Trump offered Assange a pardon
Julian Assange cannot be extradited from the UK for ‘political offences’ his lawyer claimed today (Weds)
The 48-year-old is wanted in the US for allegedly conspiring with army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to expose military secrets between January and May 2010.
A US grand jury has indicted him on 18 charges – 17 of which fall under the Espionage Act – including conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified diplomatic and military documents.
White-haired and bespectacled Assange appeared via video-link at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today (tue) from Belmarsh Prison wearing a brown jumper and white shirt with black jeans and trainers.
He appeared calm as he leafed through documents.
The Australian is being held at the maximum-security jail in southeast London ahead of his extradition on 24 February.
Edward Fitzgerald, QC, representing Assange, said today he would rely on Manning’s case to argue for Assange to stay in the UK.
Manning is a former US soldier who was court martialed after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly 750,000 military and diplomatic documents.
She was imprisoned from 2010 until 2017 when her sentence was commuted, but Manning is currently in jail for her continued refusal to testify before a grand jury against Assange.
‘Chelsea Manning’s plea and mitigation to the military commission has key passages which we will be relying on so we would seek to extract that and key press reports so the court has key materials.’
Mr Fitzgerald said: ‘What we say is it is an abuse to seek extradition for a political offence so that is really part of the abuse argument.
The public gallery was packed to capacity with supporters as the court heard Assange’s four-week extradition hearing will start next week.
But the hearing will sit for one week this month and three weeks from 18 May because the case is not completely ready.
Assange went into hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for sexual offence allegations which he has always denied.
He was jailed for 50 weeks last April after breaching his bail conditions when the asylum period granted to him expired.
In November Swedish authorities dropped the rape allegations made in 2010.
Assange has been in custody since he was dramatically removed from Ecuador’s embassy building last April.
He will appear next on Monday 24 February at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court.
Assange’s lawyer claimed Donald Trump offered the Australian a pardon if he said that the Russians had nothing to do with his election victory.
Edward Fitzgerald, QC, said former Republican congressman Daha Rohrabacher told the WikiLeaks founder he would be pardoned if he denied Russian tampering in 2016 poll.
He said a witness statement would refer to ‘Mr Rohrabacher going to see Mr Assange and saying on instructions of the President offering pardon or some other way out if Mr Assange said the Russians had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.’
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said the evidence would be considered but further statements were ‘unlikely’ to be accepted by the court as the deadline for submitting evidence had passed.
‘Next week will exclusively be taken up by legal argument and submissions from counsel with all the evidence to be heard later in the year in May. Mr Assange remains in custody for the same reasons as given before ,’ Judge Baraitser said.
