Appeals Set to Keep Going Back and Forth as Assange Remains Tangled in the Process
Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett opened a path for Assange's defense to appeal in a case that is clearly never going to end through a legal process, heightening the importance of public pressure.
What is no doubt a win for the Assange defense in that it wards off an order of extradition for now, one still can't help wondering whether the permission to potentially appeal to the nation's highest court is just another hollow stop in the grueling process of making an example of Julian Assange.
Lord Chief Justice Ian Duncan Burnett (who as Consortium News noted is good friends with former foreign minister Alan Duncan, who played a huge role in evicting Assange in 2019 and referred to him as a "miserable little worm") decided against granting the defense's appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court himself, opting to allow the highest court to decide for themselves which cases should be tried, but did provide a path for the appeal to be made.
In coming to this decision, Burnett accepted that there are concerns about the U.S.'s diplomatic assurances because they came at a later period, ruling that the matter, as well as the importance of assurances in any extradition case, is of enough public importance for the Supreme Court to have a say in. That is, if they choose to, and that will be known some time in the next two months or so after the defense has submitted their application for appeal.
Hope remains, but the outlook down the road remains dark and dim, harkening minds to the horrific fact that Assange is being punished "by process."
Over a year ago, Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against extraditing the WikiLeaks publisher to the United States out of concern for both his mental state and how it could be affected by the conditions and treatment within U.S. high-security prisons. Still, Assange remained detained at Belmarsh as the United States government sought appeal due to his risk of absconding, according to Baraitser.
The U.S. government appeal that was presented this past October rested on five grounds, of which two were ultimately allowed by the U.K. High Court to justify upholding the appeal. Remarkably, the two grounds allowed regarded assurances that the U.S. claimed was never given the opportunity of offering. Those assurances, written up and made only in the aftermath of Baraitser's January 2021 ruling, focused in on Assange’s prison situation once extradited. They claimed there would be no use of SAMs—Special Administrative Measures—(i.e. the application of stringent monitoring, restricted outside contact, and isolation for inmates), that he would receive adequate clinical and psychiatric care, and that they won't keep him at ADX Florence supermax prison.
There are two problems with those assurances and the fact they were allowed in upholding the appeal. One, those assurances are inflated with air and subjected to a thousand prickly needles. The assurances against the use of SAMs are completely conditional, meaning the U.S. can implement the measures if they deem it necessary. Even if SAMs were left out of the equation, many prisoner's in the U.S. suffer through solitary confinement imposed for other reasons. Thus there is no amount of treatment the U.S. could offer to mitigate such conditions should they be imposed. Similar to the arbitrary focus on assuring against SAMs despite there being other paths to forcing Assange into solitary confinement, ADX Florence is not the only high security prison in the country that could present ridiculously oppressive conditions.
Second, taking these assurances seriously is ludicrous to begin with because they came after Baraitser's ruling and were tailored to challenge her reasons for her decision.
[Added January 29th: Such assurances are extremely absurd given past history. Back when Sweden was trying to extradite Assange to them from the U.K.—even as there was no real charge—the defense lawyers asked for assurances that Assange would not be extradited to the United States. Sweden rejected the proposition, claiming that a state does not and should not make any assurances like that, and that they did not intend to intervene in those legal processes. And yet, now, the U.K. is willingly taking flimsy U.S. assurances as having enough merit to uphold the appeal.]
Not only do the U.S. diplomatic assurances mean nothing, but they are completely out of line in terms of a just legal process, which is no surprise at this point. It does, however, illuminate the fact that this is all an effort to simply punish Assange and make an example out of him that anyone thinking about challenging power will be forced to consider.
Think about it. The U.S. illegally spied on Assange and his lawyers. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Nils Melzer deemed Assange's conditions following his arrest were torturous. The key witness in the U.S. prosecution admitted to lying. The CIA even considered kidnapping, assassination, and other methods to detain or neutralize Assange.
This is all about the powerful's attempt to dispose of Assange through a never ending process, a process that has deteriorated his psychological and physical health. During the U.S. appeal in October, Assange suffered a mini stroke. He’s been detained now for over 1,000 days at Belmarsh, and it's only a matter of time, as his conditions continue to crush him, until a full blown stroke or some other health complication occurs.
Considering this grim reality, the legal effort, as good as it has been, seems unable to break through the desperately clutched fist of power. Therefore, the heat needs to be turned up on the public pressure campaign.
Tell your friends and family, your representatives, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and everyone in between that this kind of authoritarian hunt is not acceptable for any sovereign nation that claims to uphold and protect the values of democracy.
The Obama administration ultimately saw the danger of going after Assange, noting the complications that arise regarding the press. Trump's administration, led by Mike Pompeo, went full steam ahead with the pursuit. Now, Biden's administration remains determined to make Assange pay.
Nobody knows how much time is left to put a spotlight on this matter, and nobody knows how long Assange can make it within this never ending process.
All that is known is that the U.S. government is prepared to do this thing to death. If the U.K. Supreme Court decides not to try the defense's appeal or simply rules against it, and Home Secretary Priti Patel is left to sign the extradition order, Assange's lawyers can make another appeal on their own terms, something that would begin about one year from now. If the Supreme Court grants the defense's appeal, then the prosecution is free to appeal, adding several more months of the process. And then from there, regardless of which direction, further appeals will be made, drawing out the whole process even further, and making the ticking clock on Assange's health and press freedoms ominously louder.
It is imperative, now more than ever, to make it known that the people are opposed to the prosecution of the WikiLeaks publisher. It is the only remedy that can work to untangle Assange from the endless web of this process.
Further insight can be found in this discussion (note that Stella Moris did not appear in this video):
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