Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 17 202


During the hearing of medical evidence the last three days, the British government has been caught twice directly telling important lies about events in Belmarsh prison, each lie proven by documentary evidence. The common factor has been the medical records kept by Dr Daly, head of the jail’s medical services. There has also been, to put it at its very lightest, one apparent misrepresentation by Dr Daly. Personally, I am wary of the kind of person who impresses Ross Kemp.

Here is a still of Dr Daly from Ross Kemp’s documentary on Belmarsh prison.

This is Mr Kemp’s description of the medical wing at Belmarsh: “Security is on another level here with six times more staff per inmate than the rest of the jail.”

While in the medical wing or “healthcare”, Julian Assange was in effect in solitary confinement, and three psychiatrists and a physician with extensive experience of treating trauma have all testified in court that Assange’s mental and physical condition deteriorated while he was in “healthcare” for several months. They also said he improved after he left “healthcare”. That says something profound about the “healthcare” being provided. The same doctors testified that Assange has a poor relationship with Dr Daly and will not confide his symptoms or feelings to her, and this has also been asserted by defence council.

That is all essential background to the lies. Now let me come to the lies. Unfortunately to do so I must reveal details of Julian’s medical condition which I had withheld, but I think the situation is so serious I must now do that.

I did not report that Professor Michael Kopelman gave evidence that, among other preparations for suicide, Julian Assange had hidden a razor blade in his folded underwear, but this had been discovered in a search of his cell. As I did report, Kopelman was subjected to an extremely aggressive cross-examination by James Lewis, which in the morning had focused on the notion that Julian Assange’s mental illness was simply malingering, and that Kopelman had failed to detect this. The razor blade was a key factor in Lewis’s browbeating of Kopelman, and he attacked him on it again and again and again.

Lewis stated that Kopelman “relied on” the razor blade story for his diagnosis. He then proceeded to portray it as a fantasy concocted by Assange to support his malingering. Lewis asked Kopelman repeatedly why, if the story were true, it was not in Dr Daly’s clinical notes? Surely if a prisoner, known to be depressive, had a razor blade found in his cell, it would be in the prison medical records? Why had Prof Kopelman failed to note in his report that there was no evidence for the razor blade in Dr Daly’s medical records? Was he hiding that information? Was it not very strange that this incident would not be in the medical notes?

In an attempt to humiliate Kopelman, Lewis said
“You say you do not rely on the razor blade for your diagnosis. But you do rely on it. Let us then look at your report. You rely on the razor blade at paragraph 8. You mention it again at paragraph 11a. Then 11c. Then paragraph 14, paragraph 16, 17b, 18a. Then we come to the next section and the razor blade is there at paragraph 27 and 28. Then again in the summary it is at paragraphs 36 and again at paragraph 38. So tell me Professor, how can you say that you do not rely on the razor blade?”
[I do not give the actual paragraph numbers; these are illustrative].

Lewis then went on to invite Kopelman to change his diagnosis. He asked him more than once if his diagnosis would be different if there was no razor blade and it were an invention by Assange. Kopelman was plainly unnerved by this attack. He agreed it was “very odd indeed” it was not mentioned in the medical notes if it were true. The plain attack that he had naively believed an obvious lie disconcerted Kopelman.

Except it was Lewis who was not telling the truth. There really was a concealed razor blade, and what Assange had told Kopelman, and what Kopelman had believed, was true in every single detail. In a scene straight out of a TV legal drama, during Kopelman’s testimony, the defence had managed to obtain the charge sheet from Belmarsh Prison – Assange had been charged with the offence of the razor blade. The charge sheet is dated 09.00 on 7 May 2019, and this is what it reads:

Governor,

On the 05/05/19 at approximately 15.30, myself and Officer Carroll were conducting a routine matrix search in 2-1-37 solely occupied by Mr Assange A9379AY. He was asked before we began the search if everything in the cell belonged to him, to which he replied “To my knowledge yes”. During the process of this search I lifted a pair of his personal underwear up whilst searching the cupboard. When I lifted them I heard a metal object drop inside the cupboard. When I investigated what it was I saw half of a razor blade which had been concealed in his personal underwear. This had now been placed in evidence bag number M0001094.

This concludes my report

Signed
Off Locke

I was later shown a copy and got a quick shot:

When on Tuesday Edward Fitzgerald QC produced this charge sheet in court, it did not appear to be news to the prosecution. James Lewis QC panicked. Rather too quickly, Lewis leapt to his feet and asked the judge that it should be noted that he had never said that there was no razor blade. Fitzgerald responded that was not the impression that had been given. From the witness box and under oath, Kopelman stated that was not the impression he had been given either.

And it was most certainly not the impression I had been given in the public gallery. In repeatedly asserting that, if the razor blade existed, it would be in the medical notes, Lewis had, at the very least, misled the witness on a material question of fact, that had actually affected his evidence. And Lewis had done so precisely in order to affect the evidence.

Panicking, Lewis then gave the game away further by making the desperate assertion that the charge against Mr Assange had been dismissed by the Governor. So the prosecution definitely knew rather more about the events around the razor blade than the defence.

Baraitser, who was aware that this was a major car crash, grasped at the same straw Lewis was clinging to in desperation, and said that if the charge had been dismissed, then there was no proof the razor blade existed. Fitzgerald pointed out this was absurd. The charge may have been dismissed for numerous reasons. The existence of the blade was not in doubt. Julian Assange had attested to it and two prison warders had attested to it. Baraitser said that she could only base her view on the decision of the Prison Governor.

However Baraitser may try to hide it, Lewis attacked Prof Kopelman over the existence of the blade when Lewis gave every appearance afterwards of a man who knew full well all along that there was compelling evidence the blade did exist. For Baraitser to try to protect both Lewis and the prosecution by pretending the existence of the blade is dependent on the outcome of the subsequent charge, when all three people in the cell at the time of the search agreed to its existence, including Assange, is perhaps Baraitser’s most remarkable abuse of legal procedure yet.

After his evidence, I went for a gin and tonic with Professor Kopelman, who is an old friend. We had no contact at all for two years, precisely because of his involvement in the Assange case as a medical expert. Michael was very worried he had not performed strongly in his evidence session in the morning, though he had been able to answer more clearly in the afternoon. And his concern about the morning was because he had been put off by the razor blade question. He had firmly understood Lewis to be saying that there was no razor blade in prison records and Michael had therefore been deceived by Julian. If he had been deceived, it of course would have been a professional failing and Lewis had successfully caused him anxiety while in the witness box.

I should make plain I do not believe for one moment the government side were not aware all along the razor blade was real. Lewis cross-examined using detailed prepared notes on the razor blade and with all the references to it tabulated in Kopelman’s report. That this was undertaken by the prosecution without asking the prison if the incident were true, defies common sense.

On Thursday Edward Fitzgerald handed the record of the prison hearing where the charge was discussed to Baraitser. It was a long document. The Governor’s decision was at paragraph 19. Baraitser told Fitzgerald she could not accept the document as it was new evidence. Fitzgerald told her she had herself asked for the outcome of the charge. He said the document contained very interesting information. Baraitser said that the Governor’s decision was at paragraph 19, that was all she had asked for, and she would refuse to take the rest of the document into consideration. Fitzgerald said the defence may wish to make a formal submission on that.

I have not seen this document. Based on Baraitser’s earlier pronouncements, I am fairly certain she is protecting Lewis in this way. At para 19 the Governor’s decision probably dismisses the charges as Lewis said. But the earlier paras, which Baraitser refuses to consider, almost certainly make plain that Assange’s possession of the razor blade was undisputed, and very probably explains his intention to use it for suicide.

So, to quote Lewis himself, why would this not be in Dr Daly’s medical notes?

Even that startling story I did not consider sufficiently powerful to justify publishing the alarming personal details about Julian. But then it happened again.

On Thursday morning, Dr Nigel Blackwood, Reader in Forensic Psychiatry at Kings College London, gave evidence for the prosecution. He essentially downplayed all of Julian’s diagnoses of mental illness, and disputed he had Asperger’s. In the course of this downplaying, he stated that when Julian had been admitted to the healthcare wing on 18 April 2019, it had not been for any medical reason. It had been purely to isolate him from other prisoners because of the video footage of him that had been taken and released by a prisoner.

Fitzgerald asked Blackwood how he knew this, and Blackwood said Dr Daly had told him for his report. The defence now produced another document from the prison that showed the government was lying. It was a report from prison staff dated 2.30pm on 18 April 2019 and specifically said that Julian was “very low” and having uncontrollable suicidal urges. It suggested moving him to the medical wing and mentioned a meeting with Dr Daly. Julian was in fact then moved that very same day.

Fitzgerald put it to Blackwood that plainly Assange was moved to the medical wing for medical reasons. His evidence was wrong. Blackwood continued to assert Assange was moved only because of the video. Dr Daly’s medical notes did not say he was moved for medical reasons. The judge pulled up Fitzgerald for saying “nonsense”, although she had allowed Lewis to be much harder than that on defence witnesses. Fitzgerald asked Blackwood why Assange would be moved to the medical wing because of a video taken by another prisoner? Blackwood said the Governor had found the video “embarrassing” and was concerned about “reputational damage” to the prison.

So let us look at this. Dr Daly did not put in the medical notes that Assange had concealed a razor for suicide in his cell. Dr Daly did not put in the medical notes that, on the very day Assange was moved to the medical wing, a staff meeting had said he should be moved to the medical wing for uncontrollable suicidal urges. Then Daly gives Blackwood a cock and bull story on reasons for Assange’s removal to the medical wing, to assist him in his downplaying of Assange’s medical condition.

Or let us look at the alternative story. The official story is that Healthcare – to quote Ross Kemp where “security is on another level” – is used for solitary confinement, to hold prisoners in isolation for entirely non-medical reasons. Indeed, to avoid “embarrassment”, to avoid “reputational damage”, Assange was kept in isolation in “healthcare” for months while, according to four doctors including on this point even Blackwood, his health deteriorated because of the isolation. While under Dr Daly’s “care”. And that one is the official story. The best they can come up with is “he was not sick, we put him in “Healthcare” for entirely illegitimate reasons as a punishment.” To avoid “embarrassment” if prisoners took his photo.

I am going to write to Judge Baraitser applying for a copy of the transcript of Lewis cross-examining Professor Kopelman on the razor blade, with a view to reporting Lewis to the Bar Council. I do wonder whether the General Medical Council might not have reason to consider the practice of Dr Daly in this case.

The final witness was Dr Sondra Crosby, as the doctor who had been treating Julian since his time in the Ecuadorean Embassy. Dr Crosby seemed a wonderful person and while her evidence was very compelling, again I see no strong reason to reveal it.

At the end of Thursday’s proceedings, there were two witness statements read very quickly into the record. This was actually very important but passed almost unnoticed. John Young of cryptome.org gave evidence that Cryptome had published the unredacted cables on 1 September 2011, crucially the day before Wikileaks published them. Cryptome is US based but they had never been approached by law enforcement about these unredacted cables in any way nor asked to take them down. The cables remained online on Cryptome.

Similarly Chris Butler, Manager for Internet Archive, gave evidence of the unredacted cables and other classified documents being available on the Wayback machine. They had never been asked to take down nor been threatened with prosecution.
 
 
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations



 

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9

Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

202 thoughts on “Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 17

1 2 3
  • Andy

    Just rewatched the movie “V for Vendetta” – I’d recommend it to everyone reading this.
    Keep up the great work Craig.

    Some relevant quotes:

    “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

    “You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”

    “Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.”

    “I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It’s small and it’s fragile and it’s the only thing in the world worth having. we must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.”

    “Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. ”

  • request anon

    I am a financial contributor to King’s College London, but now considering the position in the light of Mr Blackwood’s performance.

  • Deepgreenpuddock

    I am sure many people here saw the interview by Victoria Derbyshire of JA’s fiancee-Stella Morris?
    I thought she(Stella) seemed very fragile. Derbyshire can only be described as an outright stupid boor.She has as much interview finesse as a dyspeptic rhinoceros.
    At one point the issue of the publication of unredacted cables came up, Stella Morris talked about the book published by the Guardian, where David Leigh revealed the key to allow decryption of the cables.Derbyshire, the she rhinoceros, then said forcefully that the Guardian emphatically denied this. SM was not able to counter the Derbyshire assertion, due I thought to the ridiculous aggressive brow-beating stance taken by the ‘interviewer’
    Now I am not absolutely sure, but was there not more than one testimony testimony that the guardian book revealed the ‘key’ information thus allowing the deciphering of the unredacted cables.
    SM referred to cryptome but this key item was brushed aside.
    I thought the whole item was a disgrace to Derbyshire and the BBC
    Any other thoughts?

    recklessly and maliciously. I wonder if someone could confirm or correct me.

    • giyane

      Deepgreenpuddock

      David Leighs the publication if the full set of unredacted the documents together with the encryption password is covered by Craig in day 14.

      Craig’s report therefore confirms that the MSN will only cover the Assange story in circumstances they can be give a large audience total disinformation.

      • giyane

        Sorry. I’m trying out a different keyboard that inserts the the at every opportunity.,ss it has just done in this sentence.

    • Muscleguy

      Welcome to seeing the BBC as so many of us here in Scotland do. When my wife left I happily boxed up the TV I had bought her for gaming, cancelled the TV portion of my media contract, contacted the license people and cancelled my direct debit.

      I WILL NOT pay to be lied to. I wonder why so many still do. I used to be a fierce defender of the UK model after seeing the public broadcaster in NZ, TVNZ be forced to go fully commercial. Ads come every 7 minutes (I do not exaggerate) they are moderated during sporting coverage and some prestige foreign productions and films. TV news is celebrity obsessed and often contains little actual news.

      But having lived through the Indyref here and saw how our campaign was traduced and misrepresented, how the BBC conspired to have 1 Yes person and 3 unionists (one from each party) in discussions despite orgs such as Women for Independence or RIC the Radical Independence Campaign who could have put up balancing people.

      Then as the vote neared the local journalists and presenters were shouldered aside by the big beasts from London who had paid no apparent attention and produced solecisms and dragged up stuff left behind 2 years before. It was embarrassing. I begged my wife to give up the TV for anything other than gaming (we don’t have a digital aerial) but even though as a No voter she agreed with me that the BBC were deeply, deeply biased she refused.

      I do not miss the TV. I regularly found myself of an evening failing utterly despite an ‘all you can eat cable subscription’ of very multiple channels with nothing I wanted to watch. I would switch it off and do something else. Which is what i do now.

  • Debra Bales

    SUBPOENA VANESSA BARAISTER AND JAMES LEWIS IF ONLY FOR FUTURE PROSECUTION. As for James Lewis, QC, Prosecutor acting for US authorities….In the US, Attorneys don’t commit perjury as they are not under oath. Therefore …. well, an unethical attorney can lie like hell. Any prosecutor willing to represent the US, UK, deep state, against free press, against “the people” is clearly against human rights, justice and part of the plan for world domination. https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/legal/can-lawyers-lie?fbclid=IwAR3VHIn5F_wcUSJpHgBvp4ZYjsdMEIguTfbRexsW18ozHjgJQGgCMeIk-f0#:~:text=The%20American%20Bar%20Association's%20Model,even%20disbarred%20for%20doing%20so

  • doug scorgie

    Deepgreenpuddock
    September 27, 2020 at 15:02

    “Now I am not absolutely sure, but was there not more than one testimony testimony that the guardian book revealed the ‘key’ information thus allowing the deciphering of the unredacted cables.”
    ——————————————————————————
    I haven’t seen the interview but I think you are right there about the testimony in court. What concerns me is that, by the sound of it, this ‘interview’ was anti-Assange propaganda by the BBC.
    If this is so is it not subject to the law of sub -judice?

  • John Monro

    Hi again from NZ. I thought you might be interested in some letters I’ve written to local media, who are also failing in their duty to publish anything about this show trial.

    Letter to the Dominion Post, the local Wellington newspaper

    Dear Sir / Madam,

    People who achieve greatness telling truth to power get themselves in a lot of trouble. Ghandi, for instance, Churchill calling him “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer posing as a fakir… should not be released on the mere threat of fasting,…..we should be rid of a bad man… if he died.” or Mandela or Snowden or Manning. So too Julian Assange, derided and vilified by politicans and by a media who should realise if it’s Assange today, it’s them tomorrow. One of the most important trials (an extradition) in UK history is taking place unremarked in the shameful silence of the main stream media, who have not a single experienced reporter in court.. Craig Murray (www.craigmurray.org.uk), the principled UK ex-ambassador, dismissed and smeared for exposing US and UK involvement in torture in Uzbekistan, is following the trial, detailing how a corrupt and violent US and UK political machinery deals to this political prisoner (the UN has twice stated this). I urge your readers to inform themselves as to the alarming truth of the US’s descent into something like neofascism by reading Craig Murray’s description of what we would call a “show trial” in any dictatorship.

    Not published so far

    Letter to Kathryn Ryan. She fronts a three hour current and general affairs programme called Nine to Noon on National Radio – the equivalent of Radio 4 in the UK. She is a good interviewer and knowledgeable, but very much on a conventional basis, economically and politically to the right, I am sure but in no way a shock jock or anything like this, you just need to be aware of this (unconscious) bias. The other day, she was interviewing the UK correspondent to the programme, and after covering Brexit and Covid, asked if anything else was going on in the UK. They discussed some totally trivial matter, but the trial of Julian Assange was noticeably absent.

    Dear Kathryn and team,

    You ask the UK correspondent “is there anything else going on other than Covid and Brexit?”. Yes there is, it’s the show trial of Julian Assange – which must rank as one of most consequential trials in UK history. But you wouldn’t know it, no-one would ever know it. To you, your UK correspondent, to RNZ and TVNZ and the whole world media Julian Assange doesn’t exist, it’s as if he never did. A mediaeval oubliette could hardly do a better job. The UK’s political prisoner, the US’s public enemy number one, suffers treatment that could have been copied word for word from any despotic regime’s judicial template. I call this extradition hearing a “ show trial” – in its corruption, that’s exactly what it is – but the UK does it rather better than the dictatorship because there’s a neat oxymoron in the UK version, a show trial that’s effectively secret. Clever, eh?. The media’s complicity in ensuring Assange is dealt to and faces assassination or life in solitary in some vile US prison is almost total. During this extradition hearing the US has basically reaffirmed this principle – you do know this Kathryn, you are paying attention? – the US reserves the right to extradite any journalist, of any nationality, in any country, if the US, and the US alone, judges that this man or woman has written or said or revealed anything that the US considers prejudicial to its “national security”. It would appear, that in not bothering to even lift a word in Assange’s defence, you must be happy for this principle to apply to you also. Despite which, if it did and you too were fighting for your own freedom as a journalist and as a human being, as I support Assange today, I would, along with many other concerned citizens I’m sure, do the same for you. You might even be very grateful for it.

    Cheers.

    John Monro
    9 Dublin St
    Martinborough
    5711
    021 525890

    PS Please remind yourself as to the accommodating nature of “silence” by watching Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize speech of 2005.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH96tuRA3L0) I extract these ideas :

    (For politicians) to maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies upon which we feed.……………..(US crimes) It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.….”

    The lies that the US tells the world are the same lies that the US tells itself, its own citizens. We now see the result of running a society on decades of lies in what is happening in the US today. It’s a society preparing itself for political collapse and serious societal chaos and we watch on in astonishment and wonder and concern. But why the surprise? Because this is nothing one could not foretell in America today – with it’s exceptionalism and its fierce undertow of applied and threatened violence, its failing extreme capitalism, it’s political corruption, it’s gross inequalities and deeply embedded racism, it’s devotion to a degenerate individualism – all very effective ingredients in a recipe for a chaotic today and a perilous future. We fail to recognise this particular truth at our own great peril.

    Pinter ends his address: …I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. In fact it is mandatory. If such determination is not embodies in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.

  • Brianfujisan

    These Reports – Real Reporting By Craig.. leave me Maddened and Saddened … And Fkin Furious.

    Craig says ( I forget With Day of Court ) that They are ” Arguing over a man’s Life “.. and in the case of the Obscene q.c lewis Gleefully Lying in Court…Like a fucking Peacock Prancing…And All During an Honest Truth Teller’s ..Torture.. Sadists.

    An Honest Man Cadged
    Tortured with Evil Weapons
    He Exposed War Crimes

    Great interview with Craig here – 1Hour 18 mins –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jg6SqON9W4&feature=youtu.be

    Power to you Craig.. Gloves OFF.

    • J

      I’m boiling over in anger too. I expect many are. And hopelessness. And there’s so little I can do about it. Like many people, I’m self employed, on a low income and public transport is prohibitively expensive.

      For some reason I still have faith that it’ll be alright, that Craig’s work (and others too) will have enough of an effect to make extradition impossible, even though they’ve pulled out all the stops to prevent it being seen. As dispiriting as this travesty has been (especially after the last seven years) I still have hope. What else can I have? I think what is happening is beginning to sink in, for more and more people, even among mainstream journalists. Although I do concede the point (many have made) that the media silence throughout the trial has been genuinely unsettling.

      Julian Assange should never have spent a single day in jail, let alone suffering on his own, in a small cell, for a year. We used to root for the under dog once upon a time. How did the powers that be steal that from us?

      Thanks for the link.

1 2 3

Comments are closed.