Assange to fight extradition
Julian Assange has been found guilty of skipping bail and slammed by a British judge as a ‘‘narcissist . . . who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest’’.
The WikiLeaks founder was arrested on Thursday shortly after Ecuador ended his six-anda-half-year political asylum in their London embassy for ‘‘discourteous and aggressive behaviour’’ and WikiLeaks’ ‘‘hostile and threatening declarations’’ against Ecuador.
He was charged with skipping bail by entering the embassy in 2012. Appearing in the Westminster Magistrates’ Court four hours later, he pleaded not guilty, claiming he had a reasonable excuse for seeking asylum as his arrest would end in his extradition to the United States.
Prosecutors told the court Assange resisted his arrest. When police were invited by the ambassador into the Ecuadorian embassy at 10am, Assange ‘‘barged’’ past police, attempted to return to his private rooms and shouted, ‘‘This is unlawful, I’m not leaving,’’ prosecutors said. Extra police were called and Assange was restrained and dragged out of the embassy in handcuffs.
Sporting a man-bun, beard and moustache, Assange appeared in court in a dark jacket and held up a book by Gore Vidal on the history of the national security state. He saluted and gave a thumbs up to the public gallery.
His lawyer, Dan Walker, claimed there had been a conflict of interest in earlier hearings before Senior District Court Judge Emma Arbuthnot, whose husband Tory Lord Arbuthnot had been targeted by WikiLeaks.
But District Judge Michael Snow said that claim was ‘‘laughable’’ and ‘‘shameful’’, noting that Assange did not have the ‘‘courage to place himself before the court for cross examination’’ on Thursday.
‘‘He has had throughout senior judges who have looked at his case with great care and his assertion that he has not had a fair hearing is laughable and, I’m afraid, the behaviour of a narcissist who cannot see beyond his own self interest,’’ he said.
The judge found him guilty of the offence of ‘‘fail to surrender’’ and said he would be sentenced in the Southwark Crown Court. He said the offence was ‘‘as serious as it gets’’ when it came to bail matters.
Assange now faces an extradition request from the US, where he was charged in 2018 over his role in what the US Department of Justice called ‘‘one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States’’. The charges were unsealed on Thursday.
Assange’s barrister, Jennifer Robinson, said outside court on Thursday that she had visited Assange in the prison cells and he would fight extradition.
‘‘He wants to thank all of his supporters for their ongoing support and he said ‘I told you so’,’’ she said, referring to the US extradition request.
‘‘We will be contesting it, fighting extradition, we’ve requested he now gets medical treatment, he’s been refused medical treatment for the past seven years.’’ Jennifer Robinson, Assange’s barrister
When asked by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age what avenues existed to fight extradition, Robinson pointed to Assange’s health and said he had not received medical treatment for seven years.
‘‘We will be contesting it, fighting extradition, we’ve requested he now gets medical treatment, he’s been refused medical treatment for the past seven years.’’
UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid said the police’s ‘‘first action’’ after the arrest was to give Assange a medical assessment and they ‘‘deemed him fit to detain’’.
‘‘While he remains in custody in the UK we are now in a position to ensure his access to all necessary medical facilities.’’
Javid said it was down to the courts to decide if Assange should be extradited to the US, once a full extradition request is received from the US in the next two months.
‘‘Mr Assange will now have the opportunity to . . . have any extradition request considered by the judiciary,’’ he said.
‘‘It is right that we implement the judicial process fairly and consistently with due respect for equality before the law.’’
Assange is due to appear on May 2 by video link in the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on the extradition matter.
The court has the power to refuse extradition on the ground of ‘‘extraneous considerations’’; when the request is made to prosecute or punish a person not for the alleged charge but for other reasons such as their race, nationality or political opinions. The judge could also deny extradition if Assange would not receive a fair trial in the US.
Labour’s shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said Assange’s ‘‘whistleblowing activity into illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale . . . put [him] in the cross hairs of the US administration’’.
‘‘Julian Assange is not being pursued to protect US national security, he is being pursued because he has exposed wrongdoing by US administrations and their military forces,’’ she said.
But Javid said Assange was arrested ‘‘because he failed to surrender to a UK court . . . there is no-one in this country that is above the law’’.
US prosecutors allege that in 2010 Assange agreed to help whistleblower Chelsea Manning crack a military computer password while obtaining secret documents.
He was indicted in March 2018 by a grand jury in Virginia on the charge of ‘‘conspiracy to commit computer intrusion’’. If found guilty, he faces a maximum five years in jail.
Chelsea Manning was a US army intelligence analyst at the Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq at the time, the indictment said. She held a top secret security clearance.
Between January 2010 and May 2010, the indictment alleges, Manning downloaded four ‘‘nearly complete’’ databases from US departments and agencies, containing classified documents. They included around 90,000 reports from the Afghanistan war, 400,000 relating to the Iraq war, 800 detainee briefs from Guantanamo Bay and 250,000 diplomatic cables.
In early March 2010, Assange ‘‘agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on US Department of Defence computers’’, the indictment said.
The pair allegedly used the Jabber chat app to discuss how to obtain the documents for WikiLeaks, and used an internet ‘‘drop box’’ to transmit them.
Manning sent Assange ‘‘part of a password’’ as part of an attempt to crack it, the indictment said.
However, it is unclear from the indictment if Assange actually did crack the password.
The indictment alleges that, on March 10, 2010, Assange asked Manning for more information relating to the password, telling Manning he had had ‘‘no luck so far’’.
‘‘Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log onto the computers under a username that did not belong to her,’’ the indictment says.
‘‘Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of disclosures of classified information.’’
Before this, Manning had allegedly already handed over hundreds of thousands of classified records for publication by WikiLeaks.
The indictment details conversations between Assange and Manning. At one point, after uploading the Guantanamo Bay documents, Manning allegedly said ‘‘after this upload, that’s all I really have got left’’.
Assange allegedly replied ‘‘curious eyes never run dry in my experience’’.
After this, Manning allegedly downloaded the diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks later released.
‘‘The primary purpose of the conspiracy was to facilitate Manning’s acquisition and transmission of classified information related to the national defence of the United States so that WikiLeaks could publicly disseminate the information,’’ the indictment says.
‘‘Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records.’’
Meanwhile, a Swedish woman who claimed that Assange raped her in 2010 has formally requested that prosecutors reopen their investigation, which was put on hold in 2017.
Sweden’s prosecutor’s office said it had appointed a deputy prosecutor to review the request to reopen the investigation.
In a statement, the office said the preliminary investigation into the rape allegation could be reopened at any time until August 2020, when it lapses under a statute of limitations.
If the United States wishes to charge Assange with anything other than the computer hacking conspiracy they must again apply to a UK court and the Home Secretary for permission.
– Nine