In the Mail, Peter Hitchens takes up the cause of Julian Assange, arguing that if the boot was on the other foot there’s no chance America would hand the Wikileaks founder over to the U.K. Here’s how he begins.
Even a self-respecting poodle would object to the way we are currently behaving towards the USA. We are on the brink of allowing the American Government to reach into this country and seize a man who has broken no British law.
Once they have hold of him, there is every chance that he will be buried alive in some federal dungeon, quite possibly until he dies. We would not allow Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or Turkey to behave like this. And quite right too. There is every reason to believe that if the circumstances were reversed, the Americans would laugh in our faces and refuse to hand over such a person.
The man involved is the Australian journalist Julian Assange, whose Wikileaks organisation is hated by the USA because he embarrassed them, and who has languished in Belmarsh maximum security prison ever since being arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019.
As I asked in the Mail on Sunday nearly four years ago: “Do we really want the hand of a foreign power to be able to reach into our national territory at will and pluck out anyone it wants to punish? Are we still even an independent country if we allow this?”
You will have heard many bad things about Mr. Assange. I had too, but – while I disagree with him politically about most things – I found when I inquired that he has in fact been the victim of many smears which do not stand up to examination.
Ignore claims that he carelessly endangered the lives of Americans when he released material provided by the U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. In the words of my distinguished and far-from-Leftist colleague Andrew Neil, who, like me, opposes Mr. Assange’s extradition, the material revealed: “War crimes covered up. Torture. Brutality. The rendition and incarceration of suspects without due process. The corruption of inquiries trying to hold it to account. The bribery of foreign officials to look the other way when America did bad things.”
In short, Julian Assange published scandalous facts which proper journalists in a free society are entitled – and in fact obliged – to disclose, for the benefit of that society.
But Julian Assange took great care to edit the material to prevent individuals being endangered, and no evidence has ever been produced that any such harm resulted.
Interestingly, Chelsea Manning was pardoned by President Barack Obama. His administration also decided not to proceed with charges against Mr. Assange. But they were then revived by President Donald Trump.
This is the clearest possible evidence that the prosecution is openly political, not criminal. As the text of the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty states, using the American spelling of ‘offence’, in a document bearing the Royal Coat of Arms: (Article 4, clause 1): “Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.”
It is quite astonishing that the British courts and more than one Home Secretary have been persuaded by lawyers to pretend that this is not such an offence.
Worth reading in full.
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