
Assange Hearing Day 8 - k1m
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-8/
======
guerby
"Lewis asked why Timm had omitted Kromberg’s reference to the grand jury
decision? Timm replied that it meant very little: 99.9% of grand juries agree
to return a prosecution. An academic study of 152,000 grand juries had
revealed only 11 which had refused the request of a federal prosecutor to
prosecute."

That's some statistics ...

~~~
natcombs
It’s almost worth asking what those 11 were. The prosecution must have really
failed

------
adrianmsmith
Independent of the more important points of the article, this quote provided
some amusement :)

> Lewis then asked Timm if he had seen the actual evidence that supports the
> indictment. Timm replied only some of it, in particular the Java script of
> the messages allegedly between Assange and Manning.

~~~
jacquesm
Clever of them to communicate in Java Script.

~~~
csharptwdec19
I'm imagining this github repo with rules like "Locations are the 3rd letter
of private fields. People are first letter of public properties"

Just throw a few bits of data into a large codeset

~~~
jacquesm
I'm sure if you start analyzing everything on github using those rules a lot
of real names are going to turn up.

------
grandinj
It strongly seems to me that the British establishment is incredibly pissed at
Assange for the trouble he caused by holing up in the embassy, and is
therefore making life as difficult for him as possible.

~~~
me_me_me
He made us waste so much money, lets waste even more money.

If that were the reason for this whole thing than its kindergartner level of
spite.

~~~
duncan_bayne
... and?

I've seen similar, in all walks of life. Politicians and civil servants are by
no means immune to pettiness. Especially when setting an example might spare
them work and money in the future.

~~~
mothsonasloth
Civil servants in the UK are renowned for being inherently lazy, incompetent
and devious.

Its no wonder when you have to interact with politicians on a day to day basis
that the cultures should mirror each other.

I would much prefer Microsoft Civil Servant sp4 or an IBM Civil Servant AI
powered by Big Blue.

~~~
BusTrainBus
“Civil servants in the UK are renowned for being inherently lazy, incompetent
and devious.”

Depressing to see such low-quality nonsense on HackerNews.

~~~
mothsonasloth
Likewise with your comment mate

[https://www.clivebates.com/documents/lazycivilservant.pdf](https://www.clivebates.com/documents/lazycivilservant.pdf)

~~~
CraigJPerry
I’m not sure that an amusing leaflet, ostensibly about civil servants but
equally humorous to anyone in a large private enterprise, refutes the parent’s
point.

------
candiodari
Thing I don't get about this case: the UK will refuse to extradite Assange
because he will be tortured if they do that (ironically for exposing proof
that the US tortures prisoners).

And then the UK proceeded to torture him themselves (torture are the words
"The Lancet" used [1], they cannot reasonably be dismissed as cranks) ...
Illegally, by UK laws, and refuse to be held accountable for that in their own
courts. Not that the judge even tries to demand reasonable treatment for
Julian Assange from the prosecutor.

UK laws are very clear on what should happen in this case: because of the
government's treatment of Assange the case should be thrown out, because
obviously the government has acted illegally against him on MANY occasions,
they don't even give him his rights INSIDE THE COURTROOM (to talk to his
lawyer privately and however much he wants without interference). The
government DOES NOT have the right to sue somebody for anything once they have
tortured him. Once they have lied about the case, they lose the right to sue.
Once they refuse medical aid to a prisoner, they lose the right to sue. They
have spied on his communication with his lawyer, again grounds for dismissal.
They are obviously not feeding him right, which again would normally
disqualify the government's case. Or at the very least, warrants a delay in
the case with him decently taken care of until he is once again strong and fit
enough to stand trial. Note that this is completely independent of the merit
of the case itself: the QC in any normal case like this would never be allowed
to make their case without fixing these issues first. Some of these reasons
for dismissal the judge has seen happen right in front of him with his own
eyes.

Then there is the fact that the UK government does not have evidence against
Assange on this crime (because he violated US law, not UK law), furthermore I
do not see how it could -legally- obtain any such evidence.

And yet this farce continues. The judge systematically refuses to face issues
of fairness of the case and is obviously intimidated by the government.

This shows one thing very clearly : the United Kingdom's government (the
"executive") has ZERO intention of following through on their commitment to
either follow their own laws, respect human rights and has no qualms
whatsoever to threaten their own branches of government, when they want to
violate laws.

[1]
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)30383-4/fulltext)

------
DiogenesKynikos
The surreal aspect of this is the UK prosecution's assertions that the US
prosecution is not politically motivated. All you have to do is look at the
speech that CIA Director (now Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo made about
Wikileaks and Assange in April 2017.[1] These passages give a taste of his
remarks:

> It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile
> intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.

> No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s
> and 50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history.

> We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators
> today.

> That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of reprehensible.

> No, Julian Assange and his kind are not the slightest bit interested in
> improving civil liberties or enhancing personal freedom. They have pretended
> that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice. They may
> have believed that, but they are wrong.

> Assange is a narcissist who has created nothing of value. He relies on the
> dirty work of others to make himself famous. He is a fraud—a coward hiding
> behind a screen.

> First, it is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these
> leakers and so-called transparency activists. We know the danger that
> Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers pose to democracies around the
> world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an acceptable excuse for
> lionizing these demons.

> Third, we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his
> colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them
> the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what
> our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.

But if you listen to the UK prosecutor, Assange is just being prosecuted
because some low-level prosecutor in the US decided, on their own initiative,
to build a case against him. The fact that high-level officials in the US
government have been openly calling for an example to be made of Assange is
supposed to be irrelevant.

The UK should have dismissed this extradition request out-of-hand when it was
first made, given the obvious political motivations behind it. The US-UK
extradition treaty makes it very clear that extradition is not allowed in such
cases.

1\. [https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-
testimony/2017...](https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-
testimony/2017-speeches-testimony/pompeo-delivers-remarks-at-csis.html)

~~~
PJDK
I think in this case politically motivated would mean something more like
"Assange is a journalist sympathetic towards Biden so we're trying to get him
for tax fraud".

In this case it's "Assange is working for Russian Intelligence against the
interests of the US let's get him for a specific crime he committed towards
that end".

You can of course disagree with the Russian asset part of the statement, but I
don't think that qualifies as "politically motivated" in the kind of sense it
would (or should) bother an extradition hearing.

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
He published material that _embarrassed_ the US government - information like
the US government spying on the UN, American helicopter pilots killing Reuters
journalists in Baghdad (and the US military then covering it up), and the US
tolerating and working with Shiite death squads in Iraq.

When governments go after people for publishing embarrassing truths, that's
political. Everyone knows why the US government wants Assange behind bars. The
CIA Director / Secretary of State made it abundantly clear in his speech that
the US intends to go after Assange in order to send a message that the 1st
Amendment is no barrier to prosecuting journalists for what they publish. The
UK prosecutor is playing dumb.

------
friendlybus
Odd characterizations.

"At this point he was grinning very strangely indeed, looking up at the judge,
leaning back with one arm wide across his chair back, in some sort of peculiar
alpha male gesture."

Similar to a roald dahl book.

~~~
nmeofthestate
Murray is a 'colourful character'. He thinks the Skripal poisoning was a false
flag executed by the UK government. He produced an string of soon-debunked
conspiracy theories about it, but has stuck with it nonetheless.

~~~
Loq
Murray did _not_ state that Skripal was a false-flag by the UK government. He
did ask several questions about the nature of the official UK government's
explanation which you find at [1].

Can you point me towards _credible_ answers to some / all the questions raised
in [1] please?

[1] [https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/03/pure-ten-
poi...](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/03/pure-ten-points-i-
just-cant-believe-about-the-official-skripal-narrative/)

~~~
mhh__
> I had never claimed the poisoning, if any, was not carried out by Russians,
> only that there were many other possibilities

 _if any_ being the important part. My mind is open to the point that my brain
is on the desk?

I don't doubt for one second that the intelligence services have cleaned up
the story a little but it just looks like conjecture e.g. Craig Murray knows
nothing about the roof of the house.

His doubts as to their identities look really convenient, given that "someone"
tried to give him DNC emails in the past.

Edit: here is a bellingcat vs. murray catfight over the identities of the
Russians

[https://mobile.twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1047597999105...](https://mobile.twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1047597999105462272?lang=en)

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chmod775
While I appreciate the reporting from inside the court room, Craig Murray is
clearly biased and thus predisposed to seeing what he wants to see.

His characterizations paint the prosecution as ridiculous characters and their
case as laughable at best, which may not reflect reality as much one would
hope.

So what he is describing might be very unlike what the judges are
experiencing, and if they end up giving the extradition of Assange's the go-
ahead, a lot of people are going to be very surprised.

Edit: This rollercoaster of upvotes and downvotes on a post that just reminds
people to not blindly trust someone who tells them what they want to hear is
interesting in itself.

~~~
pmachinery
I'm pretty sure people who read Murray/support Assange believe his extradition
is a foregone conclusion.

~~~
bbsimonbb
I've been reading Murray since about 2005. He's always interesting and it
would be a mistake to dismiss him on one opinion. I lose count of the number
of big stories he's broken, or found himself in the middle of. He wasn't as
radical in 2005 as he's become. His book on Alexander Burnes is serious and
fascinating history. If you google his site for "Guardian" or "Rusbridger",
you can follow the evolution that has led me, and perhaps readers of his site,
to have a great deal more confidence in what we read there than in, scary
quotes, the main-stream media.

