WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, minus beard, appears in London court

[Jonathan Fairfield]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, minus beard, appears in London court

 

Demonstrators hold placards during a protest outside of Westminster Magistrates Court, where a case management hearing in the U.S. extradition case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is held, in London, Britain, October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

 

LONDON (Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared in a London court on Monday for a hearing on whether he should be extradited to the United States to face spying charges.

 

Assange, dressed in a navy suit and light blue jumper, raised his fist to supporters in the public gallery. He was cleanly shaven in contrast to the long beard he had grown while holed up in Ecuador's embassy.

 

Assange, 48, faces 18 counts in the U.S. including conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law. He could spend decades in prison if convicted.

 

Australian-born Assange made international headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.

 

Admirers have hailed Assange as a hero for exposing what they describe as abuse of power by modern states and for championing free speech.

 

His detractors have painted him as a dangerous figure complicit in Russian efforts to undermine the West and U.S. security, and dispute that he is a journalist.

 

WikiLeaks angered Washington by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that laid bare critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

In 2012, he took refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden where he was accused of sex crimes which he denied, saying he believed he would ultimately be sent on to the United Sates.

 

He was dragged from the embassy in April after seven years and given a 50-week jail term for skipping bail. That sentence was completed but he remains in prison while his extradition case continues.

 

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Alistair Smout)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-10-21

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[from the home of CC]

maybe with mrs. huawei we can do a twofer with the States and get a trade deal later on..

[olfu]

I laugh when see claims about UK being a democracy and Assange case is typical example.

[Chomper Higgot]

‘He was dragged from the embassy in April after seven years and given a 50-week jail term for skipping bail.’

 

He was not dragged from any embassy, he was evicted and the UK police answered a legitimate request to assist in his eviction.

 

I understand he has since (at UK tax payer’s expense) received the dental care he needed and that his cat is being cared for.

[Chomper Higgot]

3 minutes ago, olfu said:

I laugh when see claims about UK being a democracy and Assange case is typical example.

I laugh even louder when, while claiming to be a journalist, he hid from the law in the Ecuadorian embassy.

 

Ecuador being the renowned bastion of press freedom that it is.

[Scouse123]

]

Apparently,

 

The Ecuadorians found him to be ungrateful, obnoxious, demanding, untidy and uncooperative with their Embassy officials and a complete pain in the backside.

 

They were glad to see the back of him and had tried for years to get him to leave realizing they had opened a can of worms.

 

All that said, the Australian government are the ones who should be assisting him with his legal rights and objections to the extradition request by the US.

[mauGR1]

11 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

bastion of press freedom

RIP press freedom

[Montnoveau]

41 minutes ago, Scouse123 said:

]

Apparently,

 

The Ecuadorians found him to be ungrateful, obnoxious, demanding, untidy and uncooperative with their Embassy officials and a complete pain in the backside.

 

They were glad to see the back of him and had tried for years to get him to leave realizing they had opened a can of worms.

 

All that said, the Australian government are the ones who should be assisting him with his legal rights and objections to the extradition request by the US.

Australia has extradition arrangements with USA, so helping him to Australia won't do him any good.

[Scouse123]

1 minute ago, Montnoveau said:

Australia has extradition arrangements with USA, so helping him to Australia won't do him any good.

 I agree,

 

But for the sake of fairness and transparency I would, if I were in charge, return him to Australia and let them in his country of origin and the Americans sort it out.

 

He faces life imprisonment in the States, if convicted on the very serious charges he is facing and he is a very high profile figure. We will have all kinds of Human rights organizations vilifying Britain if these matters are not followed very carefully with every i dotted and t crossed.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 minute ago, Scouse123 said:

 I agree,

 

But for the sake of fairness and transparency I would, if I were in charge, return him to Australia and let them in his country of origin and the Americans sort it out.

 

He faces life imprisonment in the States, if convicted on the very serious charges he is facing and he is a very high profile figure. We will have all kinds of Human rights organizations vilifying Britain if these matters are not followed very carefully with every i dotted and t crossed.

Once the UK has received an extradition request, the UK must under the extradition treaty process the request, court challenges included.

 

Shipping Assange off to Australia is not an option. 

[Chomper Higgot]

53 minutes ago, Scouse123 said:

]

Apparently,

 

The Ecuadorians found him to be ungrateful, obnoxious, demanding, untidy and uncooperative with their Embassy officials and a complete pain in the backside.

 

They were glad to see the back of him and had tried for years to get him to leave realizing they had opened a can of worms.

 

All that said, the Australian government are the ones who should be assisting him with his legal rights and objections to the extradition request by the US.

The Australian government can provide advice on his rights, he has lawyers assisting him with any legal objections he may wish to raise regarding his extradition.

 

The courts will decide and ultimately the Home Secretary will sign or not sign the final approval to extradite.

 

Delaying this might work against Assange, since if what is alleged is true he might at least hope for a pardon from Trump, a possibility soon to evaporate.

[evadgib]

12 hours ago, olfu said:

I laugh when see claims about UK being a democracy and Assange case is typical example.

UKs claim to democracy is indeed a joke but Assange alone is responsible for his current predicament and the millions it has cost the taxpayer to date.

[Moonlover]

12 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

He was not dragged from any embassy, he was evicted and the UK police answered a legitimate request to assist in his eviction.

Wasn't he? His feet aren't even touching the ground! And if I recall correctly, the embassy staff broke normal protocol by inviting the police in to remove him as he refused to leave of his own accord.

 

But agreed, he was evicted for being, amongst many other things, a proverbial pain in the backside.

 

 

 

 

 

[Krataiboy]

16 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

He was not dragged from any embassy

Seeing is believing. Here's live video footage from the BBC - hardly a big fan of Assange or whistleblowers generally. Note the headline, replicated by numerous other media outlets.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-47892641/julian-assange-dragged-from-ecuadorean-embassy

 

 

[Krataiboy]

16 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

I laugh even louder when, while claiming to be a journalist, he hid from the law in the Ecuadorian embassy.

 

Ecuador being the renowned bastion of press freedom that it is.

Assange wasn't "claiming to be a journalist". He IS a journalist, and part of that dying breed which dares to speak truth to power. Hence, his present predicament.

 

The WikiLeaks team's record speaks for itself. Over the years, they have won numerous awards, including: the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism (2011), the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (2011), the International Piero Passetti Journalism Prize of the National Union of Italian Journalists (2011), the Jose Couso Press Freedom Award (2011), the Brazilian Press Association Human Rights Award (2013), and the Kazakstan Union of Journalists Top Prize (2014).

 

 

Brownie points to Ecuador for at least delaying the inevitable as Western leaders ramp up the rhetoric and reprisals against dissenting voices, be they journalists, internet bloggers or the chattering classes on social media.

[Sujo]

6 hours ago, Montnoveau said:

Australia has extradition arrangements with USA, so helping him to Australia won't do him any good.

He would not be extradited from australia. To be extradited it must also be a crime in that country. The australian govt has already said he could not be charged in australia so therefore he could not be extradited.

[illiterate]

THis is basic and can be summed up in a few sentences. 

 

If the US government does not like you, you're done. It does not matter how wrong they are and how right you are, they will go out of their way to ruin you all while claiming to represent a "democracy" (while scaring citizens into submission). 

 

And, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We all know who the enemy is based on what wikileaks exposed. We essentially have warmongering, murderous tyrants as leaders who cover up facts that would potentially preclude the military industrial complex supporters clearing their obscene profits. Profits exposed to be based on death, war, obfuscation, and prevarication. 

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed. 

[stevenl]

19 hours ago, olfu said:

I laugh when see claims about UK being a democracy and Assange case is typical example.

Why? There was a Swedish extradition request, all UK could do was arrest him and see the request through. Now they didn't get the chance to do that because he skipped bail and fled. At that point he was in violation of UK law.

 

What else could they do at that point but try to arrest him and take him to court for his bail violation?

[ylmiri]

8 hours ago, Scouse123 said:

]

Apparently,

 

The Ecuadorians found him to be ungrateful, obnoxious, demanding, untidy and uncooperative with their Embassy officials and a complete pain in the backside.

 

They were glad to see the back of him and had tried for years to get him to leave realizing they had opened a can of worms.

 

All that said, the Australian government are the ones who should be assisting him with his legal rights and objections to the extradition request by the US.

Australia has gone to the dogs many many years ago, they went to all the wars that had nothing to do with them. Australia is full of war heroes.

[Scouse123]

15 hours ago, Sujo said:

He would not be extradited from australia. To be extradited it must also be a crime in that country. The australian govt has already said he could not be charged in australia so therefore he could not be extradited.

 

Sujo,

 

I agree for what its worth and that's why I said it would be better for the UK to wash its hands of this. Send him to OZ, they are a mutual ally of the USA, he is an Aussie, let those two countries sort it out.

 

 

[sanooki]

It's amazing how many people buy the government propaganda around Assange, not realizing that what we are witnessing are the final throes in the death of journalism and, hence, freedom. Party on... Until you can't.

[Baerboxer]

8 hours ago, sanooki said:

It's amazing how many people buy the government propaganda around Assange, not realizing that what we are witnessing are the final throes in the death of journalism and, hence, freedom. Party on... Until you can't.

 

I see you've confused one poster. He just can't understand that those trying the hardest to suppress a free press are those who call themselves left wing, liberals, democrats and portray themselves as being representatives and champions of the poor whilst being incredibly wealthy themselves!

 

He believes those lefty liberals to be the good people. So they wouldn't do anything dishonest or conspire to cover their dishonesty.

 

This all started because Assange started exposing Clinton, and others started worrying how much he knew and who else was on his list. This is the same group going after Trump - they like to say that if you've got nothing to hide then you needn't worry. Well they seem very worried about free speech and free investigative journalism.

 

All left liberal socialist globalists seem to rely on controlling the media. Now why would they do that if they were honest?

[katana]

Apparently he's been kept in solitary confinement for months at Belmarsh and is not in a good way mentally. This was after the recent extradition hearing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X144dRJNt4

[CGW]

 

On 10/22/2019 at 2:52 PM, Krataiboy said:

hardly a big fan of Assange or whistleblowers generally

Understandable, a lot of people hate being faced with the truth about what their democratically elected government is doing behind their backs.

[metisdead]

A troll post has been removed. 

[evadgib]

Worrying if true:

 

[Tropicalevo]

Bored with this one

[Scott]

A post from an unapproved source has been reported and removed.