WikiLeaks: Julian Assange Hearings - Day 9

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Mon Sep 21 16:09:23 PDT 2020


https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/why-are-amnesty-international-monitors-not-able-to-observe-the-assange-hearing/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24542352

Assange’s lawyers began with a request that the alleged evidence in a
new indictment handed down in June be excluded from consideration
given that it came so late. The Judge denied this. In the afternoon
session, the lawyers requested an adjournment until next year to give
his lawyers time to respond to the US prosecutor’s new indictment.
They said they had been given insufficient time to examine the new
allegations, especially since they had only “limited access” to the
imprisoned Assange. Indeed, this most recent hearing was the first
time in more than six months that Julian Assange had been able to meet
with his lawyers. The judge rejected this request.

Amnesty International had requested access to the court for a trial
monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated
seat in court. Our monitor initially did get permission to access the
technology to monitor remotely, but the morning the hearing started he
received an email informing us that the Judge had revoked Amnesty
International’s remote access.

We applied again for access to the proceedings on Tuesday 8 September,
setting out the importance of monitoring and Amnesty International’s
vast experience of observing trials in even some of the most
repressive countries.

The judge wrote back expressing her "regret" at her decision and
saying: “I fully recognise that justice should be administered in
public". Despite her regret and her recognition that scrutiny is a
vital component of open justice, the judge did not change her mind.


“I’m here today for the same reason I was in Iraq. Because I believe
in justice and I believe in peace,” he tells me. “Julian Assange is
not really wanted for espionage. He is wanted for making America look
like war criminals.”

Indeed, it is ironic that no one responsible for possible war crimes
in Iraq and Afghanistan has been prosecuted, let alone punished. And
yet the publisher who exposed their crimes is the one in the dock
facing a lifetime in jail.

#FreeAssange


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