Free speech no excuse for crimes: US

Assange espionage charges carry 175 years in prison

LONDON, Feb 24, (AP): The US government began outlining its extradition case against Julian Assange in a London court on Monday, arguing that the WikiLeaks founder is not a free-speech champion but an “ordinary” criminal who put many lives at risk with his secret-spilling.

US authorities want to try Assange on espionage charges that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison over the 2010 publication of hundreds of thousands of secret military documents and diplomatic cables. Assange argues he was acting as a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection.

Lawyer James Lewis, representing the US government, called WikiLeaks’ 2010 document deluge “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”

“Reporting or journalism is not an excuse for criminal activities or a license to break ordinary criminal laws,” he said.

Dozens of Assange supporters protested outside the high-security courthouse, chanting and setting off a horn as District Judge Vanessa Baraitser began hearing the case. Assange, 48, watched proceedings from the dock in the courtroom at Woolwich Crown Court – brought there from Belmarsh Prison next door, where he has been imprisoned for 10 months.

Just before the lunch break, Assange complained that he was having difficulty concentrating and called the noise from outside “not helpful.”

The extradition hearing follows years of subterfuge, diplomatic dispute and legal drama that have led the Australian computer expert from fame as an international secret-spiller through self-imposed exile inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to incarceration in a maximum-security British prison.

Assange has been indicted in the US on 18 charges over the publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say he conspired with US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password and hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files

of Mandamos on Lesbos, told The Associated Press. (AP)

EX- PM, wife go on trial:

He could have been president of France. Instead, former prime minister Francois Fillon is going on trial to face fraud charges after he used public funds to richly pay his wife and children for work they allegedly never performed.

The trial beginning Monday is scheduled to last until March 11, but it may be quickly suspended until Wednesday on request from Fillon’s defense team out of solidarity with a lawyers’ strike against French President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reform.

Fillon is suspected of having given jobs as parliamentary aides, involving no sustained work, to on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange says the leaked documents exposed US military wrongdoing. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

But Lewis said Assange was guilty of “straightforward” criminal activity in trying to hack the computer. And he said WikiLeaks’ activities created a “grave and imminent risk” to US intelligence sources in war zones, who were named in the documents.

“What Mr Assange seeks to defend by free speech is not the publication of the classified materials, but he seeks to defend the publication of sources – the names of people who put themselves at risk to assist the US and its allies,” the lawyer said.

Lewis said some informants and others who had been assisting the Americans had to be relocated after the leak, and others “subsequently disappeared.”

Lewis said WikiLeaks’ information had helped America’s enemies. Documents from WikiLeaks were found in al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan after he was killed in a US attack, the lawyer said.

He said it wasn’t the role of the British court to determine whether Assange was guilty.

“This is an extradition hearing, not a trial,” he said. “The guilt or innocence of Mr Assange will be determined at trial in the United States, not in this court.”

Journalism organizations and civil liberties groups including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders say the charges against Assange set a chilling precedent for freedom of the press.

Among the supporters outside court was fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who wore a headband with the word “angel” on it and said she was “the angel of democracy.”

“It is not a crime to publish American war crimes,” she said. “It’s in the public interest, it is democracy, that he is allowed to do this.”

his wife and two of their children from 1998 to 2013. Altogether, the aide work brought the family more than 1 million euros ($1.08 million).

Once the front-runner in the 2017 presidential election, Fillon, 65, has denied wrongdoing.

The scandal, which made headline in the French media just three months before the 2017 vote, crushed the conservative candidate’s campaign and allowed centrist candidate Macron to gain momentum.

Fillon has been charged with the misuse of public funds, receiving money from the misuse of public funds and the misappropriation of company assets. He faces up to ten years in prison and a 1 million euro fine.

His wife, Penelope Fillon, has been charged mostly as an accomplice.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson (right), and Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic shake hands during their meeting inside 10 Downing Street in London on Feb 24. (AP)

Assange’s legal saga began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. He refused to go to Stockholm, saying he feared extradition or illegal rendition to the United States or the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In 2012, Assange sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was beyond the reach of UK and Swedish authorities.

For seven years Assange led an isolated and increasingly surreal existence in the tiny embassy, which occupies an apartment in an upscale block near the ritzy Harrod’s department store. The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted in April 2019. British police immediately arrested him for jumping bail in 2012.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November because so much time had elapsed, but Assange remains in London’s Belmarsh Prison as he awaits a decision on the US extradition request.

For his supporters around the world, Assange remains a hero. But many others are critical of the way WikiLeaks has published classified documents without redacting details that could endanger individuals. WikiLeaks has also been accused of serving as a conduit for Russian misinformation, and Assange has alienated some supporters by dallying with populist politicians including Brexit-promoter Nigel Farage.

An end to the saga could still be years away. After a week of opening arguments, the extradition case is due to break until May, when the two sides will lay out their evidence. The judge isn’t expected to rule until several months after that, with the losing side likely to appeal.

If the courts approve extradition, the British government will have the final say.

The case comes at delicate time for trans-Atlantic relations. The UK has left the European Union and is keen to strike a trade deal with the US.

A former lawmaker, Marc Joulaud, also goes on trial for misuse of public funds after he allegedly gave her a fake job as an aide from 2002 to 2007, while her husband was prime minister.

Fillon and Joulaud both had other parliamentary assistants.

Opp backs anti-govt protest:

Albania’s main opposition Democratic Party on Sunday supported a call from the country’s president for an anti-government protest and also asked for a new election.

Earlier this week, President Ilir Meta called for a rally on March 2 against the left-wing government, which he accused of violating the country’s constitution and of links to organized crime.

Democratic leader Lulzim Basha on Sunday wrote on his Facebook page that the party supports Meta’s anti-government protest, adding that Albania is in a constitutional and economic crisis and “democracy is in danger.”

“There is one democratic solution: ending on time the electoral reform and immediately hold free and fair elections,” Basha said.

For months last year, the opposition held protests that often turned into violent clashes with police. It also boycotted parliament and a vote for local authorities, accusing the government of vote-rigging and of links to organized crime.

Both Meta and the opposition claim that a justice system reform approved three years ago to root out bribery and ensure that judges and prosecutors are independent from politics – part of the effort to embrace European Union stand

ards – has failed.

The political turmoil comes as the Balkan nation of nearly 3 million people has been enacting reforms in hopes of getting a green light to launch EU membership talks. (AP)

4 critical after blast:

Three women and a 10-year-old boy remain in critical condition in North Macedonia, a day after a home cooking-gas explosion that killed another four members of their extended family, health authorities said Monday.

The head of the intensive care unit in the capital Skopje’s hospital, Ilir Hasani ,said the women, aged between 30 and 50, suffered burns on 80% of their bodies and have been put on respiratory machines. The boy has burns on 75% of his body, Hasani said.

Two sisters aged 9 and 11 and their cousin, an 8-year-old boy, were killed instantly early Sunday when the gas cylinder exploded in the living room of a family house in the village of Romanovce. A 58-year-old man died of his injuries later Sunday in a Skopje hospital.

The village is near the northern town of Kumanovo, about 50 kilometers north from Skopje.

Ten people, all members of the same family including some who were visiting, were in the house at the time of the accident.

Apart from the three women and the child in critical condition, the remaining two people who were in the house - a 7-month-pregnant woman and a 65-year-old man - suffered lighter injuries. (AP)

It was unclear what caused the