ASSANGE EXTRADITION: The Armoured Glass Box is an Instrument of Torture
March 2, 2020 . 0 Comments
Judge Vanessa Baraitser had a hand-written judgement ready even before she
heard the defence argument that Assange be allowed to leave his glass cage,
as Craig Murray observed.
By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk
In Thursday's separate hearing on allowing Assange out of the armoured box
to sit with his legal team, I witnessed directly that District Judge Vanessa
Baraitser's ruling against Assange was brought by her into court BEFORE she
heard defence counsel put the arguments, and was delivered by her entirely
unchanged.
I might start by explaining to you my position in the public gallery vis a
vis the judge. All week I deliberately sat in the front, right hand seat.
The gallery looks out through an armoured glass window at a height of about
seven feet above the courtroom. It runs down one side of the court, and the
extreme right hand end of the public gallery is above the judge's bench,
which sits below perpendicular to it. Remarkably therefore from the right
hand seats of the public gallery you have an uninterrupted view of the top
of the whole of the judge's bench, and can see all the judge's papers and
computer screen.
Assange's attorney Mark Summers QC outlined that in the case of Belousov vs
Russia the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg ruled against the
state of Russia because Belousov had been tried in a glass cage practically
identical in construction and in position in court to that in which Assange
now was. It hindered his participation in the trial and his free access to
counsel, and deprived him of human dignity as a defendant.
Summers continued that it was normal practice for certain categories of
un-convicted prisoners to be released from the dock to sit with their
lawyers. The court had psychiatric reports on Assange's extreme clinical
depression, and in fact the UK Department of Justice's best practice guide
for courts stated that vulnerable people should be released to sit alongside
their lawyers. Special treatment was not being requested for Assange - he
was asking to be treated as any other vulnerable person.
Passing Notes
The defence was impeded by their inability to communicate confidentially
with their client during proceedings. In the next stage of trial, where
witnesses were being examined, timely communication was essential.
Furthermore they could only talk with him through the slit in the glass
within the hearing of the private company security officers who were
guarding him (it was clarified they were Serco, not Group 4 as Baraitser had
said the previous day), and in the presence of microphones.
Mark Summers QC (Matrixlaw.co.uk)
Baraitser became ill-tempered at this point and spoke with a real edge to
her voice. "Who are those people behind you in the back row?" she asked
Summers sarcastically - a question to which she very well knew the answer.
Summers replied that they were part of the defence legal team. Baraitser
said that Assange could contact them if he had a point to pass on. Summers
replied that there was an aisle and a low wall between the glass box and
their position, and all Assange could see over the wall was the top of the
back of their heads. Baraitser said she had seen Assange call out. Summers
said yelling across the courtroom was neither confidential nor satisfactory.
In an illegal photo taken (not by me) of Assange in the court you can see
there is a passageway and a low wooden wall between him and the back row of
lawyers. You can see one of the two Serco prison officers guarding him
inside the box.
Baraitser said Assange could pass notes, and she had witnessed notes being
passed by him. Summers replied that the court officers had now banned the
passing of notes. Baraitser said they could take this up with Serco, it was
a matter for the prison authorities.
Summers asserted that, contrary to Baraitser's statement the previous day,
she did indeed have jurisdiction on the matter of releasing Assange from the
dock. Baraitser intervened to say that she now accepted that. Summers then
said that he had produced a number of authorities to show that Baraitser had
also been wrong to say that to be in custody could only mean to be in the
dock. You could be in custody anywhere within the precincts of the court, or
indeed outside. Baraitser became very annoyed by this and stated she had
only said that delivery to the custody of the court must equal delivery to
the dock.
To which Summers replied memorably, now very cross "Well, that's wrong too,
and has been wrong these last eight years."
Handwritten Prepared Judgement
Drawing argument to a close, Baraitser gave her judgement on this issue. Now
the interesting thing is this, and I am a direct eyewitness. She read out
her judgement, which was several pages long and handwritten. She had brought
it with her into court in a bundle, and she made no amendments to it. She
had written out her judgement before she heard Mark Summers speak at all.
Her key points were that Assange was able to communicate to his lawyers by
shouting out from the box. She had seen him pass notes. She was willing to
adjourn the court at any time for Assange to go down with his lawyers for
discussions in the cells, and if that extended the length of the hearing
from three to six weeks, it could take as long as required.
Baraitser stated that none of the psychiatric reports she had before her
stated that it was necessary for Assange to leave the armoured dock. As none
of the psychiarists had been asked that question - and very probably none
knew anything about courtroom layout - that is scarcely surprising
I have been wondering why it is so essential to the British government to
keep Assange in that box, unable to hear proceedings or instruct his lawyers
in reaction to evidence, even when counsel for the US Government stated they
had no objection to Assange sitting in the well of the court.
The answer lies in the psychiatric assessment of Assange given to the court
by the extremely distinguished Professor Michael Kopelman (who is familiar
to everyone who has read Murder in Samarkand):
"Mr Assange shows virtually all the risk factors which researchers from
Oxford
have described in prisoners who either suicide or make lethal attempts. . I
am as confident as a psychiatrist can ever be that, if extradition to the
United
States were to become imminent, Mr Assange would find a way of suiciding."
The fact that Kopelman does not, as Baraitser said, specifically state that
the armoured glass box is bad for Assange reflects nothing other than the
fact he was not asked that question. Any human being with the slightest
decency would be able to draw the inference. Baraitser's narrow point that
no psychiatrist had specifically stated he should be released from the
armoured box is breathtakingly callous, dishonest and inhumane. Almost
certainly no psychiatrist had conceived she would determine on enforcing
such torture.
So why is Baraitser doing it?
I believe that the Hannibal Lecter style confinement of Assange, this
intellectual computer geek, which has no rational basis at all, is a
deliberate attempt to drive Julian to suicide. The maximum security
anti-terrorist court is physically within the fortress compound that houses
the maximum security prison. He is brought handcuffed and under heavy escort
to and from his solitary cell to the armoured dock via an underground
tunnel. In these circumstances, what possible need is there for him to be
strip and cavity searched continually? Why is he not permitted to have his
court papers? Most telling for me was the fact he is not permitted to shake
hands or touch his lawyers through the slit in the armoured box.
Belmarsh Prison and Woolwich Crown Court
They are relentlessly enforcing the systematic denial of any basic human
comfort, like the touch of a friend's fingertips or the blocking of the
relief that he might get just from being alongside somebody friendly. They
are ensuring the continuation of the extreme psychological effects from
isolation of a year of virtual solitary confinement. A tiny bit of human
comfort could do an enormous amount of good to his mental health and
resilience. They are determined to stop this at all costs. They are
attempting to make him kill himself - or create in him the condition where
his throttling death might be explained away as suicide.
This is also the only explanation that I can think of for why they are
risking the creation of such obvious mistrial conditions. Dead people cannot
appeal.
Only on Remand
I would remind you that Julian is a remand prisoner who has served his
unprecedentedly long sentence for bail-jumping. His status is supposedly at
present that of an innocent man facing charges. Those charges are for
nothing except for publishing Chelsea Manning's revelations of war crimes.
That Baraitser is acting under instructions seems to me certain. She has
been desperate throughout the trial to seize any chance to deny any
responsibility for what is happening to Julian. She has stated that she has
no jurisdiction over his treatment in prison, and even when both defence and
prosecution combined to state it was normal practice for magistrates to pass
directions or requests to the prison service, she refused to accept it was
so.
Baraitser is plainly attempting psychologically to distance herself from any
agency in what is being done. To this end she has made a stream of denials
of jurisdiction or ability to influence events. She has said that she has no
jurisdiction to interfere with the strip searching, handcuffing and removal
of Assange's papers or with his being kept in solitary. She has said she has
no jurisdiction to request that his defence lawyers have more access to
their client in jail to prepare his defence. She has said she has no
jurisdiction over his position in the courtroom. Se has suggested at various
times it is up to Serco to decide if he may pass notes to his lawyers and up
to Group4 to decide if he can be released from the armoured dock. The
moments when she looks most content listening to the evidence, are those
when prosecution counsel James Lewis argues that she has no decision to make
but to sign the extradition because it is in good form and that Article 4 of
the Treaty has no legal standing.
A member of the Assange family remarked to me at the end of week one that
she seems very lazy, and thus delighted to accept any arguments that reduce
the amount she needs to do. I think it is different to that. I think there
is a corner of the mind of this daughter of dissidents from apartheid that
rejects her own role in the torture of Assange, and is continually urging "I
had no choice, I had no agency". Those who succumb to do evil must find what
internal comfort they may.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was
British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector
of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.
