If Assange is assassinated the Australian government is liable to prosecution – see below…

More than a year ago the Gillard Government in Australia was fully briefed by Jennifer Robinson, who represents Julian Assange, on the legal issues relating to his case, including the threat of extradition to the USA, as well as the politicisation of the case in Sweden and the many flaws in the case against him. The briefing document – a transcript of which is here for download – was presented to parliamentarians in March 2011 and has remained on record since. A follow-up letter (which Darker Net has previously published) from Gareth Peirce, Mr. Assange’s lawyer, explicitly warned the Australian Government that it was legally required to intervene on Mr. Assange’s behalf given his life was in danger. Indeed, four American presidential candidates have called for his death, two by assassination (see also video above), which would no doubt be carried out using typical plausible denial methods, or an ‘accident’ would be arranged. Last week, however, the Australian Government made it clear that they were abandoning Mr. Assange to the extradition processes of both Sweden AND the USA. In abrogating their statutory responsibility to Mr. Assange they gave him no choice but to seek political asylum elsewhere.

The Australian Government now needs to be aware that if Mr. Assange is subsequently murdered by US forces or by a third party acting on their behalf, then Gillard, Carr and Roxon – who would be morally complicit in such an act – could be subject to legal prosecution. This is not hyperbole and the Australian Attorney-General is urgently advised to organise the immediate repatriation of Assange, together with a guarantee there would be no follow-on rendition to the USA, otherwise legal proceedings could be instigated.

See also, below, letter from Ellsberg, Chomsky, Wolf and others on Assange and asylum.

Extracts from Peirce/Robinson briefing document, providing known facts relating to the case:

…Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm, Eva Finne, threw out the rape charge after reviewing the police file and the statements of the two women. The investigation continued on lesser allegations of harassment only… An appeal was brought against Ms Finne’s decision to drop the rape charges by a lawyer acting for the complainants, Mr Claes Borgstrom… The Prosecutor, Ms Ny, granted the appeal on 1 September 2010 and the rape investigation was reinstituted.

… Julian remained in Sweden for approximately 5 weeks to answer the allegations against him… He was maintaining a low profile because of threats to his security and increasing pressure from the US in advance of the two largest disclosures of US classified documents in history: the Pentagon had just announced a team of 120 people dedicated to “taking action” against WikiLeaks. Before Mr Hurtig [Assange's lawyer in Sweden] was able to contact Julian, he had already left Sweden for Berlin having been told on 15 September that Ms Ny had no objection to him leaving the country… Just before the hearing on 18 November Mr Hurtig was, for the first time, provided a description of the allegations against Julian and provided copies of parts of the police file. At that time he was also shown more than 100 text messages between the two complainants and their friends, which contained important evidence about the allegations and the women’s motives. For example, the second complainant had been texting her friends in between sexual encounters with Julian over the course of the evening in question and states that she was “half-asleep” at the relevant time at which the arrest warrant asserts she was “asleep”: a very important factual error in the warrant which undermines the entire case. Further, the women speak of getting “revenge”, making money from the allegations and ruining Julian’s reputation by going to the press.

… It is noteworthy that both the EAW and the Interpol red notice were issued for Julian by Sweden just before WikiLeaks began to publish Cablegate with their media partners and were executed just days after publication began.

… [The two women complainants in the case against Assange] were interviewed only briefly over the telephone and their interrogation is in summary form only. Indeed, the second complainant’s interview summary is not even signed or approved by her (she was upset at hearing Julian had was wanted for rape and her friend’s later interview to the police states that she felt “railroaded” into making the complaint).

End of extracts from briefing document.

See video of how contemptible the Australian Senate can be when Senator Scott Ludlum asks Senator Evans, representing Julia Gillard, about the Wikileaks Grand Jury.

Meanwhile Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Naomi Wolf, Michael Moore and many others have sent a letter to the President of Ecuador urging he grant political asylum to Assange.

Recent press comments

Comments from The Guardian finally admitting it’s previous articles have been wrong.

An excellent summary from the Australian ABC TV website.

A Sydney Morning Herald article agreeing that Assange had no choice but to seek asylum

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