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Thread: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

  1. Link to Post #141
    Croatia Administrator Franny's Avatar
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Not everyone. Manning and Assange as just 2 examples.

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    goingundergroundRT
    Published on Apr 13, 2019

    A clearly impassioned and moving commentary from John Pilger here an Julian's arrest. As the accompanying notes attest to, he discusses the importance of Wikileaks’ work, why it is a threat to the United States, the danger the arrest poses to journalists everywhere and the possibility of extradition to the US.

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Julian Assange Tortured with Psychotropic Drug

    Kurt Nimmo
    Another Day in the Empire
    Posted on May 7, 2019
    https://kurtnimmo.blog/2019/05/07/julian-assange-tortured-with-psychotropic-drug/


    Retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski writes in an article posted at Lew Rockwell’s website that Julian Assange is receiving the same treatment as suspected terrorists while in captivity at “Her Majesty’s Prison Service” at Belmarsh.

    The FBI, Pentagon, and CIA are “interviewing” Assange. Kwiatkowski writes:

    Interviewing is the wrong word. I’d like to say doctoring him, because it would be more accurate, except that word implies some care for a positive outcome. Chemical Gina has her hands in this one, and we are being told that Assange is being “treated” with 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, known as BZ.

    BZ is a powerful drug that produces hallucinations. “Soldiers on BZ could remember only fragments of the experience afterward. As the drug wore off, and the subjects had trouble discerning what was real, many experienced anxiety, aggression, even terror,” the New Yorker reported. “…The drug’s effect lasted for days. At its peak, volunteers were totally cut off in their own minds, jolting from one fragmented existence to the next. They saw visions: Lilliputian baseball players competing on a tabletop diamond; animals or people or objects that materialized and vanished.”

    Assange is being chemically lobotomized prior to being extradited to the United States to stand trial on bogus computer hacking charges that—and the corporate media won’t tell you this—passed the statute of limitations three years ago (see 18 U.S. Code § 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States).

    Forget about the statute of limitations. The US government has long violated both domestic and international law. It is a rogue nation led by an ignorant clown who opened the back door and ushered in neocon psychopaths notorious for killing millions. In normal times, these criminals would be in the dock at The Hague standing trial for crimes against humanity. But we don’t live in normal times.

    The message is clear: if you expose the massive criminal enterprise at the heart of the US government, you will be renditioned, chemically tortured (a favorite of Chemical Gina, now CIA director), chewed up and spit out until you’re a babbling mental case like David Shayler (who believes he is the Second Coming of Christ). Shayler, a former MI5 agent, made the mistake of exposing the UK’s support of terror operations in Libya. Shayler spent three weeks at Belmarsh after a conviction for breaching the Official Secrets Act. He emerged from prison broken and delusional.

    I seriously doubt most Americans care about the chemical torture of Julian Assange. On social media, liberals and so-called progressives, along with their “conservative” counterparts, celebrate Assange’s arrest, confinement, and torture. Members of Congress have called for his execution, while one media talking head (teleprompter script reader) demanded the CIA send a hit team to London and assassinate Assange.

    Americans are similar to the propagandized and brainwashed citizens of Nazi Germany. Most went along with Hitler right up until the end when their cities lay in smoldering ruins and their once proud country was carved up, half of it given over to the communists. They set up the Stasi to deal with East Germans who were not following the totalitarian program.

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  7. Link to Post #144
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Ecuador will give US all documents & devices Assange left in London embassy – report

    Russia Today
    Published time: 12 May, 2019 23:36
    https://www.rt.com/news/459170-assange-documents-us-handover/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS


    Ecuador's Attorney General has informed a Julian Assange lawyer that the WikiLeaks co-founder's files, computer, mobile phones and other electronic devices will be seized during a search at the London embassy and sent to the US.

    After an unsuccessful attempt by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson to retrieve Assange's personal belongings from Ecuador's UK embassy, where Assange had been holed up for almost 7 years before his arrest and incarceration last month, the Ecuadorian government reportedly greenlighted the US request to provide it access to the documents and electronic devices left behind by the jailed WikiLeaks editor after he was hauled out of the embassy by the British police on April, 11.

    The searches inside the embassy quarters formerly occupied by Assange are set to be conducted by police on May 20, El Pais reported, citing a notice sent to Assange's Ecuadorian lawyer Carlos Poveda.

    Assange's personal files, his computer, mobile phones, memory sticks, CDs and any other electronic devices uncovered during the searches will then be seized and sent to the US as a part of Ecuador's response to the Department of Justice's judicial request. The US is currently building a case to extradite on hacking charges.

    The files contain troves of sensitive information, include Assange's communication with his lawyers and other legal documents – which, the lawyers argue, deprive him of the right to proper defense. Having this data will potentially allow the US to "build and create new charges" to extradite Assange in violation of Ecuador's own asylum policies.

    The news of the looming handover came as a bolt out of the blue for Assange's defense team, Poveda told RT Spanish, adding that it's impossible to be sure his things in the embassy haven't been tampered with already.

    "Since Mr. Assange left the embassy, we cannot know for sure what has been happening inside these rooms." The lawyers have requested CCTV records for the period since Assange's arrest, Poveda said.

    The US has until June 12 to build a case for Assange' extradition. Last week, Assange, who has been serving a 50-week sentence in a maximum-security Guantanamo Bay-style prison for skipping bail, faced an extradition judge for the first time. The WikiLeaks co-founder said he would not surrender himself to extradition for simply "doing journalism" that has earned his site many international awards.

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  9. Link to Post #145
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Sweden Reopens Investigation of Julian Assange for Rape, Complicating U.S. Extradition

    The Intercept
    Robert Mackey
    https://theintercept.com/2019/05/13/sweden-reopens-investigation-julian-assange-rape-complicates-u-s-extradition/


    Sweden’s Prosecution Authority reopened an investigation of Julian Assange for rape on Monday, and will seek his extradition from Britain, the country’s deputy director of public prosecution, Eva-Marie Persson, told reporters in Stockholm.

    The Swedish request will force British authorities to decide whether to send the detained WikiLeaks founder to Sweden or the United States, or neither, at the end of the 50-week jail sentence he is currently serving for violating bail conditions in 2012, when he took refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy after losing his final appeal against extradition to Sweden.

    “On 20 August 2010, a police report was made regarding a suspected rape in Enköping, Sweden on 17 August 2010. The alleged offender was reported as being the Australian citizen, JA, born 3 July 1971,” the prosecution authority said in a written explanation of the decision. “The courts in Sweden have, on several occasions during the preliminary investigation, considered the decision to detain JA in his absence, and on each occasion found there exists probable cause for JA to be suspected of rape.”

    At a news conference on Monday, Persson said, “after reviewing the preliminary investigation in its current state, my assessment is that there is still probable cause that Mr. Assange committed rape.”

    Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a lawyer for Assange’s unidentified Swedish accuser, said that her client welcomed the reopening of the investigation, despite the harassment she has faced from supporters of the WikiLeaks founder who have cast doubt on her claims.

    While the Obama administration had reportedly contemplated but decided against charging Assange with a crime related to the 2010 publication of troves of Pentagon and State Department documents provided by Chelsea Manning, the Trump administration secretly filed criminal charges against him last year related to that leak.

    Those charges were filed despite the fact that WikiLeaks had secretly offered help to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, in a series of private Twitter messages sent to the candidate’s son Donald Trump Jr., and the candidate had repeatedly praised the group for releasing emails stolen by Russia from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. In one post-election message to Trump Jr., WikiLeaks even suggested that, as a form of payback, it would be “helpful for your dad to suggest that Australia appoint Assange ambassador to DC.”

    A British judge gave the U.S. a deadline of June 12 to make its case for the extradition of Assange, who has denied the rape allegation in Sweden and conspiring with Chelsea Manning to break U.S. law.

    Persson, the Swedish prosecutor, said that her office will issue a European Arrest Warrant immediately, seeking to question and possibly charge Assange based on a complaint from a woman who says he raped in in 2010. The investigation had been suspended in 2017 when it appeared unlikely that Assange could be extradited due to his political asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London.

    “I am well aware of the fact that an extradition process is ongoing in the UK and that he could be extradited to the US,” Persson said. “In the event of a conflict between a European Arrest Warrant and a request for extradition from the US, UK authorities will decide on the order of priority.”

    The competing extradition requests will be evaluated by a British judge, but the ultimate decision could be made by the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, a Conservative politician.

    Last month, more than 70 British lawmakers signed a letter to Javid from Stella Creasy, a member of Parliament for the opposition Labour party, urging their government to give priority to any extradition request from Sweden, over the one filed by the U.S. “We must send a strong message of the priority the UK has in tackling sexual violence and the seriousness with which such allegations are viewed,” Creasy wrote. “We urge you to stand with the victims of sexual violence and seek to ensure the case against Mr Assange can now be properly investigated.”

    One of the lawmakers who signed that letter, Jess Phillips, wrote on Monday that giving priority to the Swedish extradition request would demonstrate that the British government takes its responsibility to ensure women’s safety seriously.

    The woman’s complaint, Swedish prosecutors told England’s High Court in 2011, was that in her home, “Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state.”

    “It is an aggravating circumstance,” the prosecutors added, “that Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party’s sexual integrity.”

    Since the statute of limitations on the rape allegation in Sweden expires in August 2020, that case would almost certainly end if Assange were to be extradited to the U.S. to face trial on allegations that he tried to help Chelsea Manning hack into a Pentagon computer system to obtain documents.

    “If the US is given priority and the Swedish request delayed, then justice will be denied,” David Allen Green, a British legal commentator argued in The New Statesman on Monday. “The Swedish allegation also does not have any freedom of expression element to it.”

    It is also possible that, from a legal standpoint, Assange might be better protected from extradition to the U.S. by agreeing to go to Sweden to allow the rape investigation to proceed.

    “Sweden, like the UK, is party to the European Convention on Human Rights, and so it would not be lawful for him to be extradited to America if there is any risk of torture or the death penalty,” Green observed.

    Mark Klamberg, a professor in public international law at Stockholm University, agreed that Assange might have more legal protection against extradition to the U.S. if he goes to Sweden. Writing on Twitter, Klamberg pointed out that while there is an exception for political offenses in most bilateral extradition treaties, including the original one between the U.K. and U.S., in 2003 the U.K. “changed its extradition law removing/weakening political offence exception.” Swedish law, however, still has that exception.

    Eva-Marie Persson, the Swedish prosecutor, told reporters on Monday that Assange does have some agency in the process, since he could agree to allow Swedish investigators to conduct a preliminary interview by video-link while he is serving his time in a British jail. “Such an interview, however, requires Julian Assange’s consent,” Persson said.

    A statement from WikiLeaks on Monday restated the group’s claim that the Swedish case is political in nature. “Since Julian Assange was arrested on 11 April 2019, there has been considerable political pressure on Sweden to reopen their investigation, but there has always been political pressure surrounding this case,” Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, said in the statement. “Assange was always willing to answer any questions from the Swedish authorities and repeatedly offered to do so, over six years. The widespread media assertion that Assange ‘evaded’ Swedish questioning is false.”

    “This investigation has been dropped before and its reopening will give Julian a chance to clear his name,” Hrafnsson concluded.

    The woman who brought the complaint still to be investigated has not been identified, but a second woman, whose separate complaint against Assange was dropped when the statute of limitations on her claim elapsed, is Anna Ardin. She told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet in 2010 that the complaints were “not orchestrated by the Pentagon,” as some Assange supporters had claimed, but were the result of actions by “a man who has a twisted attitude toward women and a problem taking no for an answer.”

    Even if Sweden does not renew its investigation, Assange’s extradition to the U.S. is likely to be challenged by his lawyers with reference to Article 4 of the extradition treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom signed in 2003, which states that “extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.”

    And extradition between the two countries is far from automatic. On at least nine occasions since the treaty was signed, the U.K. has declined extradition requests from the U.S. In 2012, then-Home Secretary Theresa May decided not to extradite Gary McKinnon, a British hacker with Asperger’s syndrome who admitted accessing U.S. government computers but claimed he was just looking for evidence of UFOs.

    Last year, another alleged hacker with Asperger’s, Lauri Love, won a High Court appeal against his extradition to the U.S. Love, who allegedly stole troves of data from the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Pentagon, NASA and the FBI, convinced judges that there was a high risk that he would kill himself if sent to an American prison.

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  11. Link to Post #146
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    The “Swedish Allegations” concerning Julian Assange:
    https://justice4assange.com/note-to-editors-Sweden.html

    Justice for Assange

    The Facts

    There is widespread media misreporting about allegations made against Julian Assange in Sweden in 2010. Here are the facts:

    First, Assange was always willing to answer any questions from the Swedish authorities and repeatedly offered to do so, over six years. The widespread media assertion that Assange “evaded” Swedish questioning is false. It was the Swedish prosecutor who for years refused to question Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy: they only did so, in November 2016, after the Swedish courts forced the prosecutor to travel to London. Sweden dropped the investigation six months later, in May 2017.

    Second, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 to avoid onward extradition to the US – not to avoid extradition to Sweden or to refuse to face the Swedish allegations. Assange would have accepted extradition to Sweden had it provided an assurance against onward extradition to the US (as Amnesty International also urged at the time) – but both Sweden and the UK refused to provide an assurance that he would not be extradited to the US.

    Third, Sweden wanted to drop its arrest warrant for Assange in 2013. It was the British government that insisted that the case against him continue. This is confirmed in emails released under a tribunal challenge following a Freedom of Information Act request. UK prosecutors admitted to deleting key emails and engaged in elaborate attempts to keep correspondence from the public record. Indeed, the lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service advised the Swedes in January 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.

    Fourth, despite widespread false reporting, Assange was never charged with anything related to the Swedish allegations. These only reached the level of a “preliminary investigation”. The Swedish prosecution questioned Assange on two separate occasions, in 2010 and 2016. He has consistently professed his innocence.

    Fifth, almost entirely omitted from current media reporting is that the initial Swedish preliminary investigation in 2010 was dropped after the chief prosecutor of Stockholm concluded that “the evidence did not disclose any evidence of rape” and that “no crime at all” had been committed. Text messages between the two women, which were later revealed, do not complain of rape. Rather, they show that the women “did not want to put any charges on JA but that the police were keen on getting a grip on him” and that they “only wanted him to take a test”. One wrote that “it was the police who made up the charges” and told a friend that she felt that she had been “railroaded by police and others around her”.

    Sixth, Assange left Sweden after the prosecutor told him that he was free to leave as he was not wanted for questioning. Assange had stayed in Sweden for five weeks. After he left, Interpol bizarrely issued a Red Notice for Assange, usually reserved for terrorists and dangerous criminals – raising concerns that this was not just about sexual accusations.

    Seventh, Sweden’s investigation is now entirely closed. It was shelved for six years during the period 2010-2016 while the Swedish prosecutor refused to question Assange in London. Sweden’s Court of Appeal ruled that that the prosecutor had breached her duty because a preliminary investigation either has to be open and active leading to a charge, or closed—there is no intermediate phase. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also concluded that the prosecutor’s inaction had resulted in Sweden and the UK violating international obligations.

    Eighth, there was no technical impediment for the prosecutor to proceed to charge Assange after he was questioned in the Ecuadorian embassy. In early 2017, Assange’s lawyers asked a Swedish court to force the prosecutor to either charge Assange or drop the arrest warrant. The prosecutor closed the investigation in May 2017 without attempting to charge him.

    Since his arrest on 11 April 2019, there has been considerable political pressure on Sweden to reopen the investigation. Theoretically any closed investigation can be reopened until the statute of limitations expires—August 2020 in this case. Such calls serve to displace the critical issue of Assange’s impending US extradition over WikiLeaks publications (whether from UK or Sweden). They also obfuscate critical facts, such as the fact that the UK and Swedish authorities had actively prevented Assange from responding to the allegations, which is contrary to basic principles of due process.

    It is critical to note that the re-opened Swedish allegations in September 2010 occurred after WikiLeaks published the Iraq “Collateral Murder” video in April 2010 and the Afghanistan war logs in July 2010. In fact, US grand jury proceedings already began against Assange in June 2010 and by July, the US was publicly describing WikiLeaks as a “very real and potential threat”. The Intercept’s Charles Glass has reported that “Sources in Swedish intelligence told me at the time that they believed the U.S. had encouraged Sweden to pursue the case.” Other reports from just days before the Swedish allegations were initiated show that the U.S. State Department was encouraging allied states to initiate prosecutions against Assange. To ignore all this, as much media reporting does, is to ignore vital further context.

    In December 2018, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, together with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, reiterated their finding from 2016 and urged Assange’s freedom to be restored. UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture are currently investigation Assange’s case.

    Further reading

    “About Julian” - https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-...

    “False Statements about Assange and WikiLeaks” - https://defend.wikileaks.org/2019/0...

    Julian Assange’s Affidavits - https://defend.wikileaks.org/resources/

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  13. Link to Post #147
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Reopening the case for the 3rd time after closing it twice more than gives an appearance of a coordinated effort by all 3 countries to destroy Assange.

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...din-is-a-liar/

    Why I am Convinced that Anna Ardin is a Liar

    Craig Murray - 11 Sep, 2012

    I am slightly updating and reposting this from 2012 because the mainstream media have ensured very few people know the detail of the “case” against Julian Assange in Sweden. The UN Working Group ruled that Assange ought never to have been arrested in the UK in the first place because there is no case, and no genuine investigation. Read this and you will know why.

    The other thing not widely understood is there is NO JURY in a rape trial in Sweden and it is a SECRET TRIAL. All of the evidence, all of the witnesses, are heard in secret. No public, no jury, no media. The only public part is the charging and the verdict. There is a judge and two advisers directly appointed by political parties. So you never would get to understand how plainly the case is a stitch-up. Unless you read this.

    There are so many inconsistencies in Anna Ardin’s accusation of sexual assault against Julian Assange. But the key question which leaps out at me – and which strangely I have not seen asked anywhere else – is this:

    Why did Anna Ardin not warn Sofia Wilen?

    On 16 August, Julian Assange had sex with Sofia Wilen. Sofia had become known in the Swedish group around Assange for the shocking pink cashmere sweater she had worn in the front row of Assange’s press conference. Anna Ardin knew Assange was planning to have sex with Sofia Wilen. On 17 August, Ardin texted a friend who was looking for Assange:

    “He’s not here. He’s planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?”

    Yet Ardin later testified that just three days earlier, on 13 August, she had been sexually assaulted by Assange; an assault so serious she was willing to try (with great success) to ruin Julian Assange’s entire life. She was also to state that this assault involved enforced unprotected sex and she was concerned about HIV.

    If Ardin really believed that on 13 August Assange had forced unprotected sex on her and this could have transmitted HIV, why did she make no attempt to warn Sofia Wilen that Wilen was in danger of her life? And why was Ardin discussing with Assange his desire for sex with Wilen, and texting about it to friends, with no evident disapproval or discouragement?

    Ardin had Wilen’s contact details and indeed had organised her registration for the press conference. She could have warned her. But she didn’t.

    Let us fit that into a very brief survey of the whole Ardin/Assange relationship. .

    11 August: Assange arrives in Stockholm for a press conference organised by a branch of the Social Democratic Party.

    Anna Ardin has offered her one bed flat for him to stay in as she will be away.

    13 August: Ardin comes back early. She has dinner with Assange and they have consensual sex, on the first day of meeting. Ardin subsequently alleges this turned into assault by surreptitious mutilation of the condom.

    14 August: Anna volunteers to act as Julian’s press secretary. She sits next to him on the dais at his press conference. Assange meets Sofia Wilen there.

    Anna tweets at 14.00:

    ‘Julian wants to go to a crayfish party, anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow? #fb’

    This attempt to find a crayfish party fails, so Ardin organises one herself for him, in a garden outside her flat. Anna and Julian seem good together. One guest hears Anna rib Assange that she thought “you had dumped me” when he got up from bed early that morning. Another offers to Anna that Julian can leave her flat and come stay with them. She replies:

    “He can stay with me.”

    15 August Still at the crayfish party with Julian, Anna tweets:

    ‘Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing! #fb’
    Julian and Anna, according to both their police testimonies, sleep again in the same single bed, and continue to do so for the next few days. Assange tells police they continue to have sex; Anna tells police they do not. That evening, Anna and Julian go together to, and leave together from, a dinner with the leadership of the Pirate Party. They again sleep in the same bed.

    16 August: Julian goes to have sex with Sofia Wilen: Ardin does not warn her of potential sexual assault.
    Another friend offers Anna to take over housing Julian. Anna again refuses.

    20 August: After Sofia Wilen contacts her to say she is worried about STD’s including HIV after unprotected sex with Julian, Anna takes her to see Anna’s friend, fellow Social Democrat member, former colleague on the same ballot in a council election, and campaigning feminist police officer, Irmeli Krans. Ardin tells Wilen the police can compel Assange to take an HIV test. Ardin sits in throughout Wilen’s unrecorded – in breach of procedure – police interview. Krans prepares a statement accusing Assange of rape. Wilen refuses to sign it.

    21 August Having heard Wilen’s interview and Krans’ statement from it, Ardin makes her own police statement alleging Assange has surreptiously had unprotected sex with her eight days previously.

    Some days later: Ardin produces a broken condom to the police as evidence; but a forensic examination finds no traces of Assange’s – or anyone else’s – DNA on it, and indeed it is apparently unused.

    No witness has come forward to say that Ardin complained of sexual assault by Assange before Wilen’s Ardin-arranged interview with Krans – and Wilen came forward not to complain of an assault, but enquire about STDs. Wilen refused to sign the statement alleging rape, which was drawn up by Ardin’s friend Krans in Ardin’s presence.

    It is therefore plain that one of two things happened:

    Either

    Ardin was sexually assaulted with unprotected sex, but failed to warn Wilen when she knew Assange was going to see her in hope of sex.

    Ardin also continued to host Assange, help him, appear in public and private with him, act as his press secretary, and sleep in the same bed with him, refusing repeated offers to accommodate him elsewhere, all after he assaulted her.

    Or

    Ardin wanted sex with Assange – from whatever motive.. She “unexpectedly” returned home early after offering him the use of her one bed flat while she was away. By her own admission, she had consensual sex with him, within hours of meeting him.

    She discussed with Assange his desire for sex with Wilen, and appears at least not to have been discouraging. Hearing of Wilen’s concern about HIV after unprotected sex, she took Wilen to her campaigning feminist friend, policewoman Irmeli Krans, in order to twist Wilen’s story into a sexual assault – very easy given Sweden’s astonishing “second-wave feminism” rape laws. Wilen refused to sign.

    At the police station on 20 August, Wilen texted a friend at 14.25 “did not want to put any charges against JA but the police wanted to get a grip on him.”

    At 17.26 she texted that she was “shocked when they arrested JA because I only wanted him to take a test”.

    The next evening at 22.22 she texted “it was the police who fabricated the charges”.

    Ardin then made up her own story of sexual assault. As so many friends knew she was having sex with Assange, she could not claim non-consensual sex. So she manufactured her story to fit in with Wilen’s concerns by alleging the affair of the torn condom. But the torn condom she produced has no trace of Assange on it. It is impossible to wear a condom and not leave a DNA trace.

    Conclusion

    I have no difficulty in saying that I firmly believe Ardin to be a liar. For her story to be true involves acceptance of behaviour which is, in the literal sense, incredible.

    Ardin’s story is of course incredibly weak, but that does not matter. Firstly, you were never supposed to see all this detail. Rape trials in Sweden are held entirely in secret. There is no jury, and the government appointed judge is flanked by assessors appointed directly by political parties. If Assange goes to Sweden, he will disappear into jail, the trial will be secret, and the next thing you will hear is that he is guilty and a rapist.

    Secondly, of course, it does not matter the evidence is so weak, as just to cry rape is to tarnish a man’s reputation forever. Anna Ardin has already succeeded in ruining much of the work and life of Assange. The details of the story being pathetic is unimportant.

    By crying rape, politically correct opinion falls in behind the line that it is wrong even to look at the evidence. If you are not allowed to know who the accuser is, how can you find out that she worked with CIA-funded anti-Castro groups in Havana and Miami?

    Finally, to those useful idiots who claim that the way to test these matters is in court, I would say of course, you are right, we should trust the state always, fit-ups never happen, and we should absolutely condemn the disgraceful behaviour of those who campaigned for the Birmingham Six.
    Last edited by Franny; 13th May 2019 at 17:32.

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    How to write to Julian Assange:
    •Please write short personal letters only. Material is read by Belmarsh security.
    •You must include your full name & address on back of envelope.
    •Include blank paper & blank envelope with return postage.

    https://writejulian.com/

    Never give up on your silly, silly dreams.

    You mustn't be afraid to dream a little BIGGER, darling.

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    BUMP BUMP BUMP

    Quote Posted by Rachel (here)
    How to write to Julian Assange:
    •Please write short personal letters only. Material is read by Belmarsh security.
    •You must include your full name & address on back of envelope.
    •Include blank paper & blank envelope with return postage.

    https://writejulian.com/

    Kristinn and Pamela after they visited Julian.


    Source: Watch on Vimeo



    </3

    Life and death. They keep reiterating the importance of public support at this time, that justice is in our hands.

    We are many, together we can fill the hat, just a dollar each if that’s all we have: https://defend.wikileaks.org/
    Never give up on your silly, silly dreams.

    You mustn't be afraid to dream a little BIGGER, darling.

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Quote Posted by Kryztian (here)
    Sweden Reopens Investigation of Julian Assange for Rape, Complicating U.S. Extradition
    Stratfor email -



    https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/1...arrested-.html

    ***

    Never give up on your silly, silly dreams.

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    United States Avalon Member onawah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    How about doing some group meditations for Julian several times for different time zones?
    Last edited by onawah; 19th May 2019 at 15:38.
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    I sent a PM to Omi, who appears to be coordinating this thread nowadays: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1201436
    ...to see if some focused meditations for Julian might be put on the schedule.
    Each breath a gift...
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Quote Posted by onawah (here)
    I sent a PM to Omi, who appears to be coordinating this thread nowadays: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1201436
    ...to see if some focused meditations for Julian might be put on the schedule.
    Hi onawah,

    I've taken your request and made a post about the positive intentions on Julian Assange's situation for next Sunday's group meditation.
    Remember that all is One. -Edgar Cayce

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  27. Link to Post #154
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    ________________________________________

    "[...] untrue. Sweden has not filed a request for arrest. Sweden is going through its judicial processes – which it skipped the first time – in order to decide whether or not to file a request for arrest. This gives Assange the opportunity to start the process of fighting the allegations, which he strenuously denies, in the Swedish courts. However at present his Swedish lawyer cannot access him in Belmarsh high security jail, which is typical of the abuses of process to which he is subject."


    "Julian Assange revolutionised publishing by bringing the public direct access to massive amounts of raw material showing secrets the government wished to hide. By giving the public this direct access he cut out the filtering and mediating role of the journalistic and political classes."


    ________________________________________

    The Missing Step
    20 May, 2019
    CRAIG MURRAY
    ________________________________________

    In Sweden, prosecutors have applied to the Swedish courts to issue a warrant for Julian’s arrest. There is a tremendous back story to that simple statement.

    The European Arrest Warrant must be issued from one country to another by a judicial authority. The original Swedish request for Assange’s extradition was not issued by any court, but simply by the prosecutor. This was particularly strange, as the Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm had initially closed the case after deciding there was no case to answer, and then another, highly politically motivated, prosecutor had reopened the case and issued a European Arrest Warrant, without going to any judge for confirmation.

    Assange’s initial appeal up to the UK Supreme Court was in large part based on the fact that the warrant did not come from a judge but from a prosecutor, and that was not a judicial authority. I have no doubt that, if any other person in the UK had been the accused, the British courts would not have accepted the warrant from a prosecutor.

    The incredible and open bias of the courts against Assange has been evident since day 1.

    My contention is borne out by the fact that, immediately after Assange lost his case against the warrant in the Supreme Court, the British government changed the law to specify that future warrants must be from a judge and not a prosecutor. That is just one of the incredible facts about the Assange case that the mainstream media has hidden from the general public.

    The judgement against Assange in the UK Supreme Court on the point of whether the Swedish Prosecutor constituted a “judicial authority” hinged on a completely unprecedented and frankly incredible piece of reasoning. Lord Phillips concluded that in the English text of the EWA treaty “judicial authority” could not include the Swedish prosecutor, but that in the French version “autorite judiciaire” could include the Swedish prosecutor.

    The two texts having equal validity, Lord Phillips decided to prefer the French language text over the English language text, an absolutely stunning decision as the UK negotiators could be presumed to have been working from the English text, as could UK ministers and parliament when they ratified the decision.

    I am not making this up – you will find Phillips amazing bit of linguistic gymnastics here on page 9 para 21 of his judgement. Again, it is impossible that this would have been done to anybody but Julian Assange; and had it been the outcry from the MSM against the preference given to French wording and thus French legal tradition would have been deafening. But given the state’s unhidden animus against Assange, it all was passed quietly with the law simply amended immediately thereafter to stop it happening to anybody else.

    The law having been changed, this time the Swedes have to do it properly and actually go to a court to issue a warrant. That is what is now happening. As usual, the Guardian today cannot resist the temptation to tell an outright lie about what is happening.

    Click image for larger version

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    The main headline is completely untrue. Sweden has not filed a request for arrest. Sweden is going through its judicial processes – which it skipped the first time – in order to decide whether or not to file a request for arrest. This gives Assange the opportunity to start the process of fighting the allegations, which he strenuously denies, in the Swedish courts. However at present his Swedish lawyer cannot access him in Belmarsh high security jail, which is typical of the abuses of process to which he is subject.

    It is not political correctness which prevents the UK mainstream media from investigating the extraordinary nature of the allegations against Assange in Sweden. In the case of Nafissatou Diallo, for example, the entire UK mainstream media had no compunction whatsoever in publishing the name of the alleged victim from the very first moment of the allegations against DSK, and the likelihood or otherwise of the entire story was raked through in detail by every single national newspaper, and extensively by the BBC.

    Click image for larger version

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    I have never heard anybody even attempt to explain why it was OK for the MSM to look in detail at Diallo’s accusations and use her name, but Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen must never be named and their story must never be doubted. The answer is not the position in Swedish law – the Swedish law states that neither the accuser nor the accused may be named, which law has been gleefully broken in Assange’s case every day for nine years.

    When it comes to Assange, he is simply to be reviled. He is provably treated differently by both state and MSM at all points. It does not matter to them that his arrest warrant was not from a judge, or that the media apply entirely different rules to investigating his case, enforced by a feminist mantra they do not believe or uphold in other cases. He is simply to be hated without question.

    Why has there never been a documentary in the UK like the brilliant “Sex, Lies and Julian Assange” from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship Four Corners programme? Please do watch if you have not done so already:

    Sex, Lies and Julian Assange
    Posted Mon 23 Jul 2012, 2:51pm
    Updated Wed 24 Apr 2019, 12:13pm


    https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/sex-...ssange/4156420


    Julian Assange revolutionised publishing by bringing the public direct access to massive amounts of raw material showing secrets the government wished to hide. By giving the public this direct access he cut out the filtering and mediating role of the journalistic and political classes.

    Contrast, for example, the Panama Papers which, contrary to promises, only ever saw less than 2% of the raw material published and where major western companies and individuals were completely protected from revelation because of the use of MSM intermediaries. Or compare Wikileaks to the Snowden files, the vast majority of which have now been buried and will never be revealed, after foolishly being entrusted to the Guardian and the Intercept.

    Assange cut out the intermediary role of the mediating journalist and, by allowing the people to see the truth about how they are governed, played a major role in undercutting public confidence in the political establishment that exploits them.

    There is an interesting parallel with the reaction to the work of Reformation scholars in translating the Bible into vernacular languages and giving the populace direct access to its contents, without the mediating filters of the priestly class. Such developments will always provoke extraordinary venom from those whose position is threatened. I see a historical parallel between Julian Assange and William Tyndale in this respect. It is something worth bearing in mind in trying to understand the depth of the State’s hatred of Julian.

    ——————————————

    ADDITIONAL RESOURCE/S: Deep Politics Forum
    https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums...hp/t-5525.html
    Last edited by Tintin; 21st May 2019 at 15:46.
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Press release from WikiLeaks: Ecuador to hand over Assange's entire legal defense to the United States (20 May 2019)

    U.S. charges WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with espionage

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department unveiled 17 new criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, saying he unlawfully published the names of classified sources and conspired with and assisted ex-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in obtaining access to classified information.

    FULL ARTICLE.

    Full PDF of indictment: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthel...ull.pdf#page=1

    Here it is, a moment of truth for the people. The Party is on full display, how will we respond?

    Please, please, not for Julian Assange, but for the future of our children, resist this. This doesn’t just come down to our American brothers and sisters, we know the truth of the political world stage, this is every sane, intelligent, compassionate person’s responsibility. Just one small action, just one each.

    Never give up on your silly, silly dreams.

    You mustn't be afraid to dream a little BIGGER, darling.

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Charging Julian Assange With Espionage Could Make His Extradition to the U.S. Less Likely
    Robert Mackey
    May 24 2019
    https://theintercept.com/2019/05/24/...s-extradition/
    "BY CHARGING Julian Assange with 17 violations of America’s World War I-era Espionage Act on Thursday, federal prosecutors in Virginia might have undermined their own chances of securing the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder from the United Kingdom.

    That’s because the new charges relate not to any arcane interpretation of computer hacking laws, but to WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of American military reports and diplomatic cables provided by the former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010.

    The fact that WikiLeaks published many of those documents in collaboration with an international consortium of leading news organizations — including The Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, El País, and Der Spiegel — ensured that the charges against Assange were immediately denounced by journalists and free speech advocates as an unconstitutional assault on press freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment."
    ****************************************************************
    The U.S. Just Upped the Ante on Julian Assange's Extradition With Espionage Charges
    BY BILLY PERRIGO
    5/24/19
    http://time.com/5595491/julian-assan...t-extradition/
    "Julian Assange was indicted by the U.S. under the Espionage Act on Thursday, setting the stage for a dramatic confrontation between U.S. and Swedish prosecutors, who each want to extradite Assange before the other.

    Sweden had, a week earlier, re-opened a rape investigation into the Wikileaks founder and began steps to request his extradition.

    By indicting Assange with 18 charges under the Espionage Act, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, the U.S. has considerably raised the stakes. The only U.S. charge against Assange before Thursday was one count of conspiring to hack a password, which came with a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The new charges relate to Assange’s role in publishing classified State Department documents on WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011.

    Sweden’s move to request Assange’s arrest in the U.K. on rape charges may have prompted U.S. prosecutors to “throw the kitchen sink” at Assange, Ben Keith, a U.K. barrister specializing in extradition law, tells TIME.“It may be that Sweden’s further interest in this case means the U.S. has had to up the ante,” he says. “If Assange goes to Sweden, it’s more difficult to extradite him to the U.S. from there, because prosecutors will have to get both U.K. permission and Swedish permission.” (Officials from the U.S. Department of Justice did not explain why they chose to issue the further charges under the Espionage Act on Thursday.)

    But the U.S. indictments could backfire, due to provisions in the extradition treaty between the U.K. and the U.S. that protect against political prosecutions. The charges have raised freedom of the press concerns among some journalists in the U.S., and Assange may choose to argue that the new indictments are of a political nature.

    Even if that doesn’t happen, the decision-maker in this case is the U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid. He has come under great pressure to treat the rape allegations against Assange with more gravity than the U.S.’s national security charges.

    “The Home Secretary has to look at the seriousness of the offenses and which offense came first in time,” Keith says. “Even now, the Swedish offense might be more serious.”

    “There’s concern that the U.S. is trying to steal a march on Sweden, who have been trying to extradite Assange for many years.” "
    Each breath a gift...
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    Croatia Administrator Franny's Avatar
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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    My main reason for posting another article on the new indictments is the bolded very fine statement by Manning below.

    Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act on 17 New Counts

    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was indicted on Thursday under the Espionage Act, the first time a journalist has been charged under the Act for possessing and disseminating classified information.

    By Joe Lauria
    Special to Consortium News

    A journalist was indicted under the Espionage Act for the first time in U.S. history on Thursday when the Department of Justice charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Act in a move that opens the way for prosecution of anyone who publishes classified information.

    The 37-page indictment charges Assange under four sections of the Act, including Section E for possessing and disseminating classified matter. It charged him with acts common to any investigative journalist:

    “(i)circumvent(ing) legal safeguards on information; (ii) provid(ing) that protected information to WikiLeaks for public dissemination; and (iii) continu(ing) the pattern of illegally procuring and providing protected information to WikiLeaks for distribution to the public.”

    Assange is serving a 50-week sentence in London’s Belmarsh prison for skipping bail and seeking asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in 2012 because he feared onward extradition from Sweden to the United States and prosecution under the Espionage Act. He was arrested on April 11 when Ecuador illegally lifted his asylum and let British police onto Ecuadorian territory to carry Assange from the embassy.

    The U.S. had until June 12 to add additional charges in its extradition request to Britain. The decision on extradition rests with British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who WikiLeaks said “is now under enormous pressure to protect the rights of the free press in the UK and elsewhere.”

    Not a Journalist

    John Demers, head of the DOJ’s National Security Division, in announcing the indictment told reporters: “Some say that Assange is a journalist and that he should be immune for prosecution for these actions. The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy and we thank you for it. It is not and has never been the department’s policy to target them for reporting.”

    But Demers said Assange wasn’t a journalist. “No responsible actor, journalist or otherwise, would purposefully publish the names of individuals he or she knew to be confidential human sources in a war zone, exposing them to the gravest of dangers,” he said.

    Assange’s attorney in the U.S., Barry Pollack, responded:

    “Today the government charged Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for encouraging sources to provide him truthful information and for publishing that information. The fig leaf that this is merely about alleged computer hacking has been removed. These unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have taken by the U.S. government.”

    Assange would face a maximum of 175 years in jail if convicted on all charges. The Espionage Act carries a potential death penalty if the publication of classified information takes place during wartime. Some of WikiLeak‘s most prominent releases related to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which prima facie evidence of U.S. war crimes was revealed.

    WikiLeaks criticized in a statement the global reach of U.S. law: “The Department of Justice wants to imprison Assange for crimes allegedly committed outside of the United States. This extraterritorial application of US law is explicit throughout the indictment… thereby classifying any territory in the world as subject to US law.” A 1961 amendment to the Espionage Act extended its jurisdiction from U.S. territory to the entire world.

    A key part of the indictment alleges that Assange published in the Iraq, Afghanistan and State Dept. cables releases the unredacted names of informants and other persons, putting their lives at risk. The indictment does not name this as a violation of a specific statute, however, and appears to be an attempt to win public sympathy for the new charges.

    According to a WikiLeaks source, Assange was forced to reveal certain names in the Cable-gate releases in September 2011 to actually help individuals escape when two Guardian journalists in February of that year published a password to material containing their names that only intelligence agencies could access. Assange has repeatedly said that there is no known case of harm coming to anyone whose names were revealed and the indictment only says that informants were “vulnerable” to retribution.

    The indictment accuses Assange of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal classified documents. But it clearly states that Manning already had legal “access to the computers in connection with her duties as an intelligence analyst” and that Assange’s efforts to help Manning with a password was intended to help hide her identity as the source. The indictment appears to be criminalizing what is a routine act of journalism.

    “Had Manning retrieved the full password hash and had ASSANGE and Manning successfully cracked it, Manning may have been able to log onto computers under a user name that did not belong to her,” the indictment said. “Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of disclosures of classified information.”

    Manning, who is portrayed throughout the indictment as WikiLeak‘s source only at Assange’s behest, (and who remains imprisoned for refusing to testify against Assange), issued this statement:

    “I continue to accept full and sole responsibility for those disclosures in 2010. It’s telling that the government appears to have already obtained this indictment before my contempt hearing last week. This administration describes the press as the opposition party and an enemy of the people. Today, they use the law as a sword, and have shown their willingness to bring the full power of the state against the very institution intended to shield us from such excesses.”



    Press Freedom at Risk

    The indictment under the Espionage Act demolishes a democratic pretense of freedom of the press in the U.S. and makes all news organizations —indeed any citizen — liable for prosecution for disseminating classified information.

    “Notably, The New York Times, among many other news organizations, obtained precisely the same archives of documents from WikiLeaks, without authorization from the government — the act that most of the charges addressed,” the Times reported.

    “Though he is not a conventional journalist, much of what Mr. Assange does at WikiLeaks is difficult to distinguish in a legally meaningful way from what traditional news organizations like The New York Times do: seek and publish information that officials want to be secret, including classified national security matters, and take steps to protect the confidentiality of sources,” the Times report on the indictment said.

    In a tweet WikiLeaks called the indictment “madness.”

    The American Civil Liberties Union tweeted:

    “These charges are an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on journalism, establishing a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets.

    The charges against Assange are equally dangerous for US journalists who uncover the secrets of other nations. If the US can prosecute a foreign publisher for violating our secrecy laws, there’s nothing preventing China, or Russia, from doing the same.”

    In a statement, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristin Hrafnsson said:

    “This is the evil of lawlessness in its purest form. With the indictment, the ‘leader of the free world’ dismisses the First Amendment — hailed as a model of press freedom around the world — and launches a blatant extraterritorial assault outside its borders, attacking basic principles of democracy in Europe and the rest of the world.”

    In a tweet, Hrafnsson added that he took “no satisfaction” in having correctly warned of the Espionage Act prosecution of Assange.

    Please continue at the site, there are several large images of tweets etc.

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Last edited by meeradas; 30th May 2019 at 08:20.

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    UPDATE to my post #155 here | ABC 4 Corners - Sex, Lies and Julian Assange is downloadable via this link: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fou...sange_288p.mp4
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Julian Assange arrested after Ecuador tears up asylum deal

    Jonathan Cook has written a typically excellent article here entitled 'Abuses show Assange case was never about law'

    Extracted here:

    Back in 2017, when the rest of the media were still pretending this was all about Assange fleeing Swedish “justice”, John Pilger noted:
    In 2008, a secret Pentagon document prepared by the “Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch” foretold a detailed plan to discredit WikiLeaks and smear Assange personally. The “mission” was to destroy the “trust” that was WikiLeaks’ “centre of gravity”. This would be achieved with threats of “exposure [and] criminal prosecution”. Silencing and criminalising such an unpredictable source of truth-telling was the aim.” …

    According to Australian diplomatic cables, Washington’s bid to get Assange is “unprecedented in scale and nature”. …

    The US Justice Department has contrived charges of “espionage”, “conspiracy to commit espionage”, “conversion” (theft of government property), “computer fraud and abuse” (computer hacking) and general “conspiracy”. The favoured Espionage Act, which was meant to deter pacifists and conscientious objectors during World War One, has provisions for life imprisonment and the death penalty. …

    In 2015, a federal court in Washington blocked the release of all information about the “national security” investigation against WikiLeaks, because it was “active and ongoing” and would harm the “pending prosecution” of Assange. The judge, Barbara J. Rothstein, said it was necessary to show “appropriate deference to the executive in matters of national security”. This is a kangaroo court.


    _____________________
    In the article he also provides a helpful breakdown and timeline of the anomalies present in Julian's case, extracted below.
    _____________________

    So here is a far from complete list – aided by the research of John Pilger, Craig Murray and Caitlin Johnstone, and the origin investigative work of Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi – of some of the most glaring anomalies in Assange’s legal troubles. There are 17 of them below. Each might conceivably have been possible in isolation. But taken together they are overwhelming evidence that this was never about enforcing the law. From the start, Assange faced political persecution.
    No judicial authority
    * In late summer 2010, neither of the two Swedish women alleged Assange had raped them when they made police statements. They went together to the police station after finding out that Assange had slept with them both only a matter of days apart and wanted him to be forced to take an HIV test.
    One of the women, SW, refused to sign the police statement when she understood the police were seeking an indictment for rape. The investigation relating to the second woman, AA, was for a sexual assault specific to Sweden. A condom produced by AA that she says Assange tore during sex was found to have neither her nor Assange’s DNA on it, undermining her credibility.

    * Sweden’s strict laws protecting suspects during preliminary investigations were violated by the Swedish media to smear Assange as a rapist. In response, the Stockholm chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, took charge and quickly cancelled the investigation: “I don’t believe there is any reason to suspect that he has committed rape.” She later concluded: “There is no suspicion of any crime whatsoever.”

    * The case was revived by another prosecutor, Marianne Ny, although she never questioned Assange. He spent more than a month in Sweden waiting for developments in the case, but was then told by prosecutors he was free to leave for the UK, suggesting that suspicions against him were not considered serious enough to detain him in Sweden. Nonetheless, shortly afterwards, Interpol issued a Red Notice for Assange, usually reserved for terrorists and dangerous criminals.

    * The UK supreme court approved an extradition to Sweden based on a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in 2010, despite the fact that it was not signed by a “judicial authority”, only by the Swedish prosecutor. The terms of the EAW agreement were amended by the UK government shortly after the Assange ruling to make sure such an abuse of legal procedure never occurred again.

    * The UK supreme court also approved Assange’s extradition even though Swedish authorities refused to offer an assurance that he would not be extradited onwards to the US, where a grand jury was already formulating draconian charges in secret against him under the Espionage Act. The US similarly refused to give an assurance they would not seek his extradition.

    * In these circumstances, Assange fled to Ecuador’s embassy in London in summer 2012, seeking political asylum. That was after the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, blocked Assange’s chance to appealto the European Court of Human Rights.

    * Australia not only refused Assange, a citizen, any help during his long ordeal, but prime minister Julia Gillard even threatened to strip Assange of his citizenship, until it was pointed out that it would be illegal for Australia to do so.

    * Britain, meanwhile, not only surrounded the embassy with a large police force at great public expense, but William Hague, the foreign secretary, threatened to tear up the Vienna Convention, violating Ecuador’s diplomatic territory by sending UK police into the embassy to arrest Assange.

    Six years of heel-dragging
    * Although Assange was still formally under investigation, Ny refused to come to London to interview him, despite similar interviews having been conducted by Swedish prosecutors 44 times in the UK in the period Assange was denied that right.

    * In 2016, international legal experts in the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which adjudicates on whether governments have complied with human rights obligations, ruled that Assange was being detained unlawfully by Britain and Sweden. Although both countries participated in the UN investigation, and had given the tribunal vocal support when other countries were found guilty of human rights violations, they steadfastly ignored its ruling in favour of Assange.
    UK Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond flat-out lied in claiming the UN panel was “made up of lay people and not lawyers”. The tribunal comprises leading experts in international law, as is clear from their CVs. Nonetheless, the lie became Britain’s official response to the UN ruling. The British media performed no better. A Guardian editorial dismissed the verdict as nothing more than a “publicity stunt”.

    * Ny finally relented on Assange being interviewed in November 2016, with a Swedish prosecutor sent to London after six years of heel-dragging. However, Assange’s Swedish lawyer was barred from being present. Ny was due to be questioned about the interview by a Stockholm judge in May 2017 but closed the investigation against Assange the very same day.

    * In fact, correspondence that was later revealed under a Freedom of Information request – pursued by Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi – shows that the British prosecution service, the CPS, pressured the Swedish prosecutor not to come to the London to interview Assange through 2010 and 2011, thereby creating the embassy standoff.

    * Also, the CPS destroyed most of the incriminating correspondence to circumvent the FoI requests. The emails that surfaced did so only because some copies were accidentally overlooked in the destruction spree. Those emails were bad enough. They show that in 2013 Sweden had wanted to drop the case against Assange but had come under strong British pressure to continue the pretence of seeking his extradition. There are emails from the CPS stating, “Don’t you dare” drop the case, and most revealing of all: “Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.”


    * It also emerged that Marianne Ny had deleted an email she received from the FBI.

    * Despite his interview with Ny taking place in late 2016, Assange was not subseqently charged in absentia – an option Sweden could have pursued if it had thought the evidence was strong enough.

    * After Sweden dropped the investigation against Assange, his lawyers sought last year to get the British arrest warrant for his bail breach dropped. They had good grounds, both because the allegations over which he’d been bailed had been dropped by Sweden and because he had justifiable cause to seek asylum given the apparent US interest in extraditing him and locking him up for life for political crimes. His lawyers could also argue convincingly that the time he had spent in confinement, first under house arrest and then in the embassy, was more than equivalent to time, if any, that needed to be served for the bail infringement. However, the judge, Emma Arbuthnot, rejected the Assange team’s strong legal arguments. She was hardly a dispassionate observer. In fact, in a properly ordered world she should have recused herself, given that she is the wife of a government whip, who was also a business partner of a former head of MI6, Britain’s version of the CIA.

    * Assange’s legal rights were again flagrantly violated last week, with the collusion of Ecuador and the UK, when US prosecutors were allowed to seize Assange’s personal items from the embassy while his lawyers and UN officials were denied the right to be present.
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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