A Manhattan federal judge declared a mistrial Monday after a jury was unable to decide whether to convict computer engineer Joshua Schulte on charges of leaking CIA materials to WikiLeaks.

While the jury was hung on eight counts, including illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information, jurors convicted him on charges of contempt of court and making false statements to the FBI, The New York Times reported.

The jury reportedly deliberated for six days, with one juror replaced after researching the case against the judges orders. She was never replaced, leaving 11 people to determine the final verdict.

Jurors also raised concerns about a second jurors attitude in a note, saying she was not participating in discussions, the Times reported.

Prosecutors said Schulte, who resigned in November 2016, was motivated by resentment over his belief that the agency was disregarding his workplace complaints.

The government may retry Schulte, who also faces a separate federal trial over thousands of images and videos of child pornography allegedly discovered on electronic devices during a search of his home.

Schultes attorneys argued the vulnerabilities in the CIAs computer network were widely known, and that it could have been breached by other sources, pointing in particular to a CIA employee identified as Michael who was close friends with Schulte and left the office with him on the night of the alleged theft.

The government placed Michael on administrative leave for refusing to cooperate with the investigation, but it did not notify Schultes defense ofthe action until six months later beforeMichael served as a witness for the government, according to the Times.

It shows their doubt about the case against Mr. Schulte, Schultes lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said in her closing argument.

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Jury fails to decide whether former CIA engineer leaked secrets in WikiLeaks case | TheHill - The Hill

A previously secret document from 2010 warned that classified diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks would likely result in observable changes in the tactics and techniques used by foreign spies, potentially making it easier to avoid detection by U.S. agencies.

The document, recently declassified through a Freedom of Information request by the nonprofit National Security Archive and shared with TechCrunch, reveals a rare glimpse inside U.S. Cyber Command, the militarys main cyber-warfare unit, which feared that the leaked diplomatic cables of communications between U.S. foreign embassies would uncover and hamper its ongoing cyber operations.

Michael Martelle, a research fellow for the National Security Archives Cyber Vault Project, said the subsequent publication of the cables by WikiLeaks gave the adversaries a period of heightened advantage.

The publication of the document comes almost exactly a decade after U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning downloaded and forwarded 750,000 classified cables to leak-publishing site WikiLeaks. Manning was subsequently sentenced to 35 years in prison for what was then the largest leak of U.S. classified material in its history. Her sentence was commuted by then-President Barack Obama in 2017.

Cyber Command wrote its findings in a so-called situational awareness report dated December 2010, just days after The New York Times and several other news outlets published the full cache of diplomatic cables, albeit with redactions to protect sources. The highly redacted assessment warned that the military cyber unit expected to see foreign intelligence services active in cyber-espionage against the U.S. use the information published by WikiLeaks to their own advantage.

(Image: National Security Archive)

According to the assessment, the leaked cables clearly state that the U.S. government entities at the time have knowledge of specific tactics and techniques used by foreign adversaries, including malware, toolsets, IP addresses, and domains used in intrusion activity.

It went on to warn that those same adversaries are expected to modify their current infrastructure and intrusion techniques to evade U.S. cyber-defenses.

(Image: National Security Archive)

Although the redactions in the declassified document make it unclear exactly which adversaries Cyber Command was referring to, Martelle said that only one specific adversary China was mentioned in the entire cache of unredacted documents, which WikiLeaks published a year later, much to the chagrin of the news outlets.

Just one month before the first cables were published, Google had publicly accused Beijing of launching targeted cyberattacks against its network. Several other companies, including antivirus maker Symantec and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, were also hit by the attacks, in an offensive cyber campaign that became known as Operation Aurora.

Google subsequently withdrew from China following the furor.

Cyber Commands assessment said that all Dept. of Defense divisions and U.S. intelligence agencies remain vigilant to anomalies amid fears that its adversaries will leverage this new information to further their cyber initiatives.

When reached, a spokesperson for Cyber Command did not comment. Google also did not comment. An email to WikiLeaks went unreturned. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is currently detained and awaiting extradition to the U.S. for publishing the classified cables.

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Secret document says WikiLeaks cable leaks disrupted tracking of nation-state hackers - TechCrunch

The fragility of the US, the worlds most powerful nation and said to be a model democracy, couldnt bemore stark when one follows its hounding of Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks, who had the temerity to expose the ugly and brutal side of the workings of US power, for instance, the killings of civilians in Iraq from aerial bombing for no real purpose.

In other words, it was in public interest that such informationshould be made known, which the WikiLeaks agreed to publish on its platform, as well as sharing, most of it, with respected newspapers such asTheGuardian and The New York Times.

While Assange is being hounded for the material published on Wikileaks, the newspapers that published that materialare spared so far because, for some odd reason, they are regarded as practising responsible journalism because they redacted some of the material that might put lives of some Western agents in danger.There is nothing so far to suggest that WikiLeaks jeopardised the lives of any agent/s.

In other words, newspapers like The Guardian and The New York Times were practising journalism, while Assange and his WikiLeaks were not in that business and hence not worthy of public interest journalism. Assange, therefore, was engaged in espionage when publishing the secret information, and hence accountable for the said offence of espionage.

Of course, the trial in the US on espionage charges will happen as and when the judicial process of extradition in the UK is completed, and Assange is found to be liable for proceedings in the US. It is important to note that the extradition between the US and UK excludes political offences.

But the whole process seems to assume that Assanges leaking of the US documents was a criminal offence for which he is liable to face consequences in the US. In other words, it is essentially a political process rolled out as a criminal case, in which Assange is already viewed as having committed alleged act/s of espionage against the US. To put it more bluntly, the UK judicial process seems tailored to hand over Assange to the US over a period, where he is said to be facing multiple life imprisonment of 175 years. It is simply vendetta dressed as justice, with the US proclaiming loudly that no matter what your citizenship status and/or the place of alleged crime, the US would hunt you down. Even though President Barack Obama pardoned Manning for supplying the documents to WikiLeaks, Assange must face the music for daring to reveal the USs ugly and brutal side.

Assange, according to reports, has been strip-searched and repeatedly handcuffed like some violent criminal, prevented from any communication with his legal team, and was thrown into solitary confinement

Even before Assange faces justice in the US after the extradition process in the UK, as and when it is completed, proceedings in the magistrates court pre-judge him as a criminal. Assange, according to reports, has been strip-searched and repeatedly handcuffed like some violent criminal, prevented from any communication with his legal team, and was thrown into solitary confinement and the like. His treatment has been so abysmal that more than 60 British doctors protested at his torture.

Assange is an Australian citizen but his own government being part of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence-sharing compact-whichincludes the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand-islargely letting Assange face his destiny with the US justice system when he is delivered from his British nightmare into a US dungeon.

It was reported that a Trump associate/confidant had let it be known that if Assange would declare that his leaking of a trove of Hillary Clinton related emails, towards the close of the presidential election, was not a part of Russian interference to favour Trump, he might be pardoned. The Trump camp has denied any such deal.

One, however, wonders why Assange is such a criminal when at the height of the election campaign, Trump, as a presidential candidate, openly encouraged WikiLeaks to come out with Hillary leaks, saying that he loved WikiLeaks. However sordid the whole WikiLeaks saga is from the beginning the sad thing is the USs model democracy is hounding an individual for exposing the truth behind an image that was illusory.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia

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US, Assange and WikiLeaks - Daily Times

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman, as we turn now to the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, which a British judge has suspended after four days of intense deliberations last week between Assanges lawyers and attorneys representing the U.S. government. Assange faces 18 charges of attempted hacking and breaches of the Espionage Act for his role in publishing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. He could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ordered the legal teams to reconvene in the middle of May for the remainder of the extradition hearing, where witnesses will be cross-examined. This is Julian Assanges father, John Shipton, outside Woolwich Crown Court last week.

JOHN SHIPTON: The oppression of journalism; the ceaseless malice directed against Julian Assange by the authorities; the 10-year-long arbitrary detention of Julian, as witnessed by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; the torture of Julian, as witnessed by Nils Melzer, the United Nations rapporteur on torture all of those reports are available. That is what will happen to journalists, publishers and publications, if this extradition, this political extradition, of Julian Assange is successful.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Julian Assanges father, John Shipton. Julian Assange has been incarcerated in Londons Belmarsh prison since last April. Since 2012, he had taken refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which he denied and which the Swedish government ultimately dropped. Assange even then wasnt as concerned about being extradited to Sweden, but that Sweden would then send him to the United States. During his time in political exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange was reportedly spied on by a Spanish security firm. Julian Assange says the CIA was behind the illegal 24/7 surveillance.

For more, were joined by, well, one of the people who was spied on, Jennifer Robinson, the human rights attorney whos been advising Julian Assange and WikiLeaks since 2010.

Jen Robinson, welcome back to Democracy Now! Thanks for joining us from London. Can you describe the four days of hearings, just physically in the courtroom in London, and what Julian Assange faces?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Obviously, weve just had a week of hearings. Julian Assange faces, as you said, 175 years in prison for publications back in 2010 that were released to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning. And I think its important to remember what this case is really about and the publications for which hes being prosecuted and sought for extradition. That includes Iraq War Logs, the Afghan War Diaries, showing civilian casualties and abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, war crimes, human rights abuse. The same with Cablegate war crimes, human rights abuse, corruption the world over.

So, for four days last week, there was a packed-out courtroom filled with the public gallery was packed, the journalist section was packed to finally hear, after 10 years of the U.S. preparing this case against WikiLeaks, a grand jury investigation that was opened under the Obama administration and an indictment pursued now by the Trump administration. We finally heard the U.S. case. And, of course, we heard nothing new, nothing new since Chelsea Mannings prosecution back in 2012.

What is important, though, is that what the court finally heard is the defense case. And a number of arguments were put forward by our team, including the Espionage Act. This is an unprecedented use of the Espionage Act against a publisher, which is, of course, a political offense and ought to be barred from under the terms of the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty. There should be extradition should be barred on that basis.

We also heard evidence about the grave threat that this poses to press freedom, not just for journalists inside the United States, but for journalists everywhere around the world, because of the precedent this case sets, that the United States could seek to extradite and prosecute journalists and publishers from around the world for publishing truthful information about the United States.

We also heard evidence about how the United States indictment has misrepresented the facts, including making the false allegation that Julian Assange had recklessly and deliberately put lives at risk. And we heard evidence in the court this week about the technological security measures that WikiLeaks imposed upon their media partners and the redaction processes that were undertaken to protect anyone at risk in those publications.

It was a long week of hearings. And I think its important that people start to see the true facts of this. Of course, Chelsea Manning remains in prison in the United States right now, but we heard evidence from her prosecution, in these proceedings, demonstrating that Chelsea Manning had in fact provided this information to WikiLeaks based on her own conscience, having seen war crimes, the murder of civilians, the murder of journalists by United States forces, which is what drove her to release the material to WikiLeaks. So, it was a long week of hearings, an important one for Julian.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Jennifer Robinson, can you describe the courtroom where Julian Assange was held at the back of the courtroom, as is the custom? Was he in a cage? Was he able to hear the proceedings, consult? Were you in the front with the other lawyers? Youre his legal adviser.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Thats correct. So, throughout the hearings, Julian was sat at the back of the courtroom, which is behind where we sit as his legal counsel, in, effectively, a glass box, in the dock. Now, this creates significant amount of difficulties for us as his legal team in communicating with him during the course of the proceedings, which was raised as a concern on the final day of the hearing. He sits behind us, which means while were paying attention to the judge and submissions in front, we cant see when hes raising concern or seeking clarification or offering information to us about what hes hearing in court. The entire courtroom, including the public gallery and journalists, were alerted to the fact whenever he wants to raise a question with us. And, of course, if hes whispering to us or trying to get our attention in the court, the U.S. prosecutors sitting right next to us in court can hear everything. So we made an application at the end of the week in order to allow him to leave the dock. And, of course, for your U.S. viewers, it would seem strange that a defendant who does not pose any security risk would not be permitted to sit next to their defense counsel, which is standard practice in the United States. But the judge refused our application.

We also heard evidence of the mistreatment that Julian suffered, not just the difficulties he has in court in communicating with us in a secure and confidential manner, but also the treatment that hes been receiving from prison authorities. Just on the first day of the hearing, we heard that he was handcuffed 11 times, strip-searched twice and had his legal papers interfered with and taken away from him. This is indicative of the kinds of treatment that hes been suffering, and is, of course, the most recent in a long history of difficulties that weve been having in preparing his case, with difficulties of access to him in the prison, difficulties in getting him getting sufficient time with him to review and take his instructions of the very complex evidence that needs to be presented in the court. And it goes to show, I think, the obstacles and the challenges that we face and that he faces in properly defending himself in these proceedings.

AMY GOODMAN: He said Wednesday, I am as much a participant in these proceedings as I am watching Wimbledon, again, complaining that he could not communicate with you, with the lawyers overall. Now, the U.S. attorneys argue that his case is not political. Explain what you think are the most significant war crimes that he provided evidence of and what it means if he came to this country. How is it possible he, an Australian citizen, faces 175 years for treason in the United States?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Of course this case is inherently political, whether you look at the terms the offenses for which hes been charged, including numerous offenses under the Espionage Act, which encapsulate and capture traditional journalistic activities. The Espionage Act itself as an offense is a political offense in substance. But we also need to look at the political context in which this prosecution and extradition request comes. This is, of course, in the context of the Trump administration, a president who calls the media the enemy of the people. We have learnt, since Julian was arrested and this extradition request and superceding indictment came through, that the Obama administration had taken a decision not to prosecute under the Espionage Act because of what the so-called New York Times problem that is, that you cannot distinguish between the actions of WikiLeaks and The New York Times in receiving and publishing this information.

We also say that beyond the political nature of the offense and the political context in which he would be charged, the U.S. prosecution seemed to tried to argue this week, this past week, that what WikiLeaks did and Julian did in publishing this information was not a political act. And, of course, we heard evidence in the court about Julians very well-known political views, that we heard with respect to WikiLeaks and the aims and why WikiLeaks was created by him. We heard, with respect to the Iraq War Logs, WikiLeaks Julian saying, with the release, If lies can start a war, then the truth can stop them. And we heard evidence about how the publication of evidence of war crimes, in the context of the Iraq War, both with respect to, for example, Collateral Murder, which was evidence of a war crime and U.S. troops killing journalists and civilians, but also, more broadly, about torture of detainees how evidence of that in fact led to the Iraqi government withdrawing the immunity for U.S. troops and the ultimate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. So, of course, what were seeing is that WikiLeaks not only published information of important human rights abuse it was certainly in the public interest, and for which theyve won journalism awards the world over but that in fact resulted in a change in U.S. policy. And we say that that makes it a political offense.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Jen Robinson, how is Julian Assanges health?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: We remain very concerned about his health. Of course, he had more than seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy without access to healthcare, because the U.K. government refused to recognize his asylum, an asylum that was granted to him by Ecuador, not to hide from Sweden, as your introduction suggested, but to protect him from U.S. extradition, the very outcome that hes facing right now.

Inside prison, he is in difficult conditions. This is a high-security prison. Hes been in effective isolation for much of the time hes been inside the prison. And you heard me earlier explain the treatment hes been suffering between the prison and the court each time for his hearing, including being handcuffed numerous times, strip searches and the like. This is, of course, compounding our existing concerns about his health. And we heard in court, too, psychiatric evidence thats being put before the court about concerns about his ability to withstand the sorts of treatment he will suffer in U.S. prisons under special administrative measures if he was returned to the United States. So it is a very serious situation and one that is under constant monitoring at our end.

AMY GOODMAN: Jen Robinson, I want to thank you for being with us, human rights attorney. She is legal adviser for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks since 2010.

When we come back, tomorrow is Super Tuesday. We go to Texas to speak with a candidate whos running in a primary race. Thats Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old immigration lawyer whos challenging Congressmember Henry Cuellar. Stay with us.

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Julian Assange Lawyer: What's at Stake in Extradition Case Is Freedom of the Press - Democracy Now!

Almost a year after the Trump administration unsealed an indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, two progressive members of Congress are trying to prevent a World War I-era secrecy law from being used to investigate and prosecute journalists for publishing classified information.

The legislation to amend the 1917 Espionage Act was introduced by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden in the Senate and California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna in the House of Representatives. Wyden and Khanna told The Intercept they crafted the legislation to preserve the governments need for secrecy while strengthening protections for members of the press and expanding legal channels for government whistleblowers.

When I think about espionage, Im thinking about somebody like Aldrich Ames, Wyden said in an interview, referring to the CIA officer who passed secrets to the KGB before his arrest in 1994. What my bill does is refocus the Espionage Act to the core issue, which is ensuring that the more than four million government employees and contractors with a security clearance dont violate their oaths by divulging government secrets.

The Espionage Act makes it a crime to for anyone to share secrets relating to the national defense with people who are not authorized to hear them. The statute makes no exception for members of the press who obtain and report classified information, but there is broad agreement among legal scholars that prosecuting a journalist for unearthing and publishing government secrets would violate the First Amendment.

The Wyden-Khanna bill would narrow the scope of the lawtoprimarily target offenders with current or expired security clearances, as well as any agents of a foreign government to whom they may pass information. Members of the press or the publiccould be prosecuted if they committed a separate crime in the course of obtaining the information,but not for soliciting information or for speech activity like publishing.

Journalists shouldnt be prosecuted simply for getting information from a source or transmitting that information, Khanna said in an interview. Hackers who break the law to get secret information should be prosecuted, he said, but to prosecute those who obtain such information legally would be tantamount to criminalizing speech.

The bill also removes the broadest language in the Espionage Act, which allows anyone to be charged for conspiring with leakers. Press freedom advocates have long worried that that part of the act could be abused by overzealous prosecutors to criminalize standard journalistic practices such as asking for information.

In April 2019, the government unsealed an indictment against Assange charging him with one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The indictment alleged that as part of his relationship with former U.S. Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning, he hadoffered to help crack a password on a Defense Department computer system. Around that time, Manning transmitted documents to Assange that WikiLeaks would later publish: case files of men detained at Guantanamo Bay and documents revealing torture and civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bulk-release tactics of the transparency platform would later attract widespread criticism for exposing the identities of U.S. government informants and collaborators and putting them in danger.

A month after the Trump administrations first indictment, prosecutors added 17 criminal counts under the Espionage Act, which involved Assange soliciting the classified material from Manning. The indictment included three counts of having communicated documents by publishing them on the internet.

This is the first time the government, to my knowledge, has charged anyone with the pure communication of information under the Espionage Act, and that is very concerning, said Kathleen Ruane, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. Thats pure communication of information. Thats reporting.

Khanna told The Intercept that the new bill wouldnt stop the prosecution of Assange for his alleged role in hacking a government computer system, but would make it impossible for the government to use the Espionage Act to charge anyone solely for publishing classified information.

But while the bill creates protections for publishers, it doesnt address a key complaint of press freedom and civil liberties advocates: that over the past decade, the Espionage Act has served as the governments weapon of choice to punish unauthorized press leaks.

Instead, the bill expands carve-outs that allow security clearance holders to more freely communicate as whistleblowers with members of Congress, inspectors general, and other government regulatory bodies that oversee technology and privacy. The Espionage Act includes language suggesting that classified information can only be sent to Congress by lawful demand of a congressional committee; the new measure would allow clearance holders to provide information to any member of Congress without a specific request or demand.

Americans who learn about waste, fraud, and abuse, even if its classified, ought to be able to go to any member of Congress with that information, Wyden said. I just think thats the proper way to proceed.

Throughout the 20th century, it was extremely rare for the government to bring criminal cases against those accused of sharing government secrets with journalists. That changed under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Obamas Justice Department famously brought more Espionage Act cases against whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined.

Donald Trump has continued the practice, using the Espionage Act to prosecute government employees and contractors for allegedly sharing information about Russian hacking into U.S. state election infrastructure, leaking information about the U.S. drone program, and other sensitive topics.

Khanna told The Intercept that revealing classified information should still be a crime for those with clearances, but that prosecutors and judges should have discretion to weigh the consequences of the leak against the motives of the source.

I dont think we can have a situation where people who have security clearances can simply leak information in violation of their oath and their responsibility, Khanna said. That could put lives in danger in many cases.

Alex Abdo, the litigation director at the Knight Institute at Columbia University, told The Intercept that the bill was a crucial effort to ensure national security journalists are protected while doing their jobs.

These protections for journalists are vital, Abdo said in an email. It is also vital that Congress enact additional protections for national-security whistleblowers, who risk personal and professional sanction to expose government malfeasance and corruption.

See the rest here:
New Bill Would Strengthen Protections for Journalists Over Classified Info - The Intercept

Thanks to the investigative work and perseverance of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, the truth is gradually being revealed.

One of the most successful false news stories of the last decade is the story of two women who filed a rape complaint against Julian Assange with the Swedish police in August 2010, and that the founder of Wikileaks escaped from the Swedish justice system by fleeing to England. The advantage of the Swiss Nils Melzer is that he speaks fluent Swedish, and was then able to consult the original documents. And then, to his amazement, it turned out that the course of events was quite different.

The rewriting of a womans statement.

In fact, as Melzer stated recently in an important interview with the Swiss online magazine Republik, to which I shall refer below, one of the two women, who was simply accompanied by the other, was horrified when the police before her eyes began to draw up a rape report from her statements. She, as she pointed out on several occasions, had sexual relations with Assange on a totally consensual basis, and only contacted the authorities to find out whether it would be possible to force him to take an AIDS test. As soon as she realized that the police were starting to do something completely different, she interrupted the interrogation in a state of shock and left the room. However, only a few hours later, the headline appeared in large letters in the Swedish tabloid press: Julian Assange was accused of double rape.

In that regard, Melzer has an explosive document an e-mail from the supervisor of the consensually appointed police officer, in which he asks him to rewrite the interrogation protocol correctly. This appears to be due to the fact that the Public Prosecutors Office was already closing the case, as the womans statements were not sufficient for an accusation of rape.

As the original text of the document was deleted from the computer, it was not possible to restore it. However, its content can be easily guessed from the initial reaction of the Public Prosecutors Office: because according to Melzer, the Public Prosecutors Office stated that although S. W.s statements were credible, they did not give any indication of a crime.

The woman could also have sent a text message to a friend at the police station: she had the impression that the police were only interested in getting their hands on Assange.

The second womans announcement.

The second woman plays an obscure role, at first, she was just an escort. According to Melzer, she not only suggested to the first woman to go to the police, but also directed her to the guard post where one of her friends was on duty. This is the same person who at that time and this was already a legally incorrect procedure conducted the interrogation. Later, this police friend also forged the document.

event/830197/christian-schachreiter-lugenvaters-kinder

However, only one day after the first woman was questioned, the second woman made her own statement and reported that Assange had slept with her without protection and against her will. According to Swedish law, this would indeed amount to rape. However, Mr. Melzer highlights the contradictions in the statement. Let us also look at the chronology: curiously, the Swedish media reported a double rape before this second woman made her statement.

How Assange tried to confront Swedish justice

Thanks to Melzers research, the claim that the founder of Wikileaks systematically fled Swedish justice is clearly false. According to Melzer, it is the opposite. Mr Assange contacted the Swedish authorities on several occasions because he wanted to talk about these allegations. The authorities weighed in the balance.

Thanks to the investigation and the perseverance of the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, the truth is gradually coming out: The Swedish authorities were never interested in Assanges testimony. They deliberately left him in the dark. But it also allowed them to control him. Imagine facing rape charges for nine and a half years by an entire state team and the media but not being able to defend yourself because the charges were never brought.

Thanks to the research and perseverance of the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, the truth is gradually coming out: the two women obtained a legal representative who was by chance the partner of the former minister of justice, Thomas Bodstrm. He maintained a confidential relationship with the United States and has worked closely with the CIA. In the meantime, Assange requested permission to leave the country and even received authorisation.

Englands intervention

During the flight to Berlin, his laptops disappeared from his checked baggage. Scandinavian Airlines refused to provide any information about this. The founder of Wikileaks subsequently travelled to London, from where he continued to offer his cooperation to the Swedish judicial system. Until he learned of a possible plot against him. According to Melzer, From that moment on, his lawyer said that Assange was willing to testify in Sweden, but demanded diplomatic assurances that Sweden would not extradite him to the United States. However, the Swedes consistently refused to give such an assurance.

At the same time, however, it was legally difficult for Swedish justice to keep the case on hold for years without closing it and bringing charges. Today, unusually, the British justice system has intervened to prevent the case from being closed.According to Melzer, yes, the British, that is the Crown Prosecution Service, wanted to prevent the Swedes from closing the case at all costs. But the British would have to be happy if they no longer had to guard the Ecuadorian embassy at a cost of millions of dollars of taxpayers money to prevent Assange from fleeing.

Why the United States is afraid of Assange

The background to all these strange events is obvious to Melzer. He points out that at the time Assange was systematically denouncing the serious war crimes of the United States in collaboration with the New York Times, The Guardian and Spiegel. Only a few months earlier, in April 2010, WikiLeaks had released the Murder video footage that US whistleblower Chelsea Manning had handed over to the organisation. The video shows members of the US military laughing as they shot people in Baghdad from a helicopter, including two members of the Reuters news agency. They were also shooting at the wounded, the people helping them and children.

No criminal proceedings were brought against any of the soldiers. On the contrary, the United States gave a directive to all allied countries to initiate all possible criminal actions against the founder of Wikileaks.

If Assange is extradited to the United States, Melzer believes that he will not be subject to any legal proceedings. He will be brought before the infamous spy court, from which no one has ever been acquitted, and the trial will be held behind closed doors and on the basis of secret evidence. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison. Melzer concludes that none of the war criminals in the Yugoslav civil war has been sentenced to more than 45 years.

How journalists were misled

The fact that all this has gradually come to public attention is less due to the effectiveness of the media which, on the contrary, has long refused to take note of Melzers research findings than to the perseverance and tireless work of various activists, as well as the fact that they managed to attract celebrities to the demonstrations, solidarity meetings, signature campaigns and calls for Assanges release.

Although the press was very busy first with Assange and Wikileaks, the rape story that had been launched also had some success: it was assumed without a doubt that it was already true, and then, for many years, the fate of Wikileaks founder, who had fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, was received with some indifference.

They often allow themselves to be manipulated by the arguments of the United States: that Assange is not a real journalist, has put people in danger with his publications, and is an accomplice of Putin. But these ideas about Assange, if examined more closely, are only a variant of the diversionary manoeuvre described by Melzer, namely that he has discovered war crimes and that this is a crime, in order to pass himself off as a criminal and thus eliminate the real scandal.

Unlike many of her colleagues, a correspondent for the German Taz gave with minimal words of self-criticism: Bettina Gaus admits today that she too has fallen under the spell of the image of events that has been broadcast in public without ever being questioned. Little by little, the wind is changing.

And although the Reporters Without Borders organisation remains reluctant to explicitly label Assange as a journalist, instead of simply attesting to his journalistic activity, worldwide vigils were organised in January for the founder of Wikileaks, in which journalists associations also participated. A positive contribution of the news magazine ZDF is that it has tried to make the scandal discovered by Melzer known to a wider public.

Published for the first time by Ortwin Rosner on streifzueg.org and adopted by our media partner Untergrund-Blttle.

Translation Pressenza London

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How Swedish authorities invented the rape charge against Julian Assange - Pressenza, International Press Agency

Law360, New York (February 26, 2020, 6:30 PM EST) -- Accused CIA leaker Joshua Schulte scrawled angry vows from his jail cell promising revenge against the spy agency after he was arrested for allegedly sending government hacking secrets to WikiLeaks, evidence presented to a Manhattan jury showed Wednesday.

"F--- your top secret .... Send all of your secrets here - Wikileaks," Schulte wrote in 2018 while detained as he imagined an "information war" to harm the CIA, according to notebooks and other writings shown by the government during a fourth week of trial before Manhattan U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty.

Diplomatic passport used by Joshua Schulte while he worked for...

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WikiLeaks Suspect Wrote Of Waging 'Information War' On CIA - Law360

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman, as we turn now to the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, which a British judge has suspended after four days of intense deliberations last week between Assanges lawyers and attorneys representing the U.S. government. Assange faces 18 charges of attempted hacking and breaches of the Espionage Act for his role in publishing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. He could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ordered the legal teams to reconvene in the middle of May for the remainder of the extradition hearing, where witnesses will be cross-examined. This is Julian Assanges father, John Shipton, outside Woolwich Crown Court last week.

JOHN SHIPTON: The oppression of journalism; the ceaseless malice directed against Julian Assange by the authorities; the 10-year-long arbitrary detention of Julian, as witnessed by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; the torture of Julian, as witnessed by Nils Melzer, the United Nations rapporteur on torture all of those reports are available. That is what will happen to journalists, publishers and publications, if this extradition, this political extradition, of Julian Assange is successful.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Julian Assanges father, John Shipton. Julian Assange has been imprisoned at Londons Belmarsh prison since last September, where he first served a 50-week jail sentence for breaching his bail conditions. Since 2012, he had taken refuge in Ecuadors London Embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations. During his time in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange was reportedly spied on by a Spanish security firm. Julian Assange says the CIA was behind the illegal 24/7 surveillance.

For more, were joined by, well, one of the people who was spied on, Jennifer Robinson, the human rights attorney whos been advising Julian Assange and WikiLeaks since 2010.

Jen Robinson, welcome back to Democracy Now! Thanks for joining us from London. Can you describe the four days of hearings, just physically in the courtroom in London, and what Julian Assange faces?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Obviously, weve just had a week of hearings. Julian Assange faces, as you said, 175 years in prison for publications back in 2010 that were released to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning. And I think its important to remember what this case is really about and the publications for which hes being prosecuted and sought for extradition. That includes Iraq War Logs, the Afghan War Diaries, showing civilian casualties and abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, war crimes, human rights abuse. The same with Cablegate war crimes, human rights abuse, corruption the world over.

So, for four days last week, there was a packed-out courtroom filled with the public gallery was packed, the journalist section was packed to finally hear, after 10 years of the U.S. preparing this case against WikiLeaks, a grand jury investigation that was opened under the Obama administration and an indictment pursued now by the Trump administration. We finally heard the U.S. case. And, of course, we heard nothing new, nothing new since Chelsea Mannings prosecution back in 2012.

What is important, though, is that what the court finally heard is the defense case. And a number of arguments were put forward by our team, including the Espionage Act. This is an unprecedented use of the Espionage Act against a publisher, which is, of course, a political offense and ought to be barred from under the terms of the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty. There should be extradition should be barred on that basis.

We also heard evidence about the grave threat that this poses to press freedom, not just for journalists inside the United States, but for journalists everywhere around the world, because of the precedent this case sets, that the United States could seek to extradite and prosecute journalists and publishers from around the world for publishing truthful information about the United States.

We also heard evidence about how the United States indictment has misrepresented the facts, including making the false allegation that Julian Assange had recklessly and deliberately put lives at risk. And we heard evidence in the court this week about the technological security measures that WikiLeaks imposed upon their media partners and the redaction processes that were undertaken to protect anyone at risk in those publications.

It was a long week of hearings. And I think its important that people start to see the true facts of this. Of course, Chelsea Manning remains in prison in the United States right now, but we heard evidence from her prosecution, in these proceedings, demonstrating that Chelsea Manning had in fact provided this information to WikiLeaks based on her own conscience, having seen war crimes, the murder of civilians, the murder of journalists by United States forces, which is what drove her to release the material to WikiLeaks. So, it was a long week of hearings, an important one for Julian.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Jennifer Robinson, can you describe the courtroom where Julian Assange was held at the back of the courtroom, as is the custom? Was he in a cage? Was he able to hear the proceedings, consult? Were you in the front with the other lawyers? Youre his legal adviser.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Thats correct. So, throughout the hearings, Julian was sat at the back of the courtroom, which is behind where we sit as his legal counsel, in, effectively, a glass box, in the dock. Now, this creates significant amount of difficulties for us as his legal team in communicating with him during the course of the proceedings, which was raised as a concern on the final day of the hearing. He sits behind us, which means while were paying attention to the judge and submissions in front, we cant see when hes raising concern or seeking clarification or offering information to us about what hes hearing in court. The entire courtroom, including the public gallery and journalists, were alerted to the fact whenever he wants to raise a question with us. And, of course, if hes whispering to us or trying to get our attention in the court, the U.S. prosecutors sitting right next to us in court can hear everything. So we made an application at the end of the week in order to allow him to leave the dock. And, of course, for your U.S. viewers, it would seem strange that a defendant who does not pose any security risk would not be permitted to sit next to their defense counsel, which is standard practice in the United States. But the judge refused our application.

We also heard evidence of the mistreatment that Julian suffered, not just the difficulties he has in court in communicating with us in a secure and confidential manner, but also the treatment that hes been receiving from prison authorities. Just on the first day of the hearing, we heard that he was handcuffed 11 times, strip-searched twice and had his legal papers interfered with and taken away from him. This is indicative of the kinds of treatment that hes been suffering, and is, of course, the most recent in a long history of difficulties that weve been having in preparing his case, with difficulties of access to him in the prison, difficulties in getting him getting sufficient time with him to review and take his instructions of the very complex evidence that needs to be presented in the court. And it goes to show, I think, the obstacles and the challenges that we face and that he faces in properly defending himself in these proceedings.

AMY GOODMAN: He said Wednesday, I am as much a participant in these proceedings as I am watching Wimbledon, again, complaining that he could not communicate with you, with the lawyers overall. Now, the U.S. attorneys argue that his case is not political. Explain what you think are the most significant war crimes that he provided evidence of and what it means if he came to this country. How is it possible he, an Australian citizen, faces 175 years for treason in the United States?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Of course this case is inherently political, whether you look at the terms the offenses for which hes been charged, including numerous offenses under the Espionage Act, which encapsulate and capture traditional journalistic activities. The Espionage Act itself as an offense is a political offense in substance. But we also need to look at the political context in which this prosecution and extradition request comes. This is, of course, in the context of the Trump administration, a president who calls the media the enemy of the people. We have learnt, since Julian was arrested and this extradition request and superceding indictment came through, that the Obama administration had taken a decision not to prosecute under the Espionage Act because of what the so-called New York Times problem that is, that you cannot distinguish between the actions of WikiLeaks and The New York Times in receiving and publishing this information.

We also say that beyond the political nature of the offense and the political context in which he would be charged, the U.S. prosecution seemed to tried to argue this week, this past week, that what WikiLeaks did and Julian did in publishing this information was not a political act. And, of course, we heard evidence in the court about Julians very well-known political views, that we heard with respect to WikiLeaks and the aims and why WikiLeaks was created by him. We heard, with respect to the Iraq War Logs, WikiLeaks Julian saying, with the release, If lies can start a war, then the truth can stop them. And we heard evidence about how the publication of evidence of war crimes, in the context of the Iraq War, both with respect to, for example, Collateral Murder, which was evidence of a war crime and U.S. troops killing journalists and civilians, but also, more broadly, about torture of detainees how evidence of that in fact led to the Iraqi government withdrawing the immunity for U.S. troops and the ultimate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. So, of course, what were seeing is that WikiLeaks not only published information of important human rights abuse it was certainly in the public interest, and for which theyve won journalism awards the world over but that in fact resulted in a change in U.S. policy. And we say that that makes it a political offense.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Jen Robinson, how is Julian Assanges health?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: We remain very concerned about his health. Of course, he had more than seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy without access to healthcare, because the U.K. government refused to recognize his asylum, an asylum that was granted to him by Ecuador, not to hide from Sweden, as your introduction suggested, but to protect him from U.S. extradition, the very outcome that hes facing right now.

Inside prison, he is in difficult conditions. This is a high-security prison. Hes been in effective isolation for much of the time hes been inside the prison. And you heard me earlier explain the treatment hes been suffering between the prison and the court each time for his hearing, including being handcuffed numerous times, strip searches and the like. This is, of course, compounding our existing concerns about his health. And we heard in court, too, psychiatric evidence thats being put before the court about concerns about his ability to withstand the sorts of treatment he will suffer in U.S. prisons under special administrative measures if he was returned to the United States. So it is a very serious situation and one that is under constant monitoring at our end.

AMY GOODMAN: Jen Robinson, I want to thank you for being with us, human rights attorney. She is legal adviser for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks since 2010.

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Julian Assange Lawyer: Whats at Stake in Extradition Case Is Freedom of the Press - Havana Times

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The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is currently not held in solitary confinement and his health is slowly improving, spokesman and his colleague Kristinn Hrafnsson informed reporters on Tuesday.

The Australian editor and activist who found the WikiLeaks in 2006, is in prison in London and is fighting an extradition request from the United States. The 48-year-old activist faces 18 counts including conspiring to hack the government computers and also a violation of espionage law in the US. Assange could also spend decades in prison if he gets convicted.

Hrafnsson was speaking at a news conference in support of Assange ahead of a court hearing on the extradition request that starts next week. His supporters had expressed concern about how he was being treated in prison and about the impact on his health.

(With agency inputs)

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Health of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is improving in prison: Spokesman - International Business Times, Singapore Edition

LONDON (Reuters) - Jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is no longer being kept in solitary confinement and his health is improving, his spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson told reporters on Tuesday.

Assange, 48, is in Belmarsh high-security prison in London, fighting an extradition request from the United States where he faces 18 counts including conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law. He could spend decades in prison if convicted.

His supporters had expressed concern about the state of his health after he appeared confused during a court hearing in October, struggling to recall his age and name and saying he was unable to think properly.

Assange was moved from solitary confinement in the medical wing to a different part of the prison with 40 other inmates after his legal team and prisoners complained that his treatment was unfair, Hrafnsson said.

I saw him about 10 days ago - he has improved thanks to the pressure from his legal team, the general public, and amazingly, actually from other inmates in Belmarsh Prison to get him out of isolation, Hrafnsson said ahead of an extradition hearing that starts next week.

Australian-born Assange made global headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.

WikiLeaks later angered the United States by publishing caches of leaked military documents and diplomatic cables.

Assange has consistently presented himself as a champion of free speech being persecuted for exposing abuses of power. But his critics paint him as a dangerous figure complicit in Russian efforts to undermine the West.

He fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning about allegations of sex crimes which have since been dropped. He spent seven years holed up in the embassy until Ecuador decided to stop giving him refuge and he was dragged out last May.

Earlier, a group of doctors representing 117 physicians and psychologists from 18 nations called in a letter for an end to what they described as the psychological torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange.

His father, John Shipton, said Assanges long confinement indoors had damaged his health and feared that sending his son to the US would be akin to a death sentence.

His situation is dire, he has had nine years of ceaseless psychological torture where false accusations are constantly being made, he told reporters.

Writing by Estelle Shirbon/Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Stephen Addison

Link:
Jailed Wikileaks founder Assange's health improving: spokesman - Reuters