Julian Assange And Justice

And so came the last opportunity for Julian Assange to avoid being extradited from the UK to the United States: the current court hearing is to challenge a decision by Priti Patel, then Home Secretary, and also the 2021 High Court ruling that he could be extradited. He has been incarcerated in Belmarsh Prison since being dragged from the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019.

So what has Assange allegedly done to warrant his being banged up in Belmarsh? The US authorities claim “Conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” and violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Why so? That is all down to the information released by WikiLeaks. Information which showed the USA, its security agencies, and its armed forces in a very poor light indeed.

In other words, he blew the whistle on some seriously deadly behaviour. He also did not endear himself to the US Democrats by publishing information suggesting the party was biased against Bernie Sanders, in the run-up to the party’s 2016 Convention. He was also critical of combover crybaby Donald Trump. But Trump was later to speak highly of WikiLeaks.

As the BBC has reported, “On the campaign trail, Trump heaped praise on Wikileaks, saying at one rally that ‘Wikileaks is like a treasure trove,’ and ‘Boy, I love reading Wikileaks,’ at another”. So would he cut Assange some slack? Er, no: “But in 2019, when asked about the prosecution of Assange, Trump said: ‘I know nothing really about him. That’s not my deal in life.’”

If Assange thought Trump might look favourably upon him, he was sorely mistaken. For Trump, everything is transactional: if Assange, or anyone else, is no longer any use to him, does not confer any benefit upon him, then they are simply discarded. He’ll get nothing out of Trump. And, as Wikileaks was behind the leaking of Hillary Clinton’s private emails, he’ll get nothing out of Joe Biden either. The current President has been silent on the matter.

Some will point to Assange’s behaviour being, shall we say, challenging. He can be a right royal pain in the neck. But that is not a criminal offence: were it so, most of the Parliamentary Conservative party, along with their lobby group pals, and most of their press hangers-on, would now have been banged up.

Countries that might have given Assange asylum are most likely frightened of the USA turning on them - whoever is in the White House. And now there is the issue of his health suffering as a result of his imprisonment. Ominously, the BBC report now tells “Julian Assange's lawyer says the Wikileaks founder is not in court today as he is unwell”. How unwell is then spelled out.

“Assange's wife Stella [told the BBC] that he would not survive being extradited from the UK to the US as he is physically and mentally extremely weak … [his brother] said his health was in 'a very delicate position' and he was ‘going through immense amounts of suffering’ at Belmarsh Prison, where he has been since 2019”. Years of confinement take their toll.

So why continue with the extradition? After all, the WikiLeaks trove “are said to have originated from former US soldier Chelsea Manning. Back in 2013, Manning was court martialled and sentenced to 35 years in prison for charges relating to this leak. But this sentence was later commuted by then US President Barack Obama after she'd already served four years in prison”.

More suspiciously, as Wikipedia notes, “Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice did not indict Assange because it could not find evidence that his actions differed from those of a journalist”. But then, “During the Trump Administration, CIA director Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Jeff Sessions stepped up pursuit of Assange”.

So Trump spoke with forked tongue. Again. Looking at the case now, there seems no point in continuing the pursuit of Assange, especially given Chelsea Manning has been free for some years. Being a difficult SOB is no excuse for imprisoning someone in a maximum security jail. So why not just free him and have done with it? Ah well. They have to make an example of someone.

That’s how the same They keeps everyone else in line. Sad but true.

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