The Ecuadorian diplomat who gave Julian Assange political asylum reports from the extradition hearing against the WikiLeaks journalist, and explains why it is “the most important case against the freedom of expression in an entire generation.”
by Fidel Narváez, (translated by Ben Norton)
Part 7 - Assange would not have a fair trial in the U.S. “Spy Court”
Julian Assange would be tried in the “Spy Court” of the United States, where “national security” cases go, and which in 2010 opened a “secret” investigation against WikiLeaks and Assange, for which he requested political asylum from Ecuador.
This is the Eastern District of Virginia, where the CIA and major national security contractors are based. The jury, therefore, comes from the place with the largest concentration of the U.S. intelligence community, where Assange would have no change of getting a fair trial.
Daniel Ellsberg told the court that those accused of espionage cannot even argue reasons that justify their actions. “I did not have a fair trial, no one since me had a fair trial on these charges, and Julian Assange cannot remotely get a fair trial under those charges if he were tried.”
This was also confirmed by the lawyer Carey Shenkman, who told the court that the Espionage Act does not allow the accused to argue their defense in the “public interest.”
Trevor Timm noted in the court that 99.9 percent of grand juries make charges based on what the prosecution establishes, and that a study of 162,000 grand juries revealed that just 11 rejected the request of a federal prosecutor to press charges.
Eric Lewis said the judge of the Eastern District of Virginia would give Assange an extremely aggressive sentence.
The professor Mark Feldstein told the court that a large amount of academic material demonstrates that grand juries are maleable and do what the prosecutors tell them to do.
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