London Court Extradition Trial Hears Assange Stripped, Cuffed

The second session in a London court of the extradition trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange found his lawyers claiming he was handcuffed 11 times, stripped naked twice and had his case files confiscated as they complained of interference.

Defense attorney Edward Fitzgerald was supported by prosecutor James Lewis in asking Judge Vanessa Baraitser to “send a message,” to the prison authorities his treatment was unacceptable, but she said she didn’t have the legal power to intervene.

The United States wants him to face espionage charges for publishing hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables showing criticism of world leaders and for a classified military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people.

Fitzgerald said the case files Assange were reading in court on the the first day were taken away by guards when he returned to prison and he was moved to five cells.

The court was told Wikileaks entered into a collaboration with the Guardian, El Pais, the New York Times and other media outlets to publish secret cables in 2010, although no other media nor journalist has been prosecuted for releasing information.

Just before the first session, Assange was supported by 1200 journalists in a letter in a case that has become, said his lawyers and backers, whether the door would be opened for governments to go after reporters investigating wrongdoing.

Mark Summers from the defense team attacked the prosecution’s case that Assange had solicited material from a whistleblower, former US soldier Chelsea Manning, and put lives at risk, saying the claims were “Lies, lies and more lies.”

Summers said the released cables had a clear public interest, including US spying on UN diplomats and extra-judicial killings and had “changed the world,” reported Bridges for Freedom, which is following the trial.

Manning, the court was told, took responsibility for releasing the information at her court-martial, and that while Wikileaks was seeking information on its website that it was a “complete fantasy” that US diplomatic cables had been sought.

Summers, attempting to repudiate the prosecution’s case, said that for nine months after data had been passed on, Wikileaks worked with five media partners to edit anything that could jeopardize lives.

Summers said the US State Department was co-operating, holding a conference call with a German media outlet to discuss how this could be done.

The court was told two journalists from The Guardian, Luke Harding and David Leigh, published a book which contained the password to the database. That led to uncensored information being published on Cryptome, a US-based site, which is not facing prosecution.

“The gates got opened not by Assange or Wikileaks but by another member of that partnership,” said Summers, reported The Guardian, which rejected the allegation.

“The Guardian has made clear it is opposed to the extradition of Julian Assange. However, it is entirely wrong to say the Guardian’s 2011 Wikileaks book led to the publication of unredacted US government files,” a spokesman said.

Leigh said, ““It’s a complete invention that I had anything to do with Julian Assange’s own publication decisions. His cause is not helped by people making things up.”

The defense lawyer said when the password disclosure was discovered, Assange had personally phoned the White House to warn them, only to be told to call back “in a few hours.”

“The US government knows all this, but then they send documents to the court saying Assange ‘recklessly put lives at risk,’” added Summers.

He denied that Assange helped Manning hack a password to gain access to information, noting she already had access and, it was shown at her court-martial that this was tracked by IP address, not by a password.

“Is this extradition request a fair reflection of what is known by the US government? The answer is blatantly no,” said Summers.