Human rights and press freedom activists have fiercely condemned a UK court ruling paving the way for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be extradited to the US where he faces espionage charges.

The UK High Court on Friday granted the US’ request to extradite Assange, a request it had previously blocked due to Assange’s declining mental health. While the ruling is not final and can be appealed by Assange’s legal team, it brings the former WikiLeaks boss one step closer to a trial on US soil, where he faces a possible 175 years behind bars if convicted of espionage.

“These proceedings, and today’s ruling, are a black mark on the history of press freedom,” wrote Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “That United States prosecutors continued to push for this outcome is a betrayal of the journalistic principles the Biden administration has taken credit for celebrating,” Timm, who previously testified in Assange’s defense, continued.

 

Freedom of the Press Foundation response to UK High Court ruling allowing extradition of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange to continue https://t.co/9JEEcsch3Rpic.twitter.com/aDSuwoEu2D

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) December 10, 2021

 

 

Reporters Without Borders joined in the condemnation, with Secretary-General Christophe Deloire stating that Friday’s ruling “will prove historic for all the wrong reasons.”

“We fully believe that Julian Assange has been targeted for his contributions to journalism, and we defend this case because of its dangerous implications for the future of journalism and press freedom around the world,” Deloire wrote.

Assange’s plight has long been recognized by free speech and press freedom activists, and the deprivations endured by Assange during his years in detention have been criticized by human rights organizations. Amnesty International’s Europe Director Nils Muiznieks described the court’s decision as “a travesty of justice.”

“If extradited to the US, Julian Assange could not only face trial on charges under the Espionage Act but also a real risk of serious human rights violations due to detention conditions that could amount to torture or other ill-treatment,”Muiznieks wrote.

The High Court granted the US’ extradition request after American prosecutors promised that Assange would not be subjected to so-called Special Administrative Measures while in US custody. These measures include extended periods of solitary confinement, and have been criticized by human rights groups as tantamount to torture. 

“We don’t think diplomatic assurances like this are worth the paper they’re written on,” Amnesty’s Simon Crowther explained. “They’re always given by a state when that state has prevalence of torture… that’s a kind of state that shouldn’t be trusted.”

 

“This case isn’t over yet”@amnesty’s Simon Crowther explains what today’s judgment means & why the #AssangeCase is important for freedom of expressionExtraditing #Assange would have implications far beyond #JulianAssange & would set a chilling precedent.#DontExtraditeAssangepic.twitter.com/QoSP0onrDU

— Stefan Simanowitz (@StefSimanowitz) December 10, 2021

 

 

The charges against Assange stem from his communications with whistleblowers, most importantly Chelsea Manning, who gave WikiLeaks classified materials about US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although Assange did not personally hack these materials, he still faces espionage charges for his role in publishing them.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/542812-assange-ruling-human-rights/

 

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AND DORKY Joe BIDEN HAS A "DEMOCRACY SUMMIT"? The US, the UK and Australia are the pits of democratic hypocrisy, AS THEY KEEP ASSANGE IN PRISON, UNDER BOGUS CHARGES, when they are the ones that should be facing courts for having acted blue murders. Idiots !!!!!

 

The case had been a set up. The previous court case as ruled by Baraitser was created and judged to prolong the agony, rather than provide justice... Time to stop this dangerous farce. Please UK justice people, get some balls in your trousers and tell the Yanks to fuck themselves. This is a MASSIVE black mark against the Kingdom of her majesty QEII. Time for Queen Liz to intervene as a proper ruler should. Solomon would be appalled!

Paratrooper Officer Ian Fishback, who in 2005 exposed to US citizens the torture practices of the US Army, died on 19 November 2021 at a care facility. He was ruined and placed on anti-psychotics.

In 2005, he went up against the Pentagon and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by raising the issue of prisoners of war abuse. As an officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, he had observed the impact on his men after they had witnessed the torture practiced by the United States.

He famously wrote a letter to Senator John McCain asking what standards applied in this situation if the United States no longer recognizes the Geneva Conventions. His action resulted in the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005

He, who had graduated with flying colors from West Point, was forced to leave the army and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy. He saved the honor of US soldiers and drew the largest audiences for his lectures on the ethics of war.

 

https://www.voltairenet.org/article215003.html

 

Gus: Ian Fishback only got brickbats for his stand, despite some successful but temporary "reactivity" from the US senate. The method of imprisonment of Julian Assange — and the US governments' vengeance — shows that Ian Fishback's legacy has faded away, even in the mind of the "Democrats" who are more bastardish than the other mob — the Republicans. In the Wikileaks affair, the Democrats are far more hypocritical than the Republicans, because we expect, and the Democrats profess, proper justice. Joe Biden is a fool.

 

Dear Senator McCain:

While I served in the Global War on Terror, the actions and statements of my leadership led me to believe that United States policy did not require application of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan or Iraq. On 7 May 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's testimony that the United States followed the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and the "spirit" of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan prompted me to begin an approach for clarification. For 17 months, I tried to determine what specific standards governed the treatment of detainees by consulting my chain of command through battalion commander, multiple JAG lawyers, multiple Democrat and Republican Congressmen and their aides, the Ft. Bragg Inspector General's office, multiple government reports, the Secretary of the Army and multiple general officers, a professional interrogator at Guantanamo Bay, the deputy head of the department at West Point responsible for teaching Just War Theory and Law of Land Warfare, and numerous peers who I regard as honorable and intelligent men.

Instead of resolving my concerns, the approach for clarification process leaves me deeply troubled. Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment. I and troops under my command witnessed some of these abuses in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is a tragedy. I can remember, as a cadet at West Point, resolving to ensure that my men would never commit a dishonorable act; that I would protect them from that type of burden. It absolutely breaks my heart that I have failed some of them in this regard.

That is in the past and there is nothing we can do about it now. But, we can learn from our mistakes and ensure that this does not happen again. Take a major step in that direction; eliminate the confusion. My approach for clarification provides clear evidence that confusion over standards was a major contributor to the prisoner abuse. We owe our soldiers better than this. Give them a clear standard that is in accordance with the bedrock principles of our nation.

Some do not see the need for this work. Some argue that since our actions are not as horrifying as Al Qaeda's, we should not be concerned. When did Al Qaeda become any type of standard by which we measure the morality of the United States? We are America, and our actions should be held to a higher standard, the ideals expressed in documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Others argue that clear standards will limit the President's ability to wage the War on Terror. Since clear standards only limit interrogation techniques, it is reasonable for me to assume that supporters of this argument desire to use coercion to acquire information from detainees. This is morally inconsistent with the Constitution and justice in war. It is unacceptable.

Both of these arguments stem from the larger question, the most important question that this generation will answer. Do we sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security? Terrorism inspires fear and suppresses ideals like freedom and individual rights. Overcoming the fear posed by terrorist threats is a tremendous test of our courage. Will we confront danger and adversity in order to preserve our ideals, or will our courage and commitment to individual rights wither at the prospect of sacrifice? My response is simple. If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is "America."

Once again, I strongly urge you to do justice to your men and women in uniform. Give them clear standards of conduct that reflect the ideals they risk their lives for.

With the Utmost Respect,—Capt. Ian Fishback
1st Battalion,
504th Parachute Infantry Regiment,
82nd Airborne Division,
Fort Bragg, North Carolina

 

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If Julian Assange is extradited to the US, his life is at stake and, if we remain silent, so is our very humanity, John Pilger writes.

 

“Let us look at ourselves, if we have the courage, to see what is happening to us” – Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre’s words should echo in all our minds following the grotesque decision of Britain’s High Court to extradite Julian Assange to the United States where he faces “a living death”. This is his punishment for the crime of authentic, accurate, courageous, vital journalism.

Miscarriage of justice is an inadequate term in these circumstances. It took the bewigged courtiers of Britain’s ancien regime just nine minutes on Friday to uphold an American appeal against a District Court judge’s acceptance in January of a cataract of evidence that hell on earth awaited Assange across the Atlantic: a hell in which, it was expertly predicted, he would find a way to take his own life.

Volumes of witness by people of distinction, who examined and studied Julian and diagnosed his autism and his Asperger’s Syndrome and revealed that he had already come within an ace of killing himself at Belmarsh prison, Britain’s very own hell, were ignored.

The recent confession of a crucial FBI informant and prosecution stooge, a fraudster and serial liar, that he had fabricated his evidence against Assange was ignored. The revelation that the Spanish-run security firm at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where Assange had been granted political refuge, was a CIA front that spied on Assange’s lawyers and doctors and confidants (myself included) — that, too. was ignored.

The recent journalistic disclosure, repeated graphically by defence counsel before the High Court in October, that the CIA had planned to murder Julian in London — even that was ignored.

Each of these “matters”, as lawyers like to say, was enough on its own for a judge upholding the law to throw out the disgraceful case mounted against Assange by a corrupt US Department of Justice and their hired guns in Britain. Assange’s state of mind, bellowed James Lewis, QC, America’s man at the Old Bailey last year, was no more than “malingering” — an archaic Victorian term used to deny the very existence of mental illness.

To Lewis, almost every defence witness, including those who described from the depth of their experience and knowledge, the barbaric American prison system, was to be interrupted, abused, discredited. Sitting behind him, passing him notes, was his American conductor: young, short-haired, clearly an Ivy League man on the rise.

In their nine minutes of dismissal of the fate of journalist Assange, two of the most senior judges in Britain, including the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett (a lifelong buddy of Sir Alan Duncan, Boris Johnson’s former foreign minister who arranged the brutal police kidnapping of Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy) referred to not one of a litany of truths aired at previous hearings in the District Court — truths that had struggled to be heard in a lower court presided over by a weirdly hostile judge, Vanessa Baraitser. Her insulting behaviour towards a clearly stricken Assange, struggling through a fog of prison-dispensed medication to remember his name, is unforgettable.

What was truly shocking last Friday was that the High Court  judges — Lord Burnett and Lord Justice Timothy Holyrode, who read out their words — showed no hesitation in sending Assange to his death, living or otherwise. They offered no mitigation, no suggestion that they had agonised over legalities or even basic morality.

Their ruling in favour, if not on behalf of the United States, is based squarely on transparently fraudulent “assurances” scrabbled together by the Biden administration when it looked in January like justice might prevail.

These “assurances” are that once in American custody, Assange will not be subject to the Orwellian SAMS — Special Administrative Measures — which would make him an un-person; that he will not be imprisoned at ADX Florence, a prison in Colorado long condemned by jurists and human rights groups as illegal: “a pit of punishment and disappearance”; that he can be transferred to an Australian prison to finish his sentence there.

The absurdity lies in what the judges omitted to say. In offering its “assurances”, the US reserves the right not to guarantee anything should Assange do something that displeases his jailers. In other words, as Amnesty has pointed out, it reserves the right to break any promise.

There are abundant examples of the US doing just that. As investigative journalist Richard Medhurst revealed last month, David Mendoza Herrarte was extradited from Spain to the US on the “promise” that he would serve his sentence in Spain. The Spanish courts regarded this as a binding condition.

“Classified documents reveal the diplomatic assurances given by the US Embassy in Madrid and how the US violated the conditions of the extradition,“ wrote Medhurst. “Mendoza spent six years in the US trying to return to Spain. Court documents show the United States denied his transfer application multiple times.”

The High Court judges – who were aware of the Mendoza case and of Washington’s habitual duplicity — describe the “assurances” not to be beastly to Julian Assange as a “solemn undertaking offered by one government to another”. This article would stretch into infinity if I listed the times the rapacious United States has broken “solemn undertakings” to governments, such as treaties that are summarily torn up and civil wars that are fuelled. It is the way Washington has ruled the world, and before it Britain: the way of imperial power, as history teaches us.

It is this institutional lying and duplicity that Julian Assange brought into the open and in so doing performed perhaps the greatest public service of any journalist in modern times.

Assange himself has been a prisoner of lying governments for more than a decade now. During these long years, I have sat in many courts as the United States has sought to manipulate the law to silence him and WikiLeaks.

This reached a bizarre moment when, in the tiny Ecuadorean embassy, he and I were forced to flatten ourselves against a wall, each with a notepad in which we conversed, taking care to shield what we had written to each other from the ubiquitous spy cameras — installed, as we now know, by a proxy of the CIA, the world’s most enduring criminal organisation.

This brings me to the quotation at the top of this article: “Let us look at ourselves, if we have the courage, to see what is happening.”

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote this in his preface to Franz Fannon’s The Wretched of the Earth, the classic study of how colonised and seduced and coerced and, yes, craven peoples do the bidding of the powerful.

Who among us is prepared to stand up rather than remain mere bystanders to an epic travesty such as the judicial kidnapping of Julian Assange? What is at stake is both a courageous man’s life and, if we remain silent, the conquest of our intellects and sense of right and wrong: indeed our very humanity.

 

Read more:

https://johnmenadue.com/justice-denied-the-judicial-kidnapping-of-julian-assange/

 

Our present Australian/UK/US political class is the epitome of hypocrisy. Our duty is to fight them cleanly... until the moment we may not have any other choice than "act dirty"... Our ScoMo saucisson is the pits of hypocritical evangelical morons who believe in a god that has an inexhaustible source of goodness, but idiots like ScoMo/Biden/BoJo act like bastard nasty devious devils.

 

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Assange Verdict: Vengeance Is Ours, Saith the Agency

by Ray McGovern Posted on December 11, 2021

Are the CIA and its contractors able to bully not only the U.S. Department of Justice, but also the UK judiciary? This is not hard to conclude after the High Court decision announced early Friday to bow to the US and extradite Julian Assange.

Underneath the pettifoggery, the decision demonstrates that the British will lop the "juris" off jurisprudence and pay heed only to "prudence" in kowtowing to the security state in Washington and its junior partner in London.

The objective, of course, is to warn any journalist or publisher tempted to investigate and and expose U. S. war crimes or political sabotage, US"Justice" is going to get you, no matter who you are or where you live. (Call it a new wrinkle on the concept of "universal jurisdiction", if you will.)

All According to (Updated) Plan

Assange’s lawyers have said they intend to appeal the High Court decision. But, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, "today’s victory for the US means that Assange’s freedom, if it ever comes, is further away than ever: not months but years even under the best of circumstances." That, of course, has been the plan for a decade or more.

Glenn also noted that post-Obama Democrats and their security state allies have a particularly potent reason to exact vengeance on Assange, who published those DNC emails showing that Bernie Sanders was cheated out of the nomination in 2016. Add the indignity suffered by the CIA, when an insider apparently leaked a treasure trove of unique documents on cyber warfare. WikiLeaks promptly published parts of "Vault 7", the family jewels of offensive cyber tools, in which the CIA and NSA has invested Billions. The security state had a witches’ brew.

In early July, I pointed to some graphic evidence that this was about bloodlust as well as vengeance, noting that the British were following the detailed ‘Washington Playbook” approach that was exposed by WikiLeaks itself in Feb. 2012.

Some readers may recall that WikiLeaks-revealed confidential emails from the US private intelligence firm Stratfor mentioned that the US already had a secret indictment against the WikiLeaks founder. Bad enough.

Inspector Javert

What also showed up in the Stratfor emails was the unrelenting, Inspector-Javert-type approach taken by one Fred Burton, Stratfor’s Vice-President for Counterterrorism and Corporate Security. (Burton had been Deputy Chief of the Department of State’s counterterrorism division for the Diplomatic Security Service.)

Here’s Javert – I mean Burton:

“Move him [Assange] from country to country to face charges for the next 25 years. But seize everything he and his family own, to include every person linked to Wiki.” [my comment: “country to country”, or – equally effective – court to court]

“Pursue conspiracy and political terrorism charges and declassify the death of a source, someone which could link to Wiki.”

“Assange is a peacenik. He needs his head dunked in a full toilet bowl at Gitmo.”

"Take down the money. Go after his infrastructure. The tools we are using to nail and de-construct Wiki are the same tools used to dismantle and track al-Qaeda.”

“Bankrupt the arsehole first; ruin his life. Give him 7-12 years for conspiracy.”

“Assange is going to make a nice bride in prison. Screw the terrorist. He’ll be eating cat food forever … extradition to the US is more and more likely.”

Nice people – once sworn under oath “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic”. Since comparisons are invidious, apologies to “Javert” and Victor Hugo.

"The Truth Will Always Win"

This saying of Julian’s is one that we strong supporters are determined to hang onto – and believe, even when it stretches credulity. Throwing in the towel is not an option. Inspiration can also be taken from the dismal-sounding, but nonetheless uplifting words of I. F. Stone:

"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you’re going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins." 

The late Kurt Vonnegut may seem like a strange person with which to close in this way, since he was the quintessential "humanist".

“How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, ‘If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?’ 

“But if Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being.

“I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake.”

I imagine that one part of that Sermon on the Mount Vonnegut may have had in mind was this.

 

People are going to insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you because you tell the truth. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. Know that you are in good company. They persecuted the prophets before you in the very same way.

 

 

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

 

 

Read more:

https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2021/12/10/assange-verdict-vengeance-is-ours-saith-the-agency/

 

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UNFORTUNATELY, THE DISINFORMATION ABOUT JULIAN ASSANGE — SOME FROM THE GUARDIAN AND OTHER NEWS OUTLETS — AND THE CIA, HAS PUT THE PUBLIC TO SLEEP ON THIS ISSUE...

The US will break its assurances on Assange. Here’s why

 

BY Richard Medhurst — a British journalist born in Damascus. Owing to his coverage of international relations, US politics, the Middle East and Julian Assange extradition he has built a successful YouTube channel and hosts a program on Press TV. Follow him on Twitter @richimedhurst

 

I’ve been covering Julian Assange’s extradition hearing since 2020. I’ve attended every hearing and ruling. What happened on Friday in the British High Court was a travesty of justice.

To recap where we are in the Assange case: 

• January 2021: District Judge Vanessa Baraitser blocked Julian Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States on health grounds.

• October 2021: the United States appealed this decision on five grounds.

• December 10, 2021: the High Court ruled in favor of the US, overturning January’s decision, and saying the extradition could go ahead.

I watched Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde read out the ruling on Friday, when I attended the High Court remotely. It was done so casually and quickly – the whole thing lasted barely 10 minutes.

LIVE THREAD: Julian Assange v Govt of USAToday the High Court will deliver a judgement on the US government's appeal in the #Assange case. The US is appealing a UK judge's decision not to extradite Assange to the US.I’m attending remotely and will post live updates below. pic.twitter.com/wU7EayiguA

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) December 10, 2021

 

The High Court denied three grounds of the US appeal. It accepted Baraitser’s findings that Assange’s precarious mental state would cause him to take his own life if extradited, making the extradition oppressive. It accepted the medical evidence, despite the US’ attempts to attack the credibility of Prof. Michael Kopelman, the lead medical expert. But it allowed it to go ahead on two grounds: it said it accepted the diplomatic assurances provided by the US, and that the district judge should have notified the US of her provisional view, so as to afford it the opportunity to give these assurances beforehand.

The High Court’s entire decision was based on the assumption that you can trust America’s assurances. You can’t.

When the lead US prosecutor, James Lewis, told the High Court justices that “the United States have never broken a diplomatic assurance, ever”, I guess they decided to believe him. Assange’s lawyers pointed to the case of David Mendoza Herrarte, extradited from Spain to the US in 2009 for drug trafficking. He, too, was given diplomatic assurances by the US, which Lewis said, “are not dished out like Smarties”.

In its ruling on Friday, the High Court judges said they had looked at Mendoza’s case and found the US had not violated its assurances, and that Mendoza’s case did not offer any support to Assange’s claim that US assurances cannot be trusted.

“We take a similar view of two other cases relied on by Mr Assange, namely those of David Mendoza and Abu Hamza [extradited in 2015 from the UK to the US on terrorism charges and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole]. Both can be said to show that the USA may be expected to apply the strict letter of an assurance which it has given, but neither provides any evidence of a failure to comply with an assurance and neither provides any support for Mr Assange’s submission that this court should not regard the offered assurances as reliable.”

It’s astonishing that the High Court justices could reach such a conclusion. I recently published classified documents pertaining to Mendoza’s case. They reveal how the US offered diplomatic assurances for his extradition, only to violate them later. Did the judges see these documents at all? This ruling gives the impression they didn’t.

In Mendoza’s case, Spain placed three conditions on his extradition:

1) He had to serve his sentence in Spain.

2) There should be no life sentence (or similar term of confinement).

3) There should be no “currency-structuring” charge. 

 

Here’s the diplomatic note sent by the US Embassy in Madrid. It doesn’t actually say the US will allow Mendoza to serve a sentence in Spain – it says the US does not object to Mendoza “making an application to serve his sentence in Spain”, which is completely different. Every prisoner can apply for a treaty transfer anyway – it’s not up to the US.

As for the life sentence, it says the US “will not seek a sentence of life imprisonment”, but that it “will do everything within its power, that Mendoza receives a determinate sentence of incarceration”. That could mean five months, five years, five centuries or any number of years – a practice not unusual in US courts.

It also lists all the charges brought against Mendoza – including the currency-structuring charge, despite this being explicitly ruled out by the Spanish court.

All this is very reminiscent of the assurances for Assange. The wording is equally ambiguous; even if you take these assurances at face value you simply can’t trust them. They allow the United States to subject the WikiLeaks co-founder to so-called special administrative measures (SAMs) or imprison him at ADX Florence supermax prison, a maximum-security facility in Colorado, if “after entry of this assurance, he was to commit any future act that met the test for the imposition of a SAM”. 

I spoke to Mendoza, who was imprisoned at Englewood, near ADX Florence, where Assange is likely to be sent. He said that any innocent, random conversation Assange has with his partner or lawyers could be interpreted by the US authorities as some sort of “code”, and used as a pretext to lock him up immediately under SAMs in some other hellhole – that’s if they don’t do it the moment he sets foot in the US.

Alternatively, they could also place Assange in a communications management unit (CMU) or special housing unit (SHU) and then say, “See? We didn’t break any assurances, because we didn’t place Assange under SAMs.” The thing is, the reason Baraitser blocked the extradition is because the isolation and psychological torment is what could drive Assange to suicide. Whether it’s SAMs or a CMU or an SHU isn’t the issue here.

The High Court has also accepted an assurance from Washington that Assange could serve any potential sentence in his home country, Australia. As I heard Lewis put it in court, Assange could “look forward” to being jailed Down Under.

Prison transfers don’t work that way. The United States can’t just say Assange can serve his sentence in Australia, in Tanzania or on the Moon and then make it so. The administering state, meaning Australia, must also accept the transfer ahead of time. This is very clearly spelled out under Article 3(f) of the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.

Having applied numerous times for treaty transfer to Spain, and being so familiar with the system, Mendoza told me that, as the United States and Australia are part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, the US could easily talk to Australia through back channels and simply tell it not to take Assange. Having covered the court proceedings for so long, I can confirm that Australia has said nothing about taking Assange.

In Mendoza’s case, the assurances he got from the US were so vague, the Spanish courts ordered more concrete assurances. The result of this was a contract called the “Acta de Entrega” or “Deed of Surrender”. This document was signed by Mendoza himself, Spain and the United States. Kimberly Wise, an employee at the US Embassy in Madrid, signed the document on behalf of the American government.

 

This contract was very explicit: it didn’t say only that Mendoza had been surrendered to the US authorities, it said he had been surrendered to them “in accordance with what was previously stipulated by Section Two of the National Criminal Court”. That means the US agreed to all the conditions of Mendoza’s extradition i.e., serving his sentence in Spain, no life sentence, etc.

And did the US respect the contract once Mendoza was on American soil? Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, it refused to give him a copy of the contract once he got there so he wouldn’t be able to contest non-compliance in court. They told him it was classified and, instead, gave him a copy without his signature.

 

Mendoza was extradited to the US in 2009 and sentenced to 14 years. He applied three times for a treaty transfer back to Spain. Washington denied his request on every single occasion, and also told him he would have to wait two years before reapplying. I couldn’t find any mention of such a rule in the prisoner-transfer treaty.  

 

Mendoza was allowed to return to Spain in 2015 only after he sued Spain in the Spanish Supreme Court – twice – and won both times. The Supreme Court practically threatened to suspend the Spain-US extradition treaty if the Spanish government didn’t get him back. Mendoza told me this was really when Washington began to feel some pressure, because the Americans wanted to keep extraditing people to the US – having the treaty suspended would have been a legal nightmare and required getting it through the Spanish congress again and having all their dirty practices exposed.

Mendoza also sued the US Department of Justice (DoJ) for breach of contract. He was only able to do so because a Spanish judge, sympathetic to his case, sent him a copy of the original Acta de Entrega with his signature on it.

 

I spoke to Mendoza’s lawyer, Alexey Tarasov. He recalls how American prosecutors called him up one day and said that if his team dropped the civil suit against the DoJ, Mendoza could go back to Spain. Mendoza said having agreed to drop the suit had been the “biggest regret” of his life. He spent six years and nine months trapped in the United States. He was able to return only after suing both Spain and the US for failing to enforce the conditions of his extradition.

If Julian Assange is extradited, and Washington breaks its diplomatic assurances, what options will Assange be left with? He can’t sue the US in the civil courts. They’ll tell him: you’re not a signatory of the US-UK Extradition Treaty, so you have no claim, which is what they told Mendoza.

Assange’s other option would be to go to the UK courts. Does anyone seriously believe the British government could be compelled into pressuring the US to hold up its end of the deal and raise hell on Assange’s behalf? You can already see the results of the Special Relationship in the extradition itself.

 

When I spoke with Mendoza, he told me it was very important that any assurances include Assange as a party to the agreement despite his status as a non-signatory of the extradition treaty, so that, in the event of non-compliance, he can contest this in court. Moreover, he said, any transfer to Australia had to be agreed to by Australia in advance, otherwise it would be meaningless. 

Mendoza was fortunate to have the Spanish public, Spanish judges and the Spanish Supreme Court applying pressure on his behalf. Otherwise, he would still be in an American prison. The United States never held up its end of the deal, and the Spanish government did virtually nothing to get him back. Mendoza told me: “I’m a nobody. If they did that to me, what are they going to do to Julian Assange?”

Mendoza’s case is now more important than ever, because it shines a light on how the United States makes false promises and cannot be held to account after the fact. When the High Court says in point 54 of Friday’s ruling that it “can be said to show that the USA may be expected to apply the strict letter of an assurance which it has given”, sure, in one sense, that’s correct. The diplomatic note sent by the US Embassy in Madrid is so purposely vague, the US could get around what it appeared to have promised.

However, in Mendoza’s case, there was an additional document: the Acta de Entrega. Diplomatic assurances can come in different forms and the Acta de Entrega is one of them – hence why the US Embassy in Madrid signed it. Did the judges even see this document? Or did they see only the vague, ambiguous verbal note sent in January 2009? That was nowhere near enough to make an accurate assessment of Mendoza’s case.

I can confirm, at the very least, that the vast majority of the documents I published have not been referenced in court in Assange’s case as of yet. Whether the judges had these documents in front of them, I don’t know. But if they did, and they still arrived at the conclusion that the US’ current assurances for Assange can be trusted, then they are terribly mistaken.

Anyone with a shred of common sense can see these assurances are worthless. Ironically, in that regard, Assange’s case isn’t all that unique. Mendoza told me about the countless Spaniards, Colombians, Mexicans and others he’s seen extradited to the US. It’s standard practice for the US to give these ambiguous assurances to game foreign judges and jurisdictions. It will play whatever games it can to get people into its jurisdiction, whether through the courts or by kidnapping and rendition, because once you’re in its grasp, there’s nothing you can do.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/542953-us-assurances-assange-extradition/

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW...

 

UNFORTUNATELY, THE DISINFORMATION ABOUT JULIAN ASSANGE — SOME FROM THE GUARDIAN AND OTHER NEWS OUTLETS — AND THE CIA, HAS PUT THE PUBLIC TO SLEEP ON THIS ISSUE...

 

Note: there is NO REASON for Assange to be charged with anything. 

 

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