WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared in court today in London in hopes of delaying his US extradition case. The judge told Assange he will not have any extra time to gather evidence to help his case, and the hearing will start in February as planned.
Reports of the trial sounded grim, Assange was holding back tears while he spoke and told the court that he could not “think properly.”
Assange was taken from the Ecuadorian embassy in April, charged with skipping bail and sentenced to 50 weeks in Belmarsh prison. His sentence was up September 22nd but a judge ordered him to remain in prison while he awaited his extradition trial.
The US wants to extradite Assange and charge him with 18 counts under the Espionage Act, which could total 175 years in prison. The allegation is that Assange helped former Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning break into a Pentagon computer. President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence but she now sits in jail for refusing to testify against WikiLeaks in front of a grand jury.
Assange was asked if he understood the events in the court, that’s when he said, “Not really. I can’t think properly.” Then he appeared to make his case the best he could, “I don’t understand how this is equitable. This superpower had 10 years to prepare for this case and I can’t access my writings. It’s very difficult where I am to do anything but these people have unlimited resources.
“They are saying journalists and whistleblowers are enemies of the people. They have unfair advantages dealing with documents. They [know] the interior of my life with my psychologist. They steal my children’s DNA. This is not equitable what is happening here.”
Since Assange has been held in Belmarsh there have been reports that he experienced psychological torture. Just last week, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer and two medical professionals told reporters, “We came to the conclusion that he had been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. That’s a medical assessment.”
Monday morning before the hearing Amnesty International released a statement that urged the British government to not extradite Assange. “The British authorities must acknowledge the real risks of serious human rights violations Julian Assange would face if sent to the USA, and reject the extradition request,” the statement read. “The UK must comply with the commitment it’s already made that he would not be sent anywhere he could face torture or other ill-treatment.”
God bless Donald Trump for standing up to the Deep state by prosecuting the person who is actually standing up to the Deep state. Trump 2020
Amen, Ten pledge allegiances in his honor.
He claims to not understand the Assange matter. He at least has sense to realise it’s bad to condemn Assange.
If Trump were to pardon Assange, it’d paint Trump further as being “Russian.” He should pardon Assange, but he’s probably fearing the reaction.
He has backed war criminals accused of murdering unarmed captives. I can’t figure out why you think he gives two sh*ts about Assange, Manning or Snowden since those are the people exposing our war criminals who kill unarmed captives.
Votes. The 2020 election. Even impeachment. Or worse.
Cold blooded as that is, power comes from The People or ceded to the oligarchy. The hand of the Sovereign is never completely free.
Not enough ordinary voters appear to support Assange to override elite hatred of Assange.
He still doesn’t give two sh*ts about Manning, Snowden or Assange. He’s on Clinton’s level when he said Snowden should be executed. Of course he was probably working that part of his base when he said that. His base is all inclusive.
Trump once said he loved Wikileaks. Assange was useful to him, far from an enemy, and one of the most important white hat influencers of the 2016 election.
Assange is enemy number one to many in the Deep State and its groupies for doing the right thing and earned a hatred that’s so viscerally personal as to be non-negotiable.
Trump’s moral flexibility is preferable to the sociopathic single-minded partisanship of some of his worst opponents, because for them, there’s no chance of a deal freeing Assange on any moral or material terms.
Yes Assange WAS useful to him. WAS being the operative word. Trump’s moral flexibility is all about the votes. The all inclusive base.
I do believe Trump has lost a great deal of money, as President. Running as a populist, in a divided US, against the elite cost him dearly.
So, he’s not benefiting, at least from what I’ve seen. Maybe the Saudis or Israelis have some package for him after the Presidency.
I hope he pardons Assange and otherwise makes the sacrifice worthwhile.
they keep money dark now, it only surfaces later.
For example, the US recently set a tariff on Scottish whisky. This hurts Trump’s golf course and maybe also Brexit. And his brand in general is no longer popular with the elite. If he wants to rebrand as a sort-of American workers’ brand, that could work; But I don’t think he’d even like the sort of things “workers” like.
Maybe there is hidden money though.
“Running as a populist, in a divided US, against the elite cost him dearly.”
Yeah, but governing as an anti-populist and transferring wealth from the working/middle classes to those elites presumably got him back in with them.
Naw, doing business as usual isn’t good enough for the elites.
The trade war with China enforced the aristocratic monopoly over avenues to Chinese wealth at middle class expense, +1.
But China has not opened the gates wide to further colonization by U.S. and Western financial aristocrats instead, -2.
The ‘problem’ Trump faces is that imperial expansion is not only on hold, but stalemated or contracting across the geopolitical chessboard.
For crony capitalism, expansion or death is a firm bottom line.
This is absolutely nonsense .. Julian Assange’s health has deteriorated to the point that any extradition to the US – a country he’s never visited – would kill him. The UK has committed a crime in the way they’ve treated him. Torture, whether physical or psychological, is a crime against humanity, and the Brits know it. He hasn’t done anything wrong and he’s the publisher of Wikileaks. He’s also a native-born Australian citizen and the Australian gov’t has a duty to allow Assange back into the country and live out the rest of his life there.
Sounds like the Aussies are fighting for him now.
“The Aussies” have done nothing to help Julian. They are afraid of the wrath of the evil empire. Everyone in the USA should be very ashamed of it’s record, from murdering the native people of America, to Vietnam and Iraq and countless other crimes including the dropping of atomic bombs on defenceless populations.
Obama was elected on this whole, “America is has sins, is guilty” story. The result: More war crimes.
Anyway: Aussies defending Assange:
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/21/judge-denies-assange-extension-on-extradition-hearing/
I’m not in charge, so I’m in no way to blame. In a democracy, the people get blamed; but that’s not who is in charge. Regarding America’s sins, most every people have equivalent sins, to the extent they’ve been able. Regarding nukes, the Japanese didn’t deserve it, but they were not without sin themselves.
Thanks for your reply Luchorpan. I appreciate the attachment. Regards Paul.
More likely the Aussie Deep State is in full accord with the U.S. D.S. on Assange.
PM Gough Whitlam was brought down by no less than the Gov. Gen. Sir John Kerr himself back in 1975. Australia has been owned for a while.
Probably a Five Eyes thing.
Julian Assange may very well be the most important journalist of his generation, and these twisted vultures who strip his battered flesh from his brittle bones will pay for what they have done to him, in this life or the next. Karma will find them and even the score. F**k them and the global police state they serve.
Assange is more valuable as a living example, not a dead martyr.
Zombifying Assange is a seasonally correct compromise.
Karma moves too slow, or Assange was quite the character in a previous life.
“Manning was pardoned under President Obama”
I think her sentence was commuted and she didn’t receive a full pardon. That’s reserved for war criminals.
Obama was just trying to prevent Trump from stealing the populist support for himself, by pardoning the deserving. Trump should have pardoned Snowden and Assange.
Somehow Trump would be condemned for pardoning them while Obama is praised for Manning. Nevertheless, inexplicably Trump hasn’t pardoned any of them…
Trump suggested executing Snowden. He also is letting Chelsea Manning sit in prison without speaking a word in support of her. And she’s the one who exposed some of our war crimes in Iraq. You know, the place Trump claims we should never had gone in but talks about it like it’s our colony. No, it wasn’t inexplicable that Trump hasn’t pardoned Snowden or Assange, it was predictable.
Well, Obama’s actions seemed to me a response to the potential threat Trump posed. Potential Trump could have ended the wars, pardoned Assange etc., and brought troops home. Conservatives would have had to face the reality that either the wars needed to end, or not; yet, he could have been acting otherwise in their interests domestically, and thus won them over to the need to end foreign interventions. Nowhere does the US need to intervene currently. It’s all unnecessary.
So Obama commuting Manning’s sentence stopped Trump from pardoning Assange and ending the wars? Wow, what a stretch. I guess his suggestion of executing Snowden was because of something Obama did or said also.
No, it preempted a potential threat. The Trump everyone feared was Pat Buchanan. Buchanan would have pardoned all 3.
Nope. Obama wasn’t thinking of Trump. As a liberal, he had sympathy for the Tranny. Trump would have kept him locked up.
Obama commuted his sentence. It just showed that his tactics of getting a sex change got him out of prison. That kind of stuff works with liberals.
At least in your mind.
Chris Hedges , a few months ago:
We know what will be done to Assange. It has been done to thousands of those we kidnapped and then detained in black sites around the world. Sadistic and scientific techniques of torture will be used in an attempt to make him a zombie.Assange, in declining health, was transferred two weeks ago to the hospital wing of the prison. Because he was medically unable toparticipate when the hearing was initially to be held, May 30, the
proceeding was reset. Friday’s hearing, in which he appeared frail and
spoke hesitantly, although lucidly, set the timetable for his
extradition trial, scheduled to take place at the end of February. All
totalitarian states seek to break their political prisoners to render
them compliant. This process will define Assange’s existence over the
next few months.
The best hope for Assange is to come to the US and fight the charges, both at trial, and on appeal of any convictions. Delay does not do him any good.