John Pilger: The "Getting" Of Assange & The Smearing Of A Revolution

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3457802.html

10 OCTOBER 2011

The 'getting' of Assange and the smearing of a revolution

JOHN PILGER

- snip -

However, it is not the Swedish judicial system that presents a "grave danger" to Assange, say his lawyers, but a legal device known as a Temporary Surrender, under which he can be sent on from Sweden to the United States secretly and quickly. The founder and editor of WikiLeaks, who published the greatest leak of official documents in history, providing a unique insight into rapacious wars and the lies told by governments, is likely to find himself in a hell hole not dissimilar to the "torturous" dungeon that held Private Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower. Manning has not been tried, let alone convicted, yet on April 21, president Barack Obama declared him guilty with a dismissive "He broke the law".

This Kafka-style justice awaits Assange whether or not Sweden decides to prosecute him. Last December, the Independent disclosed that the US and Sweden had already started talks on Assange's extradition. At the same time, a secret grand jury – a relic of the 18th century long abandoned in this country -- has convened just across the river from Washington, in a corner of Virginia that is home to the CIA and most of America's national security establishment. The grand jury is a "fix", a leading legal expert told me: reminiscent of the all-white juries in the South that convicted blacks by rote. A sealed indictment is believed to exist.

- snip -

In a letter addressed to the Australian government, Britain's most distinguished human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, who now acts for Assange, wrote,



- snip -

The contrast with the treatment of a genuine pioneer of a revolution in journalism, who dared take on rampant America, providing truth about how great power works, is telling. A drip-feed of hostility runs through the Guardian, making it difficult for readers to interpret the WikiLeaks phenomenon and to assume other than the worst about its founder. David Leigh, the Guardian's "investigations editor", told journalism students at City University that Assange was a "Frankenstein monster" who "didn't use to wash very often" and was "quite deranged". When a puzzled student asked why he said that, Leigh replied, "Because he doesn't understand the parameters of conventional journalism. He and his circle have a profound contempt for what they call the mainstream media". According to Leigh, these "parameters" were exemplified by Bill Keller when, as editor of the New York Times, he co-published the WikiLeaks disclosures with the Guardian. Keller, said Leigh, was "a seriously thoughtful person in journalism" who had to deal with "some sort of dirty, flaky hacker from Melbourne".

MORE AT LINK

that if UK sent Assange to Sweden, then Sweden couldn't extradite him on to a third country without permission from the UK

So despite all the noise, an extradition from UK to Sweden seems to decrease the likelihood that Assange could be extradited to a third country: before the Swedish request, a third country would have had to persuade the UK courts; at present, a third country has to persuade the UK courts but Sweden has a prior claim; and if UK passes him to Sweden, a third country would have had to persuade courts in BOTH Sweden and the UK in order to gain custody

Like such much else involving Assange, there's much smoke blown here but very little light shed

I originally thought the allegations might have some substance and needed to be taken seriously. But, given the strangeness of the circumstances surrounding the allegations, and the fact that the allegations came from devoted Assange supporters who apparently claimed to have voluntary relations with him before trotting out possible unverifiable borderline stories, I've been entertaining an alternative hypothesis:

I wonder if dear Mr Assange became paranoid about the possibility he could be tried for espionage against the US and so cooked up a pretty little gambit with the help of some smart EU lawyers, whereby his Swedish sweeties made enough complaint to open a short inconclusive investigation, Assange leaving Sweden after the investigation was closed, and then making just enough further complaint to get the investigation reopened and an extradition process started. Thus Assange got months of publicity out of claims that the Swedish request was motivated by American intelligence agents, who were allegedly using the Swedish women as its stooges -- puffing up a big conspiracy tale about the Americans planning to take him into custody from Sweden, instead of from the UK

A gigantic problem with the conspiracy tale is that it simply doesn't jive with EU extradition law, as I already noted above: there's just no reason to think it's easier to send Assange to the US indirectly from the UK via Sweden than directly from the UK, and there's good reason to think the indirect route would be substantially harder than the direct route, under EU law. And arguing in favor of the scenario I just outlined is a further fact: Assange obviously enjoys outsmarting people and staying a step ahead of them. The remaining question would be why Assange would be worried about an American prosecution for the Wikileaks release: had he released UK documents, he would (of course) have been prosecutable under UK law, but the American law is rather different, and he's pretty safe from prosecution here -- unless he himself actually engaged in a direct and premeditated operation encouraging someone else to release controlled documents to him. So if my scenario is correct, there may be a more immediate and culpable link between Assange and Manning than we have suspected

This is, however, all speculation. Until I know better, I am obliged simply to take the view that the sexual misconduct allegations from the Swedish women deserve to be taken seriously until the matter is resolved by the Swedish justice system