistrate Vanessa Baraitser, were not just prepared but eager to be a part of this bloodsport. She actually told him that if he were incapable of following proceedings, then his lawyers could explain what had happened to him later. The question of why a man who, by the very charges against him, was acknowledged to be highly intelligent and competent, had been reduced by the state to somebody incapable of following court proceedings, gave her not a millisecond of concern.
Now tell me some fine arguments justifying the legality and justness of such person destruction methodics, I wish to hear them.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @10:44PM (10 children)
He wouldn't be in gaol right now.
In fact, had he not done so, even *if* (and that's a big 'if') he'd been convicted in a US court [cornell.edu], he'd likely have completed his sentence and been released from prison years ago.
Whether you support the work of Wikileaks (I do) or not, Assange wasted all those years in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Had he not violated *British* law (not US law. He's in gaol right now for violating *UK law* -- jumping bail), he could have been fucking Swedish girls bareback (note I did not say 'rape') all day, every day for the last five years or so.
Just sayin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @11:07PM
He was acting in self defense.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. Wikileaks never did help prevent the election of fascists around the world. May as well turn off the lights
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday October 28 2019, @11:16PM (3 children)
Osama bin Laden used to be friends of the US government, but when it was convenient he became enemy #1 and he was 'eliminated'.
Can you not see the same or worse happening to Assange? Or Snowden?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @07:04PM (2 children)
Nope. I can't. Assange is *accused* of violating the CFAA [wikipedia.org], a civilian US law. The additional charge of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 [wikipedia.org] is absurd on its face, especially since no journalist has *ever* been prosecuted under that law. Every single conviction has been of US government officials and foreign intelligence agents.
bin Laden was classified as an "enemy combatant." Whatever you may think of such a classification (I find it to be reprehensible), different rules apply.
Assange, whether it was ten years ago or next year, will be tried in a US Article III court [wikipedia.org] and will be subject to incarceration and fines based on the CFAA [wikipedia.org] which specifies fairly stiff (for individuals, at least) fines and jail terms of *up to* 5-10 years (5 years max for a first infraction is baked into the law).
What's more, the idea that the US would effect a drone (or cruise missile) attack on on a UK prison [wikipedia.org] is laughable at best. Even more, once Assange completes his 50 week sentence for bail-jumping, he will most likely be transported to the US by US Marshals [wikipedia.org] and held pending trial at a Federal detention facility [wikipedia.org].
Assange will have his day in court, just as he would have before he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy.
If you want to engage in ridiculous conspiracy theories, go right ahead. But that doesn't make you right. I guess we'll just have to see, won't we?
I suspect that once Assange is serving his 2-5 year sentence, you'll make some other ridiculous statement. You go, girlfriend!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 29 2019, @08:29PM (1 child)
So, you can't see the American government poisoning him?
You can't fathom the idea that they may eliminate him somehow?
You can't have any thought that they may try to kill him?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-history-kill-leaders-around-the-world-north-korea [theguardian.com]
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/US/Assassinations_since_1945 [wikispooks.com]
You seem to have a very tiny mind. You should read more and open your mind to other ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden [wikipedia.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @08:48PM
Like I said, you go girlfriend!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 28 2019, @11:52PM (3 children)
I can understand him jumping bail. I can't understand him holing up within the UK. Were I in his position, I'd have been hauling ass to the continent, and to points beyond the EU. Of course, I can't discount the possibility that he had similar plans that fell apart, and he landed in the embassy instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:07AM (1 child)
At least it wasn't the Saudi Embassy.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:21AM
That would have been headless of him ....
(Score: 3, Informative) by johaquila on Tuesday October 29 2019, @08:58AM
The Ecuadorian embassy was under heavy police surveillance 24 hours/day. Even if he had managed to leave it without being arrested at once, due to the electronic surveillance inside (and the complicity of the Spanish company hired to guard the embassy), this would have been found out almost immediately and he would have had next to no chance to leave the UK.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:24AM
When Assange jumped bail:
- Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning had been in prison, almost entirely incommunicado, without charges under conditions Amnesty International considered torture. For the same crime the US was after Assange for.
- A substantial percentage of the US national security apparatus, and even then-senator Joe Lieberman, had worked tirelessly to try to cut off Wikileaks' funding, solely because they didn't like what Assange was publishing.
- Among the information that Wikileaks was publishing was about the US's international network of military prisons where they were having people tortured and killed. Assange, being neither a US citizen nor a prisoner of war, had few legal protections against that treatment beyond Australia sending a letter complaining about their citizens' treatment (but other than that probably doing nothing else).
- Several US officials had called for Assange to be imprisoned or even executed without trial.
- The Swedes had refused any deals that would involve promises that Assange would not be immediately sent to the Americans for $DEITY-knows-what treatment.
It would be reasonable for Assange to have concluded, as a UN human rights panel would years later, that to go to Sweden to stand trial would be basically walking willingly into being tortured to death over a period of years. And however unpleasant jumping bail might be, it was preferable to that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.