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Monday, September 14, 2020
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
LA DEFENSA DE JULIAN ASSANGE EN OLD BAILEY : MARK SUMMERS QC (1)
The court resumed with a new defence application, led by Mark Summers QC , about the new charges from the US governments new superseding indictment. Summers took the court back over the history of this extradition hearing. The first indictment had been drawn up in March of 2018. In January 2019 a provisional request for extradition had been made, which had been implemented in April of 2019 on Assange’s removal from the Embassy. In June 2019 this was replaced by the full request with a new, second indictment which had been the basis of these proceedings before today. A whole series of hearings had taken place on the basis of that second indictment.
The new
superseding indictment dated from 20 June 2020. In February and May 2020 the US
government had allowed hearings to go ahead on the basis of the second
indictment, giving no warning, even though they must by that stage have known
the new superseding indictment was coming. They had given neither explanation
nor apology for this.
The defence
had not been properly informed of the superseding indictment, and indeed had
learnt of its existence only through a US government press release on 20 June.
It had not finally been officially served in these proceedings until 29 July,
just six weeks ago. At first, it had not been clear how the superseding
indictment would affect the charges, as the US government was briefing it made
no difference but just gave additional detail. But on 21 August 2020, not
before, it finally became clear in new US government submissions that the
charges themselves had been changed.
There were
now new charges that were standalone and did not depend on the earlier
allegations. Even if the 18 Manning related charges were rejected, these new
allegations could still form grounds for extradition. These new allegations
included encouraging the stealing of data from a bank and from the government
of Iceland, passing information on tracking police vehicles, and hacking the
computers both of individuals and of a security company.
“How much
of this newly alleged material is criminal is anybody’s guess”, stated Summers,
going on to explain that it was not at all clear that an Australian giving
advice from outwith Iceland to someone in Iceland on how to crack a code, was
actually criminal if it occurred in the UK. This was even without considering
the test of dual criminality in the US also, which had to be passed before the
conduct was subject to extradition.
It was unthinkable that allegations of this magnitude
would be the subject of a Part 2 extradition hearing within six weeks if they
were submitted as a new case. Plainly that did not give the defence time to
prepare, or to line up witnesses to these new charges. Among the issues
relating to these new charges the defence would wish to address, were that some
were not criminal, some were out of time limitation, some had already been
charged in other fora (including Southwark Crown Court and courts in the USA).
Summers said all these matters should be ventilated in
these hearings if the new charges were to be heard, but the defence simply did
not have time to prepare its answers or its witnesses in the brief six weeks it
had since receiving them, even setting aside the extreme problems of contact
with Assange in the conditions in which he was being held in Belmarsh prison.
The defence would plainly need time to prepare answers
to these new charges, but it would plainly be unfair to keep Assange in jail
for the months that would take. The defence therefore suggested that these new
charges should be excised from the conduct to be considered by the court, and
they should go ahead with the evidence on criminal behaviour confined to what
conduct had previously been alleged.
Summers argued it was “entirely unfair” to add what
were in law new and separate criminal allegations, at short notice and
“entirely without warning and not giving the defence time to respond to it.
What is happening here is abnormal, unfair and liable to create real injustice
if allowed to continue.”
(...)
Baraitser adjourned the court “for ten minutes” while she went out to consider her judgement. In fact she took much longer. When she returned she looked peculiarly strained.
Baraitser ruled that on 14 August she had given the defence the opportunity to apply for an adjournment, and given them seven days to decide. On 21 August the defence had replied they did not want an adjournment. They had not replied that they had insufficient time to consider. Even today the defence had not applied to adjourn but rather had applied to excise charges. They “cannot have been surprised by my decision” against that application. Therefore they must have been prepared to proceed with the hearing. Their objections were not based on new circumstance. The conditions of Assange in Belmarsh had not changed since 21 August. They had therefore missed their chance and the motion to adjourn was refused.
The courtroom atmosphere was now highly charged. Having in the morning refused to cut out the superseding indictment on the grounds that the remedy for lack of time should be more time, Baraitser was now refusing to give more time.
How the defence will deal with the new charges we shall see. It seems impossible that they can do this without calling new witnesses to address the new facts. But the witness lists had already been finalised on the basis of the old charges. That the defence should be forced to proceed with the wrong witnesses seems crazy, but frankly, I am well past being surprised by anything in this fake process.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-the-assange-hearing-day-6/
https://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/member/mark-summers/