Article Image

IPFS News Link • Justice and Judges

Capable, Generous Men

• LewRockwell.Com - Bretigne Shaffer

an intelligent, articulate man reduced to a mere shadow of himself by months of torture and possibly pharmacological abuse; a magistrate who is no more than a hand puppet for a powerful state, possessed neither of human feeling nor any appreciation for the the most rudimentary principles of justice.

Historian and former British ambassador Craig Murray had this to say on the extradition hearing for Julian Assange, held in London last week:

"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."

A MOCKERY OF JUSTICE

The degree to which this proceeding constituted a complete mockery of the justice system is difficult to believe: 

First, Assange's defense argued that the US government's charges against him under the Espionage Act were political in nature and therefore excluded from the UK's extradition treaty with that country. This is not a trivial matter. The treaty in question explicitly states that extradition requests will not be given for "political offenses." "Pure" political offenses include espionage, and Assange has been charged under the US Espionage Act of 1917.

Assange's legal defense requested a preliminary hearing to determine whether, given these facts, he could even be extradited under the treaty. According to Murray, "Baraitser dismissed the defence's request for a separate prior hearing to consider whether the extradition treaty applied at all, without bothering to give any reason why." (Emphasis mine.)

Second, Assange's defense team requested a postponement of the full extradition hearing set for February 24th, 2020, on two separate grounds:

One, that he had been kept in isolation at Belmarsh Prison, with no access to any of the materials necessary to prepare his defense; And two, that evidence in a Spanish court case had shown that the CIA had been spying on Assange while he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy, including spying on privileged conversations he had with his lawyers. This fact alone, if verified, could be enough to invalidate any US charges against him, and his defense argued that the full hearing be extended so that information from the Spanish case (which has not yet concluded) could be included. Baraitser again denied the request, and then called a ten-minute recess to discuss altering dates for the submission of evidence.


thelibertyadvisor.com/declare