This is an updated version of John Pilgers 2014 investigation which tells the unreported story of an unrelenting campaign, in Sweden and the US, to deny Julian Assange justice and silence WikiLeaks. <\/p>\n
The siege of Knightsbridge is both an emblem of gross injustice and a gruelling farce. For three years, a police cordon around the Ecuadorean embassy in London has served no purpose other than to flaunt the power of the state. It has cost 12 million. The quarry is an Australian charged with no crime, a refugee whose only security is the room given him by a brave South American country. His crime is to have initiated a wave of truth-telling in an era of lies, cynicism and war. <\/p>\n
The persecution of Julian Assange is about to flare again as it enters a dangerous stage. From August 20, three quarters of the Swedish prosecutors case against Assange regarding sexual misconduct in 2010 will disappear as the statute of limitations expires. At the same time Washingtons obsession with Assange and WikiLeaks has intensified. Indeed, it is vindictive American power that offers the greatest threat as Chelsea Manning and those still held in Guantanamo can attest. <\/p>\n
The Americans are pursuing Assange because WikiLeaks exposed their epic crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale killing of tens of thousands of civilians, which they covered up, and their contempt for sovereignty and international law, as demonstrated vividly in their leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks continues to expose criminal activity by the US, having just published top secret US intercepts US spies reports detailing private phone calls of the presidents of France and Germany, and other senior officials, relating to internal European political and economic affairs. <\/p>\n
None of this is illegal under the US Constiution. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama, a professor of constitutional law, lauded whistleblowers as part of a healthy democracy [and they] must be protected from reprisal. In 2012, the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama boasted on its website that he had prosecuted more whistleblowers in his first term than all other US presidents combined. Before Chelsea Manning had even received a trial, Obama had pronounced the whisletblower guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to 35 years in prison, having been tortured during his long pre-trial detention. <\/p>\n
Few doubt that should the US get their hands on Assange, a similar fate awaits him. Threats of the capture and assassination of Assange became the currency of the political extremes in the US following Vice-President Joe Bidens preposterous slur that the WikiLeaks founder was a cyber-terrorist. Those doubting the degree of ruthlessness Assange can expect should remember the forcing down of the Bolivian presidents plane in 2013 wrongly believed to be carrying Edward Snowden. <\/p>\n
According to documents released by Snowden, Assange is on a Manhunt target list. Washingtons bid to get him, say Australian diplomatic cables, is unprecedented in scale and nature. In Alexandria, Virginia, a secret grand jury has spent five years attempting to contrive a crime for which Assange can be prosecuted. This is not easy. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects publishers, journalists and whistleblowers. <\/p>\n
Faced with this constitutional hurdle, the US Justice Department has contrived charges of espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, conversion (theft of government property), computer fraud and abuse (computer hacking) and general conspiracy. The Espionage Act has life in prison and death penalty provisions. . <\/p>\n
Assanges ability to defend himself in this Kafkaesque world has been handicapped by the US declaring his case a state secret. In March, a federal court in Washington blocked the release of all information about the national security investigation against WikiLeaks, because it was active and ongoing and would harm the pending prosecution of Assange. The judge, Barbara J. Rosthstein, said it was necessary to show appropriate deference to the executive in matters of national security. This is the justice of a kangaroo court. <\/p>\n
The supporting act in this grim farce is Sweden, played by the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny. Until recently, Ny refused to comply with a routine European procedure routine that required her to travel to London to question Assange and so advance the case. For four and a half years, Ny has never properly explained why she has refused to come to London, just as the Swedish authorities have never explained why they refuse to give Assange a guarantee that they will not extradite him on to the US under a secret arrangement agreed between Stockholm and Washington. In December 2010, The Independent revealed that the two governments had discussed his onward extradition to the US. <\/p>\n
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