Summary: Former UK ambassador Craig Murray looks at oddities in the latest steps by Western governments to suppress Julian Assange. This is the Deep State at work, the hidden hands made visible. We can learn much from this, if we pay attention. You will find no insights about the Deep State in the major media.
“The Missing Step” – in the persecution of Julian Assange
By Craig Murray at his website, 20 May 2019.
Posted with his generous permission.
In Sweden, prosecutors have applied to the Swedish courts to issue a warrant for Julian’s arrest. There is a tremendous back story to that simple statement.
The European Arrest Warrant must be issued from one country to another by a judicial authority. The original Swedish request for Assange’s extradition was not issued by any court, but simply by the prosecutor. This was particularly strange, as the Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm had initially closed the case after deciding there was no case to answer, and then another, highly politically motivated, prosecutor had reopened the case and issued a European Arrest Warrant, without going to any judge for confirmation.
Assange’s initial appeal up to the UK Supreme Court was in large part based on the fact that the warrant did not come from a judge but from a prosecutor, and that was not a judicial authority. I have no doubt that, if any other person in the UK had been the accused, the British courts would not have accepted the warrant from a prosecutor. The incredible and open bias of the courts against Assange has been evident since day one. My contention is borne out by the fact that, immediately after Assange lost his case against the warrant in the Supreme Court, the British government changed the law to specify that future warrants must be from a judge and not a prosecutor. That is just one of the incredible facts about the Assange case that the mainstream media has hidden from the general public.
The judgement against Assange in the UK Supreme Court on the point of whether the Swedish Prosecutor constituted a “judicial authority” hinged on a completely unprecedented and frankly incredible piece of reasoning. Lord Phillips concluded that in the English text of the EWA treaty “judicial authority” could not include the Swedish prosecutor, but that in the French version “autorite judiciaire” could include the Swedish prosecutor. The two texts having equal validity, Lord Phillips decided to prefer the French language text over the English language text, an absolutely stunning decision as the UK negotiators could be presumed to have been working from the English text, as could UK ministers and parliament when they ratified the decision.
I am not making this up – you will find Phillips amazing bit of linguistic gymnastics here on page 9 paragraph 21 of his judgement. Again, it is impossible that this would have been done to anybody but Julian Assange; and had it been the outcry from the MSM against the preference given to French wording and thus French legal tradition would have been deafening. But given the state’s unhidden animus against Assange, it all was passed quietly with the law simply amended immediately thereafter to stop it happening to anybody else.
The law having been changed, this time the Swedes have to do it properly and actually go to a court to issue a warrant. That is what is now happening. As usual, the Guardian today cannot resist the temptation to tell an outright lie about what is happening {Editor: it is a Reuters story}.
“Julian Assange: Sweden files request for arrest over rape allegation.”
‘Prosecutor asks for order to begin process of extraditing WikiLeaks founder from UK.”
The main headline is completely untrue. Sweden has not filed a request for arrest. Sweden is going through its judicial processes – which it skipped the first time – in order to decide whether or not to file a request for arrest. This gives Assange the opportunity to start the process of fighting the allegations, which he strenuously denies, in the Swedish courts. However at present his Swedish lawyer cannot access him in Belmarsh high security jail, which is typical of the abuses of process to which he is subject.
It is not political correctness which prevents the UK mainstream media from investigating the extraordinary nature of the allegations against Assange in Sweden. In the case of Nafissatou Diallo {the maid who made claims against Strauss-Kahn}, for example, the entire UK mainstream media had no compunction whatsoever in publishing the name of the alleged victim from the very first moment of the allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and the likelihood or otherwise of the entire story was raked through in detail by every single national newspaper, and extensively by the BBC.
I have never heard anybody even attempt to explain why it was OK for the mainstream media to look in detail at Diallo’s accusations and use her name, but Anna Ardin {see some stories about her here} and Sofia Wilen must never be named and their story must never be doubted. The answer is not the position in Swedish law. The Swedish law states that neither the accuser nor the accused may be named, which law has been gleefully broken in Assange’s case every day for nine years.
When it comes to Assange, he is simply to be reviled. He is provably treated differently by both state and press at all points. It does not matter to them that his arrest warrant was not from a judge, or that the media apply entirely different rules to investigating his case, enforced by a feminist mantra they do not believe or uphold in other cases. He is simply to be hated without question.
Why has there never been a documentary in the UK like the brilliant “Sex, Lies and Julian Assange” from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship Four Corners programme? Please do watch if you have not done so already.
See the trailer.
Conclusions.
Julian Assange revolutionised publishing by bringing the public direct access to massive amounts of raw material showing secrets the government wished to hide. By giving the public this direct access he cut out the filtering and mediating role of the journalistic and political classes. Contrast, for example, the Panama Papers which, contrary to promises, only ever saw less than 2% of the raw material published and where major western companies and individuals were completely protected from revelation because of the use of MSM intermediaries. Or compare Wikileaks to the Snowden files, the vast majority of which have now been buried and will never be revealed, after foolishly being entrusted to the Guardian and the Intercept.
Assange cut out the intermediary role of the mediating journalist and, by allowing the people to see the truth about how they are governed, played a major role in undercutting public confidence in the political establishment that exploits them.
There is an interesting parallel with the reaction to the work of Reformation scholars in translating the Bible into vernacular languages and giving the populace direct access to its contents, without the mediating filters of the priestly class. Such developments will always provoke extraordinary venom from those whose position is threatened. I see a historical parallel between Julian Assange and William Tyndale in this respect. It is something worth bearing in mind in trying to understand the depth of the State’s hatred of Julian.
For a detailed look at the propaganda that controls the West, see Murray’s new post “The World: What is Really Happening.”
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About the author
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He joined the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1984. His career culminated as British Ambassador to Uzbekistan 2002 to 2004. It ended when he criticized regime as repressive and using torture (both the American and British governments freaked out). Afterwards he was Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. In 2016 the US government refused to allow him entry to the US.
See his articles at his website. See his bio. See his Wikipedia entry – he has led an extraordinary life.
One of Murray’s book is Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game
“This is an astonishing true tale of espionage, journeys in disguise, secret messages, double agents, assassinations and sexual intrigue. Alexander Burnes was one of the most accomplished spies Britain ever produced and the main antagonist of the Great Game as Britain strove with Russia for control of Central Asia and the routes to the Raj.”
For More Information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see all posts about Julian Assange, about rape, about propaganda, about ways to reform America’s politics, and especially these …
- America’s courtiers rush to defend the government – from us. About the mockery and smears of Snowden and Assange.
- The full story of the rape charges against Julian Assange of Wikileaks, a possible covert op.
- New and strange developments in the prosecution of Julian Assange (Wikileaks) – New but not more enlightening.
- Julian Assange trapped & smeared. Wikileaks weakened. Mission accomplished for CIA?
- Important: The Affair Assange shows us what’s behind the curtain – Analysis by journalist Chris Hedges and the Strategic Culture Foundation.
- James Howard Kunstler looks at the news about Assange & sees useful idiots on parade.
- The “Resistance” is Silent on Julian Assange – by Margaret Kimberley at the Black Agenda Report.
- The secret weapon that brought down Assange of Wikileaks.
Written in 2016, Assange’s book looks prescient today
Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
by Julian Assange (2016).
From the publisher …
“Cypherpunks are activists who advocate the widespread use of strong cryptography (writing in code) as a route to progressive change. Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of and visionary behind WikiLeaks, has been a leading voice in the cypherpunk movement since its inception in the 1980s.
“Now, in what is sure to be a wave-making new book, Assange brings together a small group of cutting-edge thinkers and activists from the front line of the battle for cyber-space to discuss whether electronic communications will emancipate or enslave us. Among the topics addressed are: Do Facebook and Google constitute “the greatest surveillance machine that ever existed,” perpetually tracking our location, our contacts and our lives? Far from being victims of that surveillance, are most of us willing collaborators? Are there legitimate forms of surveillance, for instance in relation to the “Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse” (money laundering, drugs, terrorism and pornography)? And do we have the ability, through conscious action and technological savvy, to resist this tide and secure a world where freedom is something which the Internet helps bring about?
“The harassment of WikiLeaks and other Internet activists, together with attempts to introduce anti-file sharing legislation such as SOPA and ACTA, indicate that the politics of the Internet have reached a crossroads. In one direction lies a future that guarantees, in the watchwords of the cypherpunks, “privacy for the weak and transparency for the powerful”; in the other lies an Internet that allows government and large corporations to discover ever more about internet users while hiding their own activities. Assange and his co-discussants unpick the complex issues surrounding this crucial choice with clarity and engaging enthusiasm.”
What is astonishing is the extent to which significant numbers of people who are sworn to uphold the law are being co opted into active participation in a serious injustice.
Is it all careerists and trimmers in the legislative and judicial communities? There does not seem to be any voice within the government that is standing firm for honest administration of the law.
studiant,
“What is astonishing is the extent to which significant numbers of people who are sworn to uphold the law are being co opted into active participation in a serious injustice.”
Law enforcement almost always does the bidding of their political bosses. How many counter-examples can you cite?
The law enforcement performance I accept, but in the judiciary and the associated lawyers one has frequently found individuals who would stand up to these entities.
Here there is no one that has been willing to step up.
What does that do to the credibility of the entire apparatus of justice?
etudiant,
“The law enforcement performance I accept, but in the judiciary and the associated lawyers one has frequently found individuals who would stand up to these entities.”
I have a deep knowledge of US history. That’s quite false. Such moments are very rare. There are examples of police, DAs, and judges going against corrupt local officials – when prosecuted by higher authorities (state over local, Fed over State) – or against individual corrupt officials unsupported by the establishment.
Wow, so the spirit of Salem is alive and well in our country. I guess I was too influenced by the memory of Judge Sirica. Depressing.
etudiant,
I had not thought of that, but it fits well. The “spirit of Salem” is endemic to America, a dark aspect of our collective spirit.
The UK supreme court ruling is indeed stunning. It is not a case of French “text” which differs ( as though it was an error or difference of translation ) it is that in the French legal system the prosecutor would be a judge “la juge d’instruction”. In the French legal system , which is fundamentally different from the adversarial Anglo-Saxon model, such a case would be investigated by a special category of judge, who is quite separate from the trial judge but nonetheless IS a judge and therefore “judicial”.
As such it is totally inapplicable to UK law. I’m surprised that his team did not take this to ECJ, which AFAIK still has precedence over UK supreme court ( previously known as the House of Lords: the law lords ). Maybe they figured that once he has skipped bail that became a secondary issue.
It is not too surprising that the Guardian ( erstwhile stalwart of independent journalism in Britain ) is so compliant. At the time of Snowden’s revelations the then editor Alan Rushbridger courageously defied MI5 and refused to hand over a hard disk containing the leaked Snowden meterial. They along with their US colleagues were very keen to learn the extent of the damage. Rushbridger held fast to his journalistic principals.
At the end of 2014 he “resigned” to be replaced in 2015 by a more establishment compliant editor Katharine Viner.