Julian Assange faces solitary confinement if extradited, court hears
Julian Assange would effectively be held in solitary confinement if he had been to be extradited to the US, a court heard this day.
The WikiLeaks founder faces 20 years in a excessive-security jail below the suitable scenario, nevertheless may perhaps perhaps be sentenced to 175 years, a US licensed expert acknowledged.
Eric Lewis, a US attorney with a grasp’s level in criminology who has represented excessive-security prisoners, including these accused of terrorism offences, informed the court that the US decision to amplify the sequence of charges in opposition to Assange would “vastly amplify the jeopardy” Assange faced.
Basically the most severe espionage charges imposed in the US acquire resulted in life sentences. Even these on the decrease cessation of the dimensions acquire ended in sentences of 20 or 30 years, he acknowledged.
Lewis was talking on the fifth day of an extradition listening to in opposition to Assange on the Broken-down Bailey.
The 49-year-old defendant faces 17 charges below the US Espionage Act 1917, after WikiLeaks printed thousands of documents from the used US Navy soldier Chelsea Manning in 2010-11.
Assange faces a extra charge of conspiracy to commit laptop intrusion below the indictment filed by a mammoth jury in the Jap District of Virginia.
The case was disrupted by technical difficulties at some level of the day, which made sophisticated for the court to listen to Lewis giving proof remotely from the US.
Lewis acknowledged it was essential that Assange was charged below the Trump administration in 2018, moderately than below the Obama presidency in 2013.
The Obama administration had concluded that it may perhaps perhaps perhaps well also no longer prosecute Assange for publishing leaked documents without also prosecuting journalists on, for instance, The Original York Events.
When the US filed a gradual indictment in opposition to Assange, that showed that The Original York Events enviornment had “been blown out of the water”.
Lewis acknowledged that if Assange was extradited, he was almost surely going to be enviornment to particular administrative measures (SAMs) in a accurate detention centre in Alexandria, Virginia.
This would mean Assange would no longer be in a space to companion with diversified prisoners, acknowledged Lewis. He would be detained for 22 or 23 hours a day in his cell.
Although prisoners are allowed out of their cell for a shower or recreation, this usually takes situation at night when diversified prisoners are drowsing, and prisoners are shackled, Lewis informed the court.
He acknowledged it was highly seemingly that Assange would face SAMs.
“The total indicators are pointing to the authorities taking the behold that Assange has acquire admission to to intellectual portions of secret recordsdata and being panicked about disclosure,” he acknowledged.
Prosecution questions Eric Lewis’s impartiality
James Lewis QC, representing the prosecution, puzzled the experience of the question and his impartiality.
Under questioning, Eric Lewis disclosed that he had been paid £100 an hour for his work as an authority question in the case, nevertheless did no longer know what number of hours he had worked.
The barrister requested Eric Lewis why he had no longer integrated a vary of opinions, including that of US prosecutor Gordon Kromberg, in his question statements.
“I don’t mediate I’m required to role out Mr Kromberg’s half a dozen affidavits, in another case my statements would be a great deal of of pages,” he acknowledged.
The QC also puzzled Eric Lewis’s independence as an authority, declaring that he had written an op-ed in The Self sustaining newspaper and had given a radio interview supporting Assange.
“Earlier than I grew to turn out to be an authority, I expressed my hold views as a political and coverage topic,” he acknowledged. “These are my views and quiet are my views.”
Eric Lewis acknowledged he was in a space to analyse the law and the info and build his non-public views on the abet of him – “one thing that is executed the total time”.
The prosecution attorney pressed the question on whether or no longer he had any qualification in penal complex prerequisites or had written any keep-reviewed articles on prerequisites in prisons.
Eric Lewis acknowledged he had spent more time than he cared to mediate of visiting prisons and talking to prisoners. He holds a level in criminology and taught prison law for a great deal of years, which also required an recordsdata of penal complex prerequisites.
James Lewis QC for the prosecution grew to turn out to be to the case of Abu Khathallah, who was accused of masterminding the terrorist attacks on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and was represented by Eric Lewis.
Eric Lewis acknowledged he and diversified legal professionals had pain accessing Khathallah when he was positioned below particular measures.
“I and diversified legal professionals on the crew frolicked with him, nevertheless it absolutely was neither easy nor swiftly,” he acknowledged. “That is partly why he was held in remand for three years.”
Eric Lewis acknowledged he did no longer agree that there was a disagreement between administrative segregation and solitary confinement.
“I would indicate that 22 hours a day in a 50toes2 cell with out a contact with the remaining of the inhabitants causes folks to deteriorate swiftly, and in my behold is solitary confinement,” he acknowledged.
Eric Lewis acknowledged that in his behold, Khathallah was held in solitary confinement, despite the truth that he had acquire admission to to limitless visits from legal professionals.
“In actuality, it did no longer encompass limitless visits on myth of there had been an limitless sequence of luminous and licensed limitations,” he acknowledged.
The question acknowledged that every person in every of his licensed visits to his client had been recorded by cameras.
“We had been informed there was no longer sound [recording] nevertheless we had been no longer obvious of that. We had been informed that the crew that reviewed [the recordings] had been no longer the prosecution crew,” he acknowledged. “However I in actuality acquire viewed too many circumstances where these assurances had been no longer met.”
He agreed that the prerequisites imposed on Khathallah did no longer acquire any impact on his acquittal on capital charges.
Prosecution attorney below ‘intolerable stress’
Following the contaminated-examination, Lewis informed the clutch, Vanessa Baraitser, that he was below “intolerable stress”, to contaminated-admire the question below a time guillotine.
He acknowledged Eric Lewis’s solutions had been too prolonged. “I build a ask to a ask and he provides a speech,” he acknowledged.
Baraitser acknowledged Lewis had requested for four hours to contaminated-admire the question and had damaged-down 30 minutes.
“I requested your behold how prolonged you will hold. You’ve got equipped that estimate,” she acknowledged. “The enviornment ‘guillotine’ comes fully from you. I in actuality have not damaged-down it.”
Assange would be ‘unable to prepare for trial’
Under extra contaminated-examination from the prosecution, Lewis acknowledged prerequisites in US prisons would produce it sophisticated for folks all for nationwide security trials, equivalent to Assange, to prepare for their case.
“We are talking just a few million categorized documents that Mr Assange can’t behold without security clearance.”
He acknowledged that any individual below SAMs is no longer allowed acquire admission to to recordsdata or diversified affords except that is agreed.
The prosecution barrister took Lewis thru choices by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Barbar Ahmad in 2012.
The European court rejected an utility that SAMs contravened Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights pre-trial.
“I behold that is the conclusion of the court,” acknowledged Lewis, adding that fresh recordsdata on the thunder of US prisons had reach to light since 2012.
The prosecution pushed Eric Lewis to claim, if SAMs makes raising defence points very unlikely, what had been the defence points that Assange is raising?
“I will be capable to’t converse for obvious. I’m no longer his attorney. There were 1,000,000 documents that had been leaked,” he acknowledged.
The question acknowledged in written submissions that US courts had been sick-ready for folks with psychological health points.
He acknowledged that ADX Florence, a maximum security establishment that Lewis referred to in his proof, had been described by the warden as “dehumanising, no longer match for humanity, a destiny worse than loss of life”.
The prosecution attorney requested Eric Lewis if he would accept that the European court took into myth the psychological thunder of a particular person with Asperger’s when finding incarceration in a maximum-security facility did no longer seaside EU human rights law in its 2012 verdict.
“I would accept that with the caveat there has been out of the ordinary more recordsdata since 2012,” he acknowledged. “Psychological analysis is dynamic.”
Eric Lewis acknowledged he was no longer a medical examiner, nevertheless relied on a public assertion of the Inspector Total of Prisons and of a behold of “supermax prisons” by Yale Law College.
He acknowledged that virtually all efficient 35% of psychological health patients in US prisons had been being handled, that the sequence of psychological health mavens in US prisons had been slash and that self-hurt had long past up.
James Lewis QC challenged the question, if he was an authority on psychological health, to thunder from reminiscence when the US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) had up to this level its pointers
“I in actuality acquire regarded at thousands and thousands of pages of documents and I don’t acquire that model of eidetic reminiscence,” he acknowledged.
The barrister pressed Lewis to claim whether or no longer he was an authority on US prisons or no longer.
“I’m an authority in what I in actuality acquire build in my expert document. I imagine I in actuality acquire expert knowledge. Must it is likely you’ll perhaps perhaps well perhaps also be asking if I’m a governor or a warden, I’m no longer,” he acknowledged.
Following a sequence of technical problems, which supposed the court can even no longer hear Lewis giving proof remotely from the US, the court adjourned the listening to except the following day.
The case continues.