Last Friday, Home Secretary Priti Patel approved the United Kingdom sending my husband, Julian Assange, to the country that planned his assassination.
Julian remains in prison at Belmarsh after more than three years at the behest of US prosecutors. He faces up to 175 years in prison for perhaps the most famous publications in the history of journalism.
Patel’s decision to extradite Julian shocked the journalistic community. The interior minister ignored calls from representatives of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, nearly 2,000 journalists and 300 doctors to stop the extradition.
When Julian calls around the children’s bedtime, they talk loudly. The calls only lasted 10 minutes, so when the call ended abruptly that night, Max, who was three, asked tearfully if it was because he was naughty, and I distractedly said it wasn’t Mike Pompeo’s fault. Five-year-old Gabriel asked, “Who’s Mike Pompeo?”
I thought of Mike Pompeo because while the interior minister was busy signing Julian’s extradition order, a Spanish Supreme Court judge called Pompeo for questioning about his role as CIA director in their reported assassination plots. we.
While in charge of the CIA, President Trump’s most loyal supporter reportedly instructed his agents to prepare “sketches” and “options” for their father’s assassination.
Pompeo’s citation to appear before a Spanish judge comes from an investigation into the illegal spying of Julian and his lawyers through a company registered in Spain. Spanish police seized large amounts of electronic data, and insiders involved in covert operations testified that they acted on instructions from the CIA. Julian’s abduction and poisoning had been discussed.
Gabriel was six months old at the time and was also a target. One witness was instructed to take DNA swabs from a soiled diaper to determine that Julian was his father. Another admitted to putting hidden microphones under fire extinguishers to eavesdrop on legally privileged meetings between Julian and his lawyers.
Recordings of Julian’s legal meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy in London were physically transported to United States officials on a regular basis. A break-in at Julian’s lawyer’s office was captured by a camera, and investigators found photos of Julian’s lawyer’s legal documents taken at the embassy. Operations against his lawyers are read as being extracted from a Soviet book.
Across the lake, since the Nixon administration attempted to prosecute the New York Times over Pentagon documents more than half a century ago, constitutional lawyers have warned that the 1917 Espionage Act would one day be abused to prosecute journalists.
It was President Obama’s administration that revived the abuse of the Espionage Act. The law charged more journalistic sources than all previous administrations combined, including WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning; CIA for Torture John Kiriakou; and NSA spy whistleblower Edward Snowden.
After huge public pressure, Obama changed the 35-year sentence of Chelsea Manning. Obama refused to sue Julian for publishing a leak to Manning because of the implications for press freedom.
After the Obama administration accused the act of espionage, it was only a matter of time before another administration expanded its interpretation of the law.
That day came very soon. The Trump administration has violated a new legal basis by accusing Julian of receiving, owning and publishing Manning’s leaks. In Langley, Virginia, meanwhile, Pompeo has charged the CIA with assassination plans.
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Priti Patel’s decision comes amid large-scale, increasingly totalitarian government reforms – plans to weaken the influence of the European Court of Human Rights and Julian’s decision to extradite him are a coup.
Reforms proposed by the Home Secretary in the UK’s Official Secrets Act largely follow the accusation against Julian from the Trump era: publishers and their sources can be accused of being criminal accomplices.
Julian’s extradition case itself sets a legal precedent. What has long been considered a fundamental principle of democracy, freedom of the press, will disappear in one fell swoop.
At the moment, no journalist will risk what is happening to Julian. Julian must be released before it’s too late. His life depends on it. Your rights depend on it.
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