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The US charge accompanying Assange's extradition request is even more bogus than the bail charge; a re-interpretation of standard journalistic practices like source protection to create a charge which the Obama administration declined to prosecute based on the same evidence for fear of endangering press freedoms. Assange is charged with "conspiring" to help Chelsea Manning avoid detection while leaking evidence of US war crimes and malfeasance, which is something any investigative journalist who publishes leaks would do. The charge is a bunch of words designed to twist standard journalistic practices into just enough of a crime to get Assange onto US soil for "non-political" reasons.
As Pentagon Papers lawyer James Goodale explains, "Under the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty, one cannot be extradited from the United Kingdom if the extradition is for 'political purposes.'" Once he's on US soil, far more serious charges may be added that are of a very political nature indeed. If that happens, Assange will not be spending the five years behind bars for computer offenses that his current charge allows, he'll be spending decades.
"I don't think Julian is looking at five years in prison, I think he's probably looking at 50 years in prison," said CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, adding, "I think that there are many more charges to be considered for Julian. I would expect a superseding indictment, possibly to include espionage charges."
There is simply no such thing as a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is where Assange will be heading if extradited to the US.
"No national security defendant has ever won a case in the EDVA," Kiriakou told RT upon Assange's arrest. "In my case, I asked Judge Brinkema to declassify 70 documents that I needed to defend myself. She denied all 70 documents. And so I had literally no defense for myself and was forced to take a plea."
"He will not, he cannot get a fair trial," Kiriakou said on a Unity4J vigil when Assange was still at the embassy. "It's impossible, because the deck is stacked. And everybody knows what's gonna happen if he comes back to the Eastern District of Virginia. This is the same advice I gave Ed Snowden: don't come home, because you can't get a fair trial here. Julian doesn't have the choice, and that's what frightens me even more."
This is why it's imperative for everyone who stands for truth, press freedoms or government accountability to oppose this extradition request tooth and claw, wherever they're at in the world. Australians should be pushing their government to intercede against US extradition, Britons should be doing the same, and Americans should be pushing their government not to extradite. It's too late to keep Assange from being pried loose from the embassy and imprisoned by the UK, so now we need to put all our energy into keeping Assange out of the clutches of the same government which tortured Chelsea Manning.
Go to demonstrations, make phone calls to your local representatives, donate get posters spread around Australia, write letters to the editor, and share information about what's going on with your friends and family and anyone you can. We can't rely on the legal system to sort this one out, because, as we've seen today, the legal system can very easily be manipulated to serve the interests of the powerful.
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