It feels like a recurring nightmare. On the sadly misnamed sleeper train once again, down to London and a dash to the Royal Courts of Justice to hear yet another judgement intoned. Julian not in court again and not in good health; Stella battling on but fighting to keep her health as well; Gareth Peirce her calm and unstoppable self; my friends from Wikileaks marshaling legal and media resources and remaining determinedly resolute and cheerful.
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Ian Duncan Burnett, is just the sort of chap you would want to play the role in a comic opera production. Burly, with a broad open face crowned with full white hair, he exudes solidity, bonhommie and natural command. You expect him to deliver his judgement and then stroll over the Strand to Simpson’s for a few thick slices of roast sirloin and a bumper of claret. I don’t mean that as a criticism; I like nothing better myself.
The Lord Chief Justice doesn’t just get his own office; he does not just get the best scarlet silly costume you can imagine; he gets his very own court. What a court it is; acres of polished wood, larger than some theatres; galleried and storeyed, walls at every level lined all round with thousands upon thousands of exquisitely bound law books, locked behind glass doors which I strongly suspect are only ever opened to add another book destined to spend its natural life in there unvisited, with no possibility of parole.
The Lord Chief Justice gets a very high bench, so you all have to look right up to him; a construction made of several tons of mahogany, which looks like it should be draped with potted palms, have moustachioed waiters in tight white jackets popping in and out of its various stairways and entrances carrying silver trays, and house a string quartet in the corner. Rumour has it that there is in fact a string quartet in a corner, which has been trying to leave since 1852.
The Lord Chief Justice suddenly materialises from his own entrance behind his bench, already high above us, so he doesn’t have to mount the mahogany and risk tripping over his scarlet velvet drapery. I like to imagine he was raised up to the requisite level behind the scenes by a contraption of ropes and pulleys operated by hairy matelots. Next to him, but discreetly a little lower, was Lord Justice Holroyde, who delivered the judgement now appealed against, and today looked even more smug and oleaginous in the reflected glow of his big mate.
The appearance lasted two minutes. Burnett told us that the Court certified, as being a matter of general public interest, the question of whether “Diplomatic Assurances” not submitted in the substantive hearing, could be submitted at the appeal stage. It did not so certify the other points raised; it refused leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
You can ignore the last phrase; it is customary that the High Court refuses leave to appeal; with the certification of public interest, Julian can now appeal direct to the Supreme Court which will decide whether or not to take the case. The refusal of leave by the High Court is purely a show of deference to the Supreme Court, which decides itself what it will take. The lawyers put this as “the Supreme Court dines a la carte”.
Now some of the appeal points which the High Court refused to certify as arguable and of general public interest, were important. One point was that the diplomatic assurances by the United States promised not to engage in certain illegal practices amounting to torture, but made that assurance conditional on Assange’s future behaviour.
Now, legally prohibited treatment of prisoners does not become lawful if the prisoner does something wrong. That ought to have been a slam-dunk argument, even without the fact that the decision on Assange’s future behaviour would be made by precisely the same authorities who plotted to kidnap or murder him.
All of which was not certified as an arguable point of law of general public interest.
What is certified and going forward is the simple question of whether the diplomatic assurances were received too late. Rather peculiarly, the High Court judgement of Burnett and Holroyde, against which Julian was seeking leave to appeal, blamed extradition magistrate Vanessa Baraitser for not having asked the United States for diplomatic assurances at the earlier stage.
The doctrine that a judge should suggest to counsel for one party, helpful points to strengthen their case against the other party, is an entirely new one in English law. The United States could have submitted their diplomatic note at any stage, but chose not to do so, in order to see if they could get away with making no commitment as to Assange’s treatment. They only submitted a diplomatic note after they lost the original case. It was not for Baraitser to ask them to do it earlier and the suggestion is a ludicrous bit of special pleading by Burnett.
This is more than just a procedural point. If the assurances had been submitted to the magistrate’s court, their value could have been objected to by Assange’s defence. The self-canceling conditionalities within the assurances themselves could have been explored, and the United States’ long record of breaking such assurances could have been discussed.
By introducing them only at the appeal stage, the United States had evaded all scrutiny of their validity.
That was confirmed by today’s judgement. Questions of the viability of assurances that, inter alia, make torture a future option, were ruled not to be arguable appeal points.
So the certified point, whether assurances can be submitted at the appeals stage, is not really just about timing and deadlines, it is about whether there should be scrutiny of the assurances or not.
However it does not look like a substantial point. It looks like just a technical point on timing and deadlines. This is very important, because it may be the screen behind which the British Establishment is sidling slowly towards the exit. Was Lord Burnett looking to get out of this case by one of the curtained doors at his back?
If any of the other points had been certified, there would have been detailed discussion in court of the United States’ penchant for torture, its dreadful prison conditions, and its long record of bad faith (it is an accepted point of law in the United States that domestic authorities are not bound by any assurance, commitment or even treaty given to foreign governments). For the Supreme Court to refuse Assange’s extradition on any of those grounds would be an official accusation against the United States’ integrity, and thus diplomatically difficult.
But the Supreme Court can refuse extradition on the one point now certified by the High Court, and it can be presented as nothing to do with anything bad about the USA and its governance, purely a technical matter of a missed deadline. Apologies all round, never mind old chap, and let’s get to the claret at Simpson’s.
Can there really be an end in sight for Julian? Is the British Establishment quietly sidling to the exit?
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Many thanks for your report, Mr Murray. I marvel at the inventiveness of the legal chicanery deployed by the establishment here, all to prolong the torture of a truthful and innocent journalist. How his persecutors sleep at night I don’t know.
“How his persecutors sleep at night I don’t know”.
I think that has long been established, Mart. Psychopaths are not troubled by conscience. And in government, as in business, the bigger the hierarchy the more efficiently it selects psychopaths to be in charge. People with morals simply cannot stay in the running. Can anyone imagine Mr Murray as PM (of the UK or Scotland) or as a judge? I can’t.
The behaviour of the establishments in the Assange case can easily be understood – and even predicted – by asking “what would Machiavelli do?”
Really, really hoping you’re right. Thank you for the detailed information.
Are they really trying to prevent his extradition in such a way as to ensure no ill feeling with the US? Or is this simply a way to ensure that whatever happens to Assange after being extradited can’t be held against the UK? Either way this is by design of government and not a free judiciary..
Thank you Craig.
Aah but if only you were a proper journalist though eh?
Sounds like realpolitik. I’d be pulling contortions to find an easy path out of all this and sentence Julian to time served.
It is a dark night at the opera, with grotesque costumed and wigged characters stringing out the performances for years of torture.
Hear hear.
“…and sentence Julian to time served.”
For what crime exactly?
That is precisely the point, Deb. All of these court proceedings – which Mr Murray has covered so meticulously and at such great trouble and cost to himself – are entirely irrelevant to the main issue, which is that Mr Assange has committed no real crime at all.
The court proceedings have never even touched on the great benefits that Mr Assange has conferred on us all, by revealing to public scrutiny the disgusting and conscienceless crimes of the US government and its henchmen. How can those in power, who continually tell us that “the people” are sovereign, presume to hide from “the people” the hideous things they have to to their own enrichment and that of their cronies – and then to punish anyone who dares publish those crimes?
In that respect Mr Assange, with a few friends, performed the duty that is meant to be carried out by the entire global media. As one of the last remaining brave and honest journalists – like Mr Murray – he fearlessly raked the muck and exposed to the light the nasty creeping things concealed therein. And for that he should be punished?
On the contrary, he could properly reply (as did Socrates according to Plato’s “Apology”):
“How you have felt, O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was—such was the effect of them; and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth…
“What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, who desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no more fitting reward than maintenance in the Prytaneion, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many”.
Exactly, for what crime? It has been one huge international military-funded manufacturing consent theater.
Why would we, the citizen of these corrupt nations that don’t care about the law, still feel the need to obey?
How disgustingly demoralizing is this case? A while ago I had to seriously try and explain this to my 10 year old daughter. As any proper thinking parent will attest; This can’t be done. Just like the constant waging of destructive wars, go try and explain WMD’s existence to a healthy sane child, you just can’t. It’s really sad to have to exist in such a developed civilized nation, yet apparently the people in charge keep behaving like stupid fighting dogs put together in a cage, it’s freaking depressing. I know many who have just stopped caring for ‘the law’ because of this ridiculous Assange case. They’ve really gone too far. Truth will prevail.
Quite aside from the indispensible facts he is reporting, this is a genius piece of writing.
Not only is Mr Murray a proper journalist, he is probably the finest journalist working in Britain today.
He isn’t a journalist, he’s a reporter.
He’s neither. If Craig was a professional journalist he would recuse himself from reporting this story on grounds of lack of impartiality, because he is personal friends with the accused and his family. If he did not recuse himself, any professional editor would refuse to publish this article. The mainstream and alternative media have their strengths and weaknesses, and we need them both, but this article illustrates a substantial weakness with alternative media.
Sure, there is a lot of impartiality exhibited by the “professional journalists” of the MSM. Evidently, an attempt at black humour.
Can you imagine MSM journalists recusing themselves due to a lack of impartiality? There would be no MSM.
“The mainstream and alternative media have their strengths and weaknesses…”
In matters such as this – and increasingly in most matters of public interest – the mainstream media have the weakness of consistently telling lies, whereas some “alternative” media have the strength of telling the truth (as best they can). To my mind, all other strengths and weaknesses fade into insignificance by comparison.
As I see it, an immense dam has been erected to hold back the waters of truth. Mr Assange engineered a fairly substantial leak, and Mr Murray is kindly providing us with a smaller but still vital one. The only important thing is that truth should out.
“…we need them both…”
Speaking for myself, no I don’t. Although the mainstream media sometimes publish more or less fair reports on sporting events, I have not read newspapers or magazines, or listened to news or current affairs on TV and radio, for many years. I feel much the better for it. Instead of gobbling up the pap that they serve up, I have become accustomed to going out to hunt down the truth, as one might hunt a deer or rabbit for the pot.
A good point. Perhaps alternative media are more suited for exposés because of the first-hand contacts writers are liable to have. Donald Woods was a South African newspaper editor who wrote Biko (1987) after he was banned. The book was about people that he personally knew.
Perhaps, however, The Pentagon Papers (or Asssange’s exposés of American war crimes in Wikileaks) would be good journalism by your criterion?
The obligation is simply not to hide the friendship from your audience. Which is where Kuenssberg et al notably fail.
very odd if you genuinely believe there is any degree of impartiality among msm news and political correspondents and pundits. cursory observation of their coverage of assange, corbyn, salmond, approved foreign enemies, craig himself should have disabused you of that.
As if the mainstream media aren’t friends (and a lot more besides) with the governments, people and powerful organisations they “report” on…of course, they are often in the pay of the same.
You miss the point: ‘Journalist’ is a pejorative term for a fraud.
“If he did not recuse himself, any professional editor would refuse to publish this article. “
Ron you are a master at deadpan humour.
What’s the difference in your opinion, Squeeth? I always understood a journalist to be a superior kind of reporter, who can evaluate and make sense of the mere facts the reporter tells about.
I certainly agree with Grhm; this is a really magnificent article, the more so considering the extreme constraints of time and resources, and Mr Murray’s overall state of health.
As for conflict of interest, that’s an interesting argument to bring against a man who has consistently given us about the only straight, honest and complete account of the Assange case. If anyone feels that Mr Murray should refrain from reporting on the Assange case just because he is a friend of the accused, how would they propose to balance the huge preponderance of hostile and prejudiced comment coming from everywhere else?
It’s a rather unpleasant insinuation to suggest that Mr Murray’s commentary is less than fair and honest.
Hear hear. RBL
Patrick kerrigan
Rump Before Leg. I suppose that’s one way to stop the ball hitting the wicket.
So it appears the one chance of achieving a favourable result for Julian is not by some recognisable weighing of the evidence ,or some judgement about motives and actions of the protagonists. Nothing is right or wrong, There is no moral conviction, no bold life-affirming thought process representing some higher purpose.Indeed it has the appearance of an elaborate evasion of any principle. Apparently all must be done by stealthy inscrutable, underhand, reasoning. Corruption is not embedded deeply or overlaying and stifling some inner virtue, It has become the essence of justice.
The court has obviously ruled there is some merit in the argument of not presenting the assurance at the initial hearing. It boils down to whether the judge made a fundamental error.
If so then Julian Assange may well be eligible for substantial compensation for the extra time in prison.
Therefore by not granting bail it’s only going to mean even more compensation. Surely the taxpayer should not be put in the position of funding this unnecessary expense.
By all logic, legal precedent and human rights bail MUST be granted.
This is a matter of force, not justice.
I think the preferred solution for ‘the establishment’ would be to just keep the legal pot boiling in the UK for as long as possible and hope that Julian dies in the meantime. Just by Julian’s conditions in Belmarsch prison they are making some considerable effort in that direction. Anyone thinking that they would actively assist in his demise (a little something in the tea every day perhaps?) should be ashamed of themselves: “Honi suit qui mal y pense” as the royals say.
…apart from that they have already achieved their goal: putting the frightners on independent journalism and Wikileaks.
Exactly so, Joe. Has everyone forgotten that “justice delayed is justice denied”?
The revelation in your last blog that Carole Cadwalladr was receiving intelligence files from government agents working on Russian disinformation, also puts in a new light her string of wild stories trying to link Assange to Russia.
Trump, Assange, Bannon, Farage… bound together in an unholy alliance – by Carole Cadwalladr (The Guardian, 29 Oct 2017)
Regardless, she remains in the eyes of our betters the real journalist.
“Regardless, she remains in the eyes of our betters the real journalist”.
That is because their definition of “a real journalist” is someone who echoes their every word, and never writes anything independent. Sort of like Jen Psaki.
I once worked on some very old books in the library of an English Minster. In the library was a pagan , Roman , Mithraic , stone block for sacrificing animals to the gods.
The Minster wasn’t at all embarrassed by the presence of this pagan artefact. In fact it represented historical continuity of English worship, just as the magnificence of this Court and the Red crimson robes represent historical continuity and that our legal traditions , good or bad, pre-date US legal traditions , good or bad , by 2000 years.
However, no amount of sacrificial smoke and mirrors is going to change the fact that Julian Assange is innocent. USUKIS invaded Iraq illegally for Israel, and committed outrageous acts of pagan barbarism for which they feel no shred of shame nor remorse. The first of a chain of misguided , bloody adventures that has turned now into an unholy mission to conquer us and the entire rest of the world.
Giyane, hi, following the invasion of Iraq, curiously, even more antique and ancient stone artifacts ended up in people’s libraries !
Alas, Simpson’s is still temporarily closed. What is a chap to do?
I know – I am in deep mourning. Still worse, the trendy young Wikileaks people take me to brightly lit places where you pick up a paper bucket of leaves from a stainless steel refrigerated counter for £28, and eat it with wooden cutlery.
but think of the benefit to your system. all those artery plaque busting nutrients and gut microbiome boosting polysaccharides.
I fear there is little recourse other than to purchase a suitable cut of beef and pop it into a slow cooker for 6-8 hours – ideally with potatoes, onions, carrots and suitable herbs and spice.
At least it’s a great deal cheaper.
Are the law lords saner? I really hope they show that we still have an independent judiciary. Sorry couldn’t resist.
Bloody hell CM that sleeper sounds as comfy as Saughton!
You need to use a plane to City of London if possible.
The remark about the sleeper is a commonplace about sleeper cars. I’ve never succeeded in sleeping on such a train. The best joke about that is that in German a couchette is called a Liegewagen, a ‘lying-down car’, so called because you lie down, but don’t sleep.
I must disagree; I’ve always been able to sleep in sleeper berths on trains, usually second-class sleepers at that. I haven’t tried them in Germany, but have in eight other countries. Maybe you have to start young.
I’d far rather take an 8-hour overnight train trip in a sleeper berth than a “one-hour” flight which usually means 5 to 6 hours (an hour to get from city centre to airport, 2-hour check-in/security queue/wait/boarding, one-hour flight, half-hour wait for luggage if you check luggage, one-hour trip to city centre). Somehow, air travel is far more stressful than any other mode of travel, possibly because of all the queuing involved.
I agree. I loathe flying these days. Queues, bad air, cramped seating, and bad food. Much better to board a train. No queue with a packed lunch.
I did the 12 hour sleepers in Thailand. The first one had a private carriage for 2 with paper thin walls and windows that were sealed except for a grill and my partner insisting on smoking. Spent most of the night in the eating carriage – windows wide open. Smoking, drinking samsong and soda and playing backgammon. Had some sleep before dawn in the private cabin. The second one later the same day, was in the tiered aircon carriage where it gets too cold and there are many coughs and noises – yes ended up back in the best carriage again more of the same as previous night.
My return journeys were by planes – cheap and fast and no need to suffer.
I have had a few other slow trains through the region – soon to be lost as the BRI new tracks and trains are implemented. Great to talk to locals. Stopping every station. Fresh food vendors jumping on and off. Seat in the open doorway to smoke or if lucky in the last carriage at the back watching the tracks disappear into the distance. Magic.
Only times I’ve been in a sleeper car were on the US Army night train between Berlin and Frankfurt. I slept quite well on it. I suspect the cars were prewar cars of the old Reichsbahn.
Apart from the vital service that Mr Murray is doing for us all in reporting honestly and accurately on proceedings – such as they are – this article is marvellously well written and even humorous.
I have never had the pleasure of seeing the High Court, but from Mr Murray’s description I wonder if it is the same court shown in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”, in which Captain Jack Sparrow overpowers and binds the judge, before appearing in the high pulpit arrayed in stolen finery to pronounce sentence on himself.
Actually, that fictional trial seems just about consistent with what is being said and done about Mr Assange. The other obvious strong resemblance is to the trial in “Alice in Wonderland”. I keep wishing that Mr Assange could grow to a great height commensurate with his moral worth, cry, “Why, you’re nothing but a pack of cards!”, and leap to freedom.
“The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Ian Duncan Burnett…”
How odd that someone with three obviously Scottish names should be LCJ of England Wales.
Lord Mansfield was a Scot, William Murray from Perth.
Lets hope they do refuse the extradition – for whatever spurious reason (to cover their arses).
I have to say that it makes a lot of sense to suggest that the UK would want an exit door which doesn’t involve saying ‘Our Lord and Master has such a repulsive track record of murder, torture and incarceration the world over that any assurances over the safety of the Defendant wouldn’t be worth the paper they were written on.’
When you are part of a ruthless mafia and the Godfather is pulling rank against junior hoodlums, you don’t tend to tell the Godfather to his face that Heinrich Himmler would have had a lot to learn from him
“it is an accepted point of law in the United States that domestic authorities are not bound by … even treaty given to foreign governments”
And yet, the FBI are adamant that for almost a year now lawyers for Andrew Windsor have refused to comply with a formal request for investigative cooperation under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.
Indeed – the “mutual” bit evidently not applying to Anne Sacoolas.
Dear Craig,
Apart from Aden and Harold Wilson’s refusal to send British forces alongside American ones in Vietnam – both a long time ago – has there ever been any form of material rebellion against Washington’s instructions in urgent matters like Julian Assange let alone foreign policy?
For that matter has there ever been much indication of rebellion against Washington from any of us in the west-aligned world? I.e. UK, EU, Japan, S. Korea, Australia, etc., etc.. The German Navy boss spoke up suggesting we might show Russia some respect, and was immediately fired.
As a hypothetical, do you think there will come a point where we “aligned” third party nations individually or jointly do say to the US “hang on a minute”, “we’re not having this”?
Whatever your hates and likes of Russia and China, few would be blind enough to see that what Washington is up to is significant and relentless provocation for its own sake begging ever more desperately for major confrontation. They start the wars in Washington safely thousands of miles away from the smoke and screams, and watch it on FOX News while we pick up the pieces.
Look at Afghanistan. We cleared off and left it in a hideous and inhuman mess – less than six months ago. Now we are embarking on laying waste somewhere else, and somewhere a lot closer to Europe.
TT12, you ask “ has there ever been any form of material rebellion against Washington’s instructions in urgent matters ”?
My answer :
‘Cheese eating surrender monkeys’ ??
I should have referenced that for these who may be too young, I was referring to the WoT and fake wmd invasion of Iraq in 2003 when several major countries refused to buy the lie as did millions of british protesters.
It’s apt today. Which countries have the gonads to tell Truss and Blinken and von der layen to get lost?
Cheese-eating monkeys and Gallic merde – by Nicole Mowbray (The Guardian, 16 Feb 2003)
Should have read, “for almost TWO years now lawyers for Andrew Windsor have refused to comply …”.
“the High Court judgement of Burnett and Holroyde, against which Julian was seeking leave to appeal, blamed extradition magistrate Vanessa Baraitser for not having asked the United States for diplomatic assurances at the earlier stage. ”
That does sound extraordinary. Is the text of the judgment available online?
Good morning, Worm your honour!
The crown will plainly show the prisoner who now stands before you…
[ Mod: Released from spam filer ]
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I contend that Ken Russell’s 1971 masterpiece, THE DEVILS, is about the present. It tells the story of a 17th century priest who stands up for the people against church power. After a campaign of mass hysteria and kangaroo courts, he is found guilty of witchcraft and literally crucified. Not much has changed. I’d really like to believe in the idea of progress, but considering the 17th century Iroquois were ‘anarchists,’ we’re not doing so well. Assange, Corbyn. Mass hysteria and kangaroo courts. Trailer: https://youtu.be/DC_Z4I62e5Y
“I like to imagine he was raised up to the requisite level behind the scenes by a contraption of ropes and pulleys operated by hairy matelots.”
This reminds me of a scene in the second of the Hornblower series of films (The Examination for Lieutenant) when a member of the diplomatic service, Mr Tapling is put in a container like a huge nappy with his legs sticking out and then hoisted up to the ship, with him fearfully asking them to be careful. I don’t like heights myself, so I wouldn’t look down on him (metaphorically).
> container like a huge nappy with his legs sticking out
A bosun’s chair.
Cheers, learned something new (or got reminded anyway, rings a very faint bell)
The WHOLE case needs reviewing, not just assurances about Assange’s care or their timing. The landscape has changed enormously since extradition was first sought (lying witness / spying / CIA death plots) but I’ve been told that these points could be presented as part of the counter appeals which are yet to come and that, after that part of the proceedings is finished, Assange’s team will submit these counter appeals at the High Court. Is this true?
Crime and Punishment. I was sent a pathetic, supposedly funny clip, of a drunk repeatedly throwing an aluminium beer cask at a rear glass door. The whole scene captured by a cctv camera from within the door. The guy was falling over, fag in mouth and eventually made a hole in the glass door big enough to climb in and fall into the room, only for the door to open outwards by itself, it wasn’t locked. Most would laugh at the clip and see the guy being carted off to the local nick. We on the other hand, (if you pan upwards in the next scene, look down at the rubble and ruins blood stained cities we have laid waste to) are quite happy to punish the drunk yet be silent to our crime.
Excellent analysis. The first paragraphs not so great if you were aiming to compete with – or even emulate – Dickens’ great opening to Bleak House: with the High Court enshrouded in clammy fog: “at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery……
Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.
On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting here, as here he is, with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, ……some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be, as here they are, mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces…”
Dickens wasn’t joking, of course. He would have recognised the Assange case as a malign example of the evils of our judicial system. The role of the courts in the persecution of Assange is unarguable – as is the fact that in his case – as in so many others (including your recent experience) the judicial decisions are political and justified by recourse to technicalities convenient to the desired outcome.
No, Bleak House wasn’t the style I was going for at all. But always worth quoting!
They will play with him for as long as possible and then send him off to the US. Sorry to be so negative, but they are vindictive and don’t like being shown to incompetent. There is a long way to go yet.
The jury of millions who were killed have made their judgement
Those who survived the rubble of their cities, we now lay siege to.
Thank you for another excellent report, Im not surprised that you are getting the Blues with all this toing and froing, the grand rigmarole, and all for an innocent publisher who dared to inform the world of war crimes.
Julians boys must miss their dad dearly, never did they have a chance to cuddle their dad.in the privacy of their own home.
He should be freed on bail now, for humanitarian and mental health reasons, this eternal delay and use of the law to torture truth tellers with rigmarole in the 21st. century is unimaginably cruel.
Looks like NATO is preparing to commit war crimes soon as it is preparing to attack Donbass via its proxies in Ukraine. Only when body vags of US mercenaries are returning, if they dare to face the public, will now inform us whether they are taking an active part in attacking Donbass citizens of Ukraine.
It is NATO and its western msm muckspreaders that are fuelling Angst. Delivering tons of arms and sending warships into the Baltic/black sea, to support a non Nato country are the actions of a desperate Leviathan,s brain with acute syphilis.
All the fancy bits of legal tat, the unending chicanery ,the musty unread volumes, the hierarchy of mahogany, all that paraphernalia of mystique are parts of their necessary illusion that Britain is a sovereign state, & a great nation.
The thick sirloin with a bucket of claret in a posh club no doubt also enhances that comforting sense of the noble impartiality of law, & numbs that very slight consciousness of an honest man undergoing a slow and cruel torture.
This saga is not so much Pickwickean, more Kafkaesque. Britain is a democracy, eh?
I wonder what Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, would have made of it all?
Were Orwell around today, he would have almost certainly been labelled ‘anti-west’ and a ‘tool of the Kremlin’.
Thank you again Craig, for yet another phenomenal piece of writing about poor Julian Assange’s persecution. Phenomenal at every level – Dickensian in scope, humour and humanity.
Till now I’ve been making occasional contributions, but have now been inspired to start a regular payment to your blog!
A superb, clear exposition and explanation of the legal ‘flim flam’ available in our system and applied by the judiciary. Such analysis is entirely lacking in the main stream media (where even covered at all) and, entirely to its shame, in publications like the Law Society Gazette, which really should know better.