The @DailyMailUK’s shameful regurgitation of 10 years of disproven slander against #JulianAssange comes at a rather interesting time.
1. There has been increasing reporting of the #AssangeCase, all positive and it Julian’s plight seems to be winning hearts and minds.
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2. The @DailyMailUK might have come under political pressure after being at the forefront of the MSM in the reporting positive reporting of the #AssangeCase.
The political nature of the #AssangeCase does not make it inconceivable that at the highest levels the @DailyMailUK might have felt obligated to do a balancing act of its reporting of the case often often highlighting prosecution flaws, injustices & dangerous precedent being set.
4. Entering the final week of the case, the prosecution is struggling to make their case even with the obvious help from Judge Vanessa Baraitser. Every day of the hearing so far the public has seen that #Assange is being tortured in a UK prison for publishing war crimes.
In asking the defense how the outcome of the U.S. presidential election would affect its case and indicating that she had hoped to issue a ruling before election day, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser has acknowledged that this is a politically motivated prosecution. #AssangeCase
This is the first battle of a long war that #JulianAssange will have to fight which could end in the ECHR in a few years or the US Supreme Court in many years. The longer it takes and the more irregularities that happen the more the public will understand the nature of this case.
Eventually #JulianAssange will be vindicated, & freed, & he will set the precedent that no journalist should ever fear publishing the vile war crimes: murder, rape, extrajudicial executions, torture, & corruption of a state and its military industrial complex. #FreeJulianAssange!
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The Court will hear arguments against bail first.
Clair Dobbin: The high court can overturn the conviction, the court must be careful not to render the result academic. #AssangeCase
Day 17 of the #AssangeHearing, with three days left, open justice has not been done in these proceedings. The Judge blocked 40 political and NGO observers (including @amensty & @RSF_inter) from monitoring the most important #FreeSpeech trial of the century.
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Defence is reading from/summarizing a witness statement from war reporter Patrick Cockburn. He was in Kabul when the war logs were released, and he says they confirmed civilian casualties he and other journalists suspected. #AssangeCase
Cockburn's statement includes the importance of the war logs and Collateral Murder video to prove these incidents in the face of official denial.
Day 16 of the #AssangeCase proceedings. By this stage it is very likely that the 40 political observers that the judge arbitrarily banned from the observing proceedings virtually will not be allowed to do so. 4 left & I feel the decision was made before we started.
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We have Maureen Baird on the stand: 28 years experience with the Bureau of Prisons in various capacities, with her final positions as Warden and Senior Executive Service Warden at three various Federal Prisons. #AssangeCase
September 28th, day 15 of the #AssangeCase extradition proceedings. 40 political and #FreeSpeech advocate observers including @RSF_inter and @amnesty are still banned from observing the most important trial of our lifetime by Judge Baraitser without any explanation.
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Sorry for being a bit late, this morning the court heard from Yancey Ellis, US attorney, with experience of the federal prison system. He talked about how #Assange would be placed under a strict solitary confinement regime.
As a pre-trial defendant, Assange would be detained in the ADC for months or potentially years. Ellis: "I believe it's most likely" #Assange would be held in administrative segregation (ad-seg). #AssangeCase