
Assange Hearing Day 7 - k1m
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-7/
======
StavrosK
> Clive Stafford Smith said he had been “profoundly shocked” by the crimes
> committed by the US government against his clients. These included torture,
> kidnapping, illegal detention and murder. The murder of one detainee at
> Baghram Airport in Afghanistan had been justified as a permissible
> interrogation technique to put fear into other detainees. In 2001, he would
> never have believed the US Government could have done such things.

This is odious, and it's just one of the things in just this article. The
amount of human rights violations going on seems staggering.

~~~
kmlx
we're judging things through the prism of the present.

back in 2001 the US just experienced 9/11\. the sense of anger and retribution
was shared internationally. people were arguing for dropping A-bombs all over
the middle east.

~~~
probably_wrong
> _the sense of anger and retribution was shared internationally_

Speaking from South America, I can asure you that the general opinion of 9/11
was that the US had asked for it and that there are only so many countries you
could bomb for oil before one of them decides to fight back.

Sure, our government sent a statement of solidarity and no one was _happy_
that it happened. But I am having a hard time thinking of someone other than
the US who was truly, angrily calling for retribution.

~~~
saiya-jin
I can attest to that, the general emotion in my part of Europe was - well
that's horrible, just like all the atrocities US is doing all around the world
and that it was just a matter of time that such a thing would happen.

It was clear, I mean crystal clear even to US commentators on places like CNN
on that very day that this will be used as carte blanche for government to
instill control, surveillance and fear among US general population, and
basically get away with anything because 'terrorists'. Well, they for sure
were right.

Life of Manhattan-based bureaucrat is not worth to me more than some poor
civilian blown to pieces on some wedding or tending his field half around the
world. You know, equality of human beings and stuff. 3000 means nothing
compared to millions, in fact tens of millions if we keep counting.

------
rendall
It's difficult for me to read this objectively, because I "know in my heart"
that the persecution of Assange is unjust. Nevertheless, it is important to
put that aside and absorb the information without bias. Let the prosecution
make its best case without attachment to outcome.

Still, there are some rather shocking revelations about the conduct of the
government of my homeland. Torture, of course; but also murder of a detainee
to terrify other detainees; "puerile attitude to killing, with juvenile
nicknames given to assassination targets"; the attempted murder without trial
of a US citizen, also a journalist; the attempts to block and cover these
actions, which suggests that the perpetrators and enablers themselves knew
they were crimes.

~~~
latch
I'm generally an "ends justifies the means" kinda guy, but I think anyone with
that position needs to be aware of what the "means" actually are.

Maybe that's why I'm a bit shocked that you're shocked. These things have been
going on for a long time and they're well documented. I'll just give three
examples: the My Lai massacre, the imprisonment/trial of Omar Khadr (a child
soldier) and the extrajudicial execution of Anwar Nasser al-Awlaki (an
American citizen).

(To be clear, I don't think any of the above are justifiable. As a Canadian, I
was particularly ashamed of Canada's position towards Khadr. But I don't go
around a) thinking these things don't happen and b) that they're alway black
and white)

~~~
raxxorrax
Nothing is black and white, sure. Foreign intervention was probably good for
the Kurds and some other minorities being suppressed by Saddam. He really
wasn't the nicest guy.

But there is also an unfortunate history of selling weapons to him in the hope
he would point them towards Iran. But the useful idiot didn't do what he was
told and lied to his handlers. They probably didn't mind because the ends
justified the means from his perspective. The war killed hundreds of thousands
of people and we are in process of torturing the person responsible for
transparency on the consequences of war.

Difficult to really say what that achieved. What was it for the US? Saving
face after 9/11? If the US casually kills thousands of people not involved in
the attack as impotent retaliation, you might find other terrorists that think
crashing a plane into a skyscraper of innocent people is justified. The US
would sabotage its reputation itself in that case. The ends justify the means,
right?

~~~
jacobush
It was a _very_ local optimum for the Kurds, probably many more have been
displaced and killed because of interventions. The ISIS was very harsh on
kurds, and ISIS could not have existed without the US invasion.

Saddam was a horror, but in terms of people killed (after the Iran / Iraq war)
much worse came after 9/11.

If you go back, it's an infinite fractal of short sightedness and incompetent
tampering.

~~~
raxxorrax
Yeah, they just have no voice on an international level and always seem to be
handed the short end of the stick in every conflict. Even if things in Syria
turned out differently...

Just wanting to point out that the regime of Saddam wasn't too nice for a lot
of people, but yes, I think the intervention was worse for basically
everybody.

------
tomalpha
One interesting snippet, which gets to the one of the key areas around this
case for me (I know there are more issues here than just this one):

> Mark Summers then re-examined Professor Feldstein. He said that Lewis had
> suggested that Assange was complicit in Manning obtaining classified
> information but the New York Times was not. Is it your understanding that to
> seek to help an official leaker is a crime

> Professor Feldstein replied “No, absolutely not”.

> “Do journalists ask for classified information?”

> “Yes.”

> “Do journalists solicit such information?”

> “Yes.”

> “Are you aware of any kind of previous prosecution for this kind of
> activity.”

> “No. Absolutely not.”

> “Could you predict it would be criminalised?”

> “No, and it is very dangerous.”

There are clearly two sides to this argument, but the chilling effect around
the prosecution of journalists gaining access to classified information is a
worry for me.

I realise that the US Government might claim that Assange isn't a journalist.
They're certainly claiming that he crossed the line from journalism into
hacking, but that line seems to be blurrier and more arbitrary than it used to
be (at least from where I sit in the cheap seats).

~~~
young_unixer
I don't think regular citizens should have less rights than journalists in the
first place, but maybe I'm just nutty.

~~~
tomalpha
So I will respectfully disagree with you there. In general I agree with you
about most (almost all?) rights - they should be available to all citizens
equally.

However _if_ you agree that:

\- The state should be allowed to keep secrets

\- The state can't always be trusted to choose what should be secret or not

\- There is a need to hold the state to account, but somehow not make all
secrets public by doing so

Then there needs to be some subset of citizenry who can gain access to those
secrets without the blessing of the state.

In history this has been likely to occur when a person with access to the
secrets feels strongly enough about something that they feel the secret should
be made public. For good reasons or bad reasons (which not everyone will agree
with either way).

A good journalist can fulfil that role IMHO. I realise that "good" there is
another assumption...

~~~
Sarah_Giggs
This is a point of view I hadn't considered, but is an interesting way of
consoling my two points of view that secrecy is important but accountability
is essential. This almost framed journalists as being a kind of law
enforcement for the people, which is certainly an interesting way of viewing
them.

~~~
tomalpha
I wholeheartedly agree - I absolutely view quality journalism as an essential
part of an accountable and transparent state.

Good journalism, which IMHO should strive for a degree of impartiality[0], is
needed to hold administrations at all levels to account.

[0] humans are clearly imperfect mind

~~~
MacsHeadroom
It doesn't get less impartial than publishing original source classified
documents with little to no commentary. That's what WikiLeaks is/does.

The Intercept and The Guardian add a layer of partiality/bias with narratives
that paint state secrecy as inherently problematic. Somewhat paradoxically
this anti-state bias in reporting makes them MORE palatable/acceptable;
because their narrative justifies their role as the fourth estate of
government.

WikiLeaks' position is that this narrative is implicit and doesn't need
reiterated with each leak. Unfortunately powerful institutions and people
experience the world in narratives and the importance of the fourth estate
isn't one that is strongly engrained in their thinking. So, they go after
WikiLeaks because of its impartiality.

WikiLeaks shouldn't have to add bias to every new publication to be
legitimate. That's plainly backwards. They absolutely have the high ground
here. All they need to do is paint the narrative to the courts that
organizations like The Intercept paint continuously.

If the courts don't accept the narrative as sufficient justification then they
drive the nails in the coffin of the free press at large.

~~~
RandoHolmes
Wikileaks 100% had a narrative, it was one of the things that disappointed me
most about them.

In general, I was on the side of this information needing to come out, I just
really wish Wikileaks hadn't politicized it the way they did.

~~~
MacsHeadroom
WikiLeaks has a 100:1 ratio of words in leaked documents to narrative words,
at LEAST. Meanwhile The Intercept has a 1:100 ratio. You can't dismiss this
difference as insignificant.

~~~
RandoHolmes
That's a terrible metric to use.

Wikileaks would time their release of information for political effect.

------
aphroz
US can really do whatever they want and get away with it, for now. What a
shame if the UK allows the extradition of a journalist.

~~~
youngtaff
But is Assange a journalist?

Does he have any accreditations, or follow journalistic standards for example?

~~~
cmroanirgo
The Guardian (& many many others) certainly think so.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/23/julian-
assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/23/julian-assange-
indicted-what-charges-mean-for-free-speech)

From [https://www.mondaq.com/australia/crime/903612/julian-
assange...](https://www.mondaq.com/australia/crime/903612/julian-assange-did-
redact-an-interview-with-lawyer-journalist-mark-davis):

> _The line up of renowned Australian journalists on the stage at the Martin
> Place Amphitheatre on 24 February was impressive. Gathered for a rally, they
> included John Pilger, Mary Kostakidis, Quentin Dempster, Wendy Bacon, Andrew
> Fowler and Mark Davis. They were there to speak in support of fellow
> journalist Julian Assange._

> _" He did redact"_

------
guerby
"The cross-examinations showed the weakness of the thirty minute guillotine
adopted by Baraitser, with really interesting defence testimony cut short, and
then unlimited time allowed to Lewis for his cross examination. This was
particularly pernicious in the evidence of Mark Feldstein. In James Lewis’
extraordinary cross-examination of Feldstein, Lewis spoke between five and ten
times as many words as the actual witness. Some of Lewis’s “questions” went on
for many minutes, contained huge passages of quote and often were phrased in
convoluted double negative. Thrice Feldstein refused to reply on grounds he
could not make out where the question lay. With the defence initial statement
of the evidence limited to half an hour, Lewis’s cross examination approached
two hours, a good 80% of which was Lewis speaking. "

Sad...

------
genmon
I really hope people don’t take from this that the U.K. legal system is being
applied in a biased way. The laws themselves may be wrong — and that’s a
matter for government. But these write-ups do tend do suggest that the laws
are being misapplied through manipulating the process.

I’m not a lawyer, but I am in the UK and I do know people who are lawyers so
I’ve talked about their court work with them. From what little I know, the
processes (the backs and forth, the judgements, and arguments over procedure)
are all typical.

~~~
polytely
I would love it if a laywer could explain to me how the following is not
applying the legal system in a biased way.

From the article:

>The cross-examinations showed the weakness of the thirty minute guillotine
adopted by Baraitser, with really interesting defence testimony cut short, and
then unlimited time allowed to Lewis for his cross examination. This was
particularly pernicious in the evidence of Mark Feldstein. In James Lewis’
extraordinary cross-examination of Feldstein, Lewis spoke between five and ten
times as many words as the actual witness. Some of Lewis’s “questions” went on
for many minutes, contained huge passages of quote and often were phrased in
convoluted double negative. Thrice Feldstein refused to reply on grounds he
could not make out where the question lay. With the defence initial statement
of the evidence limited to half an hour, Lewis’s cross examination approached
two hours, a good 80% of which was Lewis speaking.

>Feldstein was browbeaten by Lewis and plainly believed that when Lewis told
him to answer in very brief and concise answers, Lewis had the authority to
instruct that. In fact Lewis is not the judge and it was supposed to be
Feldstein’s evidence, not Lewis’s. Baraitser failed to protect Feldstein or to
explain his right to frame his own answers, when that was very obviously a
necessary course for her to take.

>Today we had two expert witnesses, who had both submitted lengthy written
testimony relating to one indictment, which was now being examined in relation
to a new superseding indictment, exchanged at the last minute, and which
neither of them had ever seen. Both specifically stated they had not seen the
new indictment. Furthermore this new superseding indictment had been
specifically prepared by the prosecution with the benefit of having heard the
defence arguments and seen much of the defence evidence, in order to get round
the fact that the indictment on which the hearing started was obviously
failing.

>On top of which the defence had been refused an adjournment to prepare their
defence against the new indictment, which would have enabled these and other
witnesses to see the superseding indictment, adjust their evidence accordingly
and be prepared to be cross-examined in relation to it.

As a layman (who admittedly knows nothing about the UK legal system) this
looks like they are stacking the deck against Assange.

~~~
genmon
I guess what I'm saying is this all feels quite ordinary.

The judge will have the written outline arguments, and will be focusing on the
parts that need greater interrogation. And they will also be juggling various
factors -- there's limited court time; letting the case drag on is a potential
source as injustice too; etc. On top of that, each side will be looking for
advantages within the constraints of allowed legal procedure. All of these
will contribute to what's being seen on the day.

If the judge missteps according to procedure, they're open to having the
judgement appealed, so they're highly motivated to apply the rules correctly.

I'm not saying that the outcome is just, or that the laws themselves are ok.
But the procedure seems ordinary to me, a lay person, and if there _are_
problems with it, they will be technical and unlikely to be spotted in an
article like this.

~~~
vidarh
If this is ordinary in UK courts (and I have never seen anything like this),
then UK courts are not fair, and are not safe, or just, and we should all be
shocked and outraged at living in a society with a legal system that will not
provide justice.

------
tomalpha
Taken from the Crown Prosecution Service guidance[0], which isn't gospel, but
is usually a pretty accurate reflection of the law, the grounds the court must
consider are:

\- the conduct described in the warrant amounts to an extradition offence;

\- any of the statutory bars to extradition apply;

\- there is prima facie evidence of guilt (if applicable, see below);

\- extradition would be disproportionate or would be incompatible with the
requested person’s human rights.

The statutory bars to extradition, taken from the same document include
whether the subject would face the death penalty.

It's not clear to me from this article which of the points of law above is
being argued. Some of the testimony appears (or at least the reporting of it)
appears to include an element of trying to demonstrate that the extradition is
politically motivated. It probably is, but they'll have to establish one of
the above specific points.

Note that I'm not claiming that the above points can't be established here -
I'm just not seeing the direct link from the reporting on the case, in this
article and others, to how they're attacking the legal aspect.

[0] [https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-
guidance/extradition](https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/extradition)

~~~
raxxorrax
> It's not clear to me from this article which of the points of law above is
> being argued

You cannot evade injustice by referring to the law. This serves as an example
that the law is broken because it allows for political prosecution.

Won't be the strategy of the defense of course and not of relevance in the
hearings, they do the best they can in this situation.

~~~
tomalpha
I'm not claiming whether or not this is right, or serves the interests of
Justice. I'm just pointing out that it appears to me that the defense team is
arguing more in the court of public opinion, and less on points of law in the
court itself. And to be clear: I don't really think they have much of an
option - the law around extradition makes this hearing mostly a formality.
There are pretty limited grounds _in law_ to prevent it going ahead.

Independent of this particular case, I don't like the fact that in UK law the
process _is_ mostly a formality for UK to USA extraditions. When the
legislation was drafted after 9/11 the claim was that this was a necessary
evil and would be used solely against terrorists. Like previous non-terrorist
cases against bankers, 'hackers' and others, this isn't a use of the law in
the way it was originally intended (well, at least what was said about
intentions at the time).

------
bananapear
There doesn't seem to be a trace of Vanessa Baraitser anywhere on the internet
outside a couple of mentions of other extradition proceedings and the Assange
case. There are only three known photographs of her[1], and only one including
her face.

She isn't even registered as a practising solicitor with the SRA [2].

It's difficult to see how in today's world a person with a career in "public
service" (and with such an unusual name) can leave such little trace online.

[1]
[https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Vanessa_Baraitser](https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Vanessa_Baraitser)

[2]
[https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register/](https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register/)

------
guerby
"You are free to republish this article, including in translation, without
further permission. A brief note left in comments below detailing where it is
republished is appreciated."

Really nice!

------
kebman
How long has Assange been held without a public trial again?

~~~
corin_
While I don't think it ought to have been as long as it has been, it's worth
noting that a) He has previously fled to take asylum in a foreign embassy to
avoid arrest, so it's understandable why bail wouldn't be granted again and b)
He actually requested this extradition hearing be delayed due to not having
had enough time to prepare (which the judge denied).

~~~
useriousbro
a) doesn't really seem a fair representation:

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, speaks in detail about the
explosive findings of his investigation into the case of Wikileaks founder
Julian Assange.:

[https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-
wikilea...](https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-
founder-julian-assange)

(someone linked to this in yesterdays comments its an amazing read though
depressing)

b) He is being detained in a way that is regarded inhumane, but its still
better than being epsteined.

Assange may be a bit of a greaser, he may be an egotist, he may be lacking in
social skills - he may even be wanting to be famous for his work in a way that
makes him an arse personally... but i still want our legal systems to be fair
and my government not commit war crimes and openly investigate any accusation
of them.

Also note that i firmly believe that if any commenter on this site was to be
the target of such a campaign that we would all look like scumbags when
scrutinised with such bias.

~~~
nsajko
Nils Melzer is full of shit:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209868)

~~~
useriousbro
My understanding of the above link:

The accusation that police changed the statement from the witness may be false
or even deliberately exaggerated.

Not extactly that he is blanket full of shit or did i miss something?

But Nils onky asked Sweden to respond to the question, which they didnt do..
not even a short: sorry you got the wrong end of the stick there. Which given
the attention of the case seems weird.

It also doesnt really say anything about his treatment in the uk the lack of
gurantee not to be extrodited, the leaking of accusations to the press, lack
of aninimity for the accused etc.

And to be clear sweden didnt respond to any of Nils' questions, why? Is the UN
really just a joke? If so isnt that still really bad?

Please feel free to expand on why you dont trust a single thing he says, but
at the moment your comment doesnt seem justified.

------
jaclaz
This comment in the article made my day:

>the US Government changes its indictment in this case about as often as Kim
Kardashian changes her handbag.

------
jansan
What would happen if Trump pardoned Julian Assange just before the election?
Would this improve his chance of winning again?

~~~
zapita
He probably will since Assange has been a reliable ally to Trump in the 2016
election. But I don’t think it helps or hurts matters electorally since most
voters have never heard of Assange.

~~~
kebman
Trump has had ample opportunity to do it until now, though. So what's the
holdup?

~~~
kzrdude
You can only pardon someone who has been convicted, so I don't see what
opportunity he has had

~~~
kebman
True enough, but I should think he's got the power to stop this train too,
then. How long can a man be held prisoner without a trial in the UK, anyway?
What kind of democratic system can hold a person jailed indefinately like
that? What are we becoming?

~~~
bboygravity
He wasn't really held prisoner though. He was being tortured.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/31/julian-
assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/31/julian-assange-
shows-psychological-torture-symptoms-says-un-expert)

Democratic IMO means: the majority of people in a country take all political
decisions that matter to them. They decide about the creation and alteration
of all laws that matter to them. The majority of people in a country is well
informed by free press.

With that in mind I would argue there isn't really any country in the world
that comes close to being democratic (with the exception of maybe
Switzerland).

~~~
kebman
The first thing I studied at uni was Political Science. I liked statistics
more, but it did prompt me to read up on the many interpretations of what
democracy is. To sum it up; it's deeply flawed, but it's also the the best we
can do.

Democracy is what caused Socrates to drink poison, but at the same time it's
also what has made freedom-loving countries the best places to live on earth.
Within this system, there are various ways that you can amass undemocratic
power, and make undue influence on others, and IMHO _that_ is why Assange is
still in jail. I'm not talking solely on "evil elites" here but also of the
undue power of bureacracies and institutions that are built up by the very
democracies they are meant to serve. And in this special case, diplomacy in
particular.

This is why we should work to unravel these powers, to see them for what they
are, not least to shed light on who benefits from them, so we can make a
democratic decision upon if it benefits us as a people to have such
institutions at all, or in what way they can be changed to better serve us.
One of our tools for soft change is of course reform and reorganization. But
in the face of unchanging and monolitic institutions, there is another way; to
build up entirely new and competing institutions in order to challenge the
decisions of the "powers of old," as it were.

I can name one such institution in Norway, for instance; _Datatilsynet,_ the
Data Inspectorate, that primarily works for the human right of privacy in
terms of what kind of personal information the state and other actors can and
cannot legally store in their computer systems. They are experts on these
matters, and the law, and often advice courts and big institutions on matters
regarding privacy, but also cryptography and other measures that make the
storage of data safer for the individual. They were among the first to
challenge the Data Storage Act, for instance, where all Norwegian internet
protocol traffic (sender and receiver IP's and such) is to be stored by ISP's
for at least six months to aid possible police investigations, for instance.

In Norway some of these actors are part of the state, like the Data
Directorate, because we trust them to do their job for the people. But in
other countries, it is perhaps better to have them as wholly private actors,
as is often the case in the USA, for instance. But because The Data
Inspectorate is part of the state, they are also respected that much more by
other state actors than special interest groups, because they have real power
granted to them by the people, and so they are authorized to intervene in
matters of privacy and data security. So, perhaps one such institutions should
also be made to intervene in matters of freedom of speech and persecution.

------
StartupTree
Source here is Craig Murray who is possibly the most extreme-biased source one
could imagine. Nevertheless it's good to get primary source information from
the hearing.

~~~
rozab
He pops up on HN all the time. I'm surprised he's still posting, wasn't he
recently prosecuted for the politically motivated release of the names of
women in an active sexual harassment trial?

~~~
RobertoG
Can you just say something like that and don't even bother to point to a link?
It hardly seems fair.

~~~
DanBC
In the UK complainants in sexual offences trials have strong legal protections
around anonymity. Murray is alleged to have breached the anonymity of some of
the complainants in the Alex Salmond trial. He denies this.

Here's his post asking for some evidential support:
[https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/05/a-very-
polit...](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/05/a-very-political-
prosecution/)

Here's a reasonably neutral article about his prosecution date:
[https://www.thenational.scot/news/18566311.court-sets-
date-c...](https://www.thenational.scot/news/18566311.court-sets-date-craig-
murray-trial-alex-salmond-case/)

~~~
RobertoG
Thanks for the links. So he didn't release any names like the grandparent
comment said. I thought that sounded strange.

