Julian Assange Court Case Delayed Again in Bizarre Circumstances
"I have never in my career faced so much difficulty attempting to trial
monitor as in Julian Assange's case." - Rebecca Vincent, Director of
International Campaigns for Reporters Without Borders.
by Alan Macleod
August 14th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
There were bizarre scenes at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London today,
as the extradition process of Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange (present
via videophone from Belmarsh prison) was again delayed.
Proceedings were held up this morning so Assange could converse for the
first time in five months with his legal team. The prosecution team failed
to turn up at the hearing because they were told events started at 3:30 p.m.
Only five members of the press were allowed to enter the courtroom to
monitor proceedings. Other journalists, observers, and NGOs attempting to
listen via telephone could not, as they were given the number to another
courtroom. One journalist who did make it inside claimed that the judge,
Vanessa Baraitser, was, "clearly reading from a pre-written ruling."
Assange sat in a conference room used by the entire prison, without a mask,
and was seen coughing a number of times. At one point, proceedings in the
courtroom were interrupted by screaming coming from another booth in
Belmarsh prison, loud enough to cause a delay. Present at the hearing,
Assange's mother, Christine, warned that he would not survive extradition to
the United States.
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Perhaps most bizarre, however, is that the United States Department of
Justice dropped its original indictment in June, just two days after
Assange's defense team submitted their full and final evidence for the
extradition hearing. Today was the first time Assange saw the charges
against him. Yet they are almost identical to those previously issued, save
for slightly broadening the scope to include some interactions with hacking
groups in 2011. The U.S. D.O.J. itself admitted that their new indictment
"does not add additional counts to the prior 18-count superseding indictment
returned against Assange in May 2019," leading Wikileaks to allege that the
U.S. is attempting to string the process along until after the November
election, in order to avoid any negative consequences for the Trump
administration. "This was the worst hearing so far," said Kristinn
Hrafnsson, the organization's current editor-in-chief. "The U.S. government
seems to want to change the indictment every time the court meets, but
without the defence or Julian himself seeing the relevant documents." If
found guilty, Assange faces up to 175 years in prison.
The defense team, led by Edward Fitzgerald QC, was given a week to decide
whether to ask for a hearing scheduled for September 7 to be postponed.
However, they must do that without the input of their client, as Belmarsh
prison denied them a post hearing video conference.
Assange's kangaroo court
One consequence of the replacement indictment is the legality of even
keeping the hacktivist publisher imprisoned. Baraitser stated that Assange
has not even been arrested under the new indictment and is still being held
under the old one that is now null and void.
Thus, to recap: the defendant (who is not even legally under arrest) had not
even seen the "new" charges (which were the same as the old ones) or met
with his defense team for five months, the judge was reportedly reading from
a pre-written script, the prosecution did not turn up, journalists could not
watch or listen to the proceedings, which were interrupted by screaming from
the prison where Assange is being kept.
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The farcical events were immediately denounced by onlookers. "I have never
in my career faced so much difficulty attempting to trial monitor as in
Julian Assange's case. Whether in person or remotely, there are constant
barriers to access. Completely unacceptable," said Rebecca Vincent, Director
of International Campaigns for Reporters Without Borders. Journalist Kevin
Gosztola agreed: "Having covered Chelsea Manning's court martial in a US
military court, let me say this clearly: Julian Assange isn't even being
granted the same minimal rights and the same standards of press access that
Chelsea had. It's much, much worse," he wrote on Twitter.
In 1925, Bohemian writer Frantz Kafka's posthumous book, "The Trial," was
published, from where we derive the term "Kafkaesque." "The Trial" tells the
story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted in a nightmarish kangaroo
court while unable to properly defend himself. Nearly 100 years later, the
Australian publisher is being tried in his own kangaroo court, and Kafka's
dystopian fantasies do not seem so unrelatable.
Feature photo | A demonstrator holds a banner
