{"id":145882,"date":"2019-10-28T12:01:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T12:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=145882"},"modified":"2019-11-04T09:35:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T09:35:01","slug":"assange-struggles-to-say-his-own-name-as-he-appears-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/10\/assange-struggles-to-say-his-own-name-as-he-appears-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Assange \u201cStruggles to Say His Own Name\u201d as He Appears in Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assange told the judge he is up against a \u201csuperpower\u201d with \u201cunlimited resources\u201d and appeared to be fighting back tears as he added: \u201cI can\u2019t think properly.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

21 Oct 2019 – <\/em>WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared to struggle to say his own name as he faced court to fight extradition to the US.<\/p>\n

Assange, 48, is accused of leaking the country\u2019s government secrets in one of the largest ever compromises of confidential information.<\/p>\n

Clean shaven and with his white hair combed back, he appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court today wearing a dark blue suit over a pale blue sweater and white shirt.<\/p>\n

He mumbled, paused and stuttered as he gave his name and date of birth at the start of a case management hearing.<\/p>\n

Protesters gather outside <\/strong><\/p>\n

Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and journalist and documentary maker John Pilger were among Assange\u2019s supporters in a packed public gallery, while dozens of protesters gathered outside court.<\/p>\n

Assange\u2019s barrister Mark Summers QC said there is a \u201cdirect link\u201d between the \u201creinvigoration\u201d of the investigation, which was concluded during Barack Obama\u2019s presidency, and the Donald Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur case will be that this is a political attempt to signal to journalists the consequences of publishing information. It is legally unprecedented,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

American state <\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Summers also claimed the US was involved in invading his client\u2019s legal privilege.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American state has been actively engaged in intruding into privileged discussions between Mr Assange and his lawyers in the embassy, also unlawful copying of their telephones and computers (and) hooded men breaking into offices,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

District Judge Venessa Baraitser refused to grant defence lawyers more time to gather evidence and told Assange his next case management hearing will take place on December 19 before a full extradition hearing in February.<\/p>\n

When his case was adjourned, Assange complained that he had not understood proceedings, and said: \u201cThis is not equitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI can\u2019t research anything, I can\u2019t access any of my writing. It\u2019s very difficult where I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up against a \u201csuperpower\u201d with \u201cunlimited resources\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

He told the judge he is up against a \u201csuperpower\u201d with \u201cunlimited resources\u201d and appeared to be fighting back tears as he added: \u201cI can\u2019t think properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange was jailed for 50 weeks in May for breaching his bail conditions after going into hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for nearly seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex offence allegations.<\/p>\n

He was due to be released from high-security Belmarsh prison last month, but a judge remanded him in custody because there were \u201csubstantial grounds\u201d for believing he would abscond.<\/p>\n

Assange faces 18 charges in the US, including allegations he conspired to break into a Pentagon computer and worked with former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak hundreds of thousands of classified documents.<\/p>\n

Former home secretary Sajid Javid signed an order in June allowing Assange to be extradited to the US over the computer-hacking allegations.<\/p>\n

Grave concerns <\/strong><\/p>\n

In May, WikiLeaks said it had \u201cgrave concerns\u201d about Assange\u2019s health after he was moved to a medical ward in Belmarsh prison. When he did not appear for a scheduled hearing, chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot referred to the Australian as \u201cnot very well\u201d.<\/p>\n

WikiLeaks said at the time: \u201cDuring the seven weeks in Belmarsh his health has continued to deteriorate and he has dramatically lost weight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision of the prison authorities to move him into the health ward speaks for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement before the hearing, Massimo Moratti, Amnesty International\u2019s deputy director for Europe, said: \u201cThe British authorities must acknowledge the real risks of serious human rights violations Julian Assange would face if sent to the USA and reject the extradition request.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK must comply with the commitment it\u2019s already made that he would not be sent anywhere he could face torture or other ill-treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK must abide by its obligations under international human rights law that forbids the transfer of individuals to another country where they would face serious human rights violations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWere Julian Assange to be extradited or subjected to any other transfer to the USA, Britain would be in breach of these obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Jack Peat<\/a> is a business and economics journalist and the founder of<\/em> The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to<\/em> The Sunday Telegraph, BBC News and writes for<\/em> The Big Issue on a weekly basis. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thelondoneconomic.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Oct 2019 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared to struggle to say his own name as he appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court today to fight extradition to the US. Assange told the judge he is up against a \u201csuperpower\u201d with \u201cunlimited resources\u201d and appeared to be fighting back tears as he added: \u201cI can\u2019t think properly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":145883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225,51,62,139,60],"tags":[229,910,120,276,942,487,378,651,234,291,91,444,287,985,380,1109,911,454,572,249,639,292,70,126,118,172,921,113,75],"class_list":["post-145882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight","category-europe","category-media","category-justice","category-whistleblowing-surveillance","tag-activism","tag-big-brother","tag-conflict","tag-democracy","tag-ecuador","tag-human-rights","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-media","tag-military","tag-nato","tag-nonviolence","tag-power","tag-social-justice","tag-solutions","tag-spying","tag-surveillance","tag-sweden","tag-torture","tag-trump","tag-uk","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-west","tag-whistleblowing","tag-wikileaks","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}