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Comment by chmod775 | Hacker News Reader

While I appreciate the reporting from inside the court room, Craig Murray is clearly biased and thus predisposed to seeing what he wants to see.

His characterizations paint the prosecution as ridiculous characters and their case as laughable at best, which may not reflect reality as much one would hope.

So what he is describing might be very unlike what the judges are experiencing, and if they end up giving the extradition of Assange's the go-ahead, a lot of people are going to be very surprised.

Edit: This rollercoaster of upvotes and downvotes on a post that just reminds people to not blindly trust someone who tells them what they want to hear is interesting in itself.

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But Craig Murray hasn't exactly portrayed the judges in this case to be as evenhanded as you appear to imply they are. So I don't think there'll be any surprise, from Craig Murray or anyone else observing closely, if they do give the go-ahead to the extradition.

See for example this from one of Murray's earlier posts:

> Yesterday Baraitser again followed her usual path of refusing every single defence motion, following pre-written rulings (whether written or merely copied out by herself I know not), even when the prosecution did not object. You will recall that at the first week of extradition hearing proper, she insisted that Julian be kept in a glass cage, although counsel for the US government made no objection to his sitting in the body of the court, and she refused to intervene to stop his strip searching, handcuffing and the removal of his court papers, even though the US government joined the defence in querying her claim she had no power to do this (for which she was later roundly rebuked by the International Bar Association). - https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/beyond-words...

> But Craig Murray hasn't exactly portrayed the judges in this case to be as evenhanded as you appear to imply they are.

Suppose they are.

Suppose it's just Murray's reporting that isn't evenhanded.

Which is my point.

From the point of view of someone who is strongly biased a neutral position would look very much like an adversarial one.

I'm not implying Murray is wrong, but I am saying we should not take things as he's describing them for granted either.

> Suppose it's just Murray's reporting that isn't evenhanded.

Murray is clearly on Assange's side, but that doesn't mean his observations of the judge's behaviour aren't accurate. As far as I know, no one's refuted what he described in the passage I quoted above.

Also, it's not just Murray. Here's the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) ("the global voice of the legal profession" according to the site):

> IBAHRI Co-Chair, the Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG, commented: ‘The IBAHRI is concerned that the mistreatment of Julian Assange constitutes breaches of his right to a fair trial and protections enshrined in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the UK is party. It is deeply shocking that as a mature democracy in which the rule of law and the rights of individuals are preserved, the UK Government has been silent and has taken no action to terminate such gross and disproportionate conduct by Crown officials. As well, we are surprised that the presiding judge has reportedly said and done nothing to rebuke the officials and their superiors for such conduct in the case of an accused whose offence is not one of personal violence. Many countries in the world look to Britain as an example in such matters. On this occasion, the example is shocking and excessive. It is reminiscent of the Abu Grahib Prison Scandal which can happen when prison officials are not trained in the basic human rights of detainees and the Nelson Mandela Rules.’ - https://www.ibanet.org/Article/NewDetail.aspx?ArticleUid=c05...

Would you argue the International Bar Association isn't being evenhanded here?

I have no doubt Assange was mistreated.

However being silent is not the same as condoning and I am unsure about what powers the judge wields here.

I would also not even dare suggest a judge may be biased until I have read a verdict. Note how the International Bar Association's Press Release, being carefully worded, doesn't say so either. Though probably they would never except maybe once in a hundred years, them being lawyers.

The main thing I am unsure about, and where I don't share Murray's conviction, is the strength of the prosecutions legal argument.

This isn't the trial. The prosecution legal argument should be summarised, but the classic issues at an extradition hearing are: Is the charge political? Will the defendant receive a fair trial? Is there a chance the defendant will be executed? Those are all well established grounds for not extraditing. Any one of them should have stopped this extradition long ago.

Of course Murray is biased. Which makes it even more of a shame that somehow any semblance of real media coverage is curtailed by a combination of bogus covid arguments and other BS.

If the UK court system feels misrepresented by one guy, how about opening proceedings up to broader coverage? It would seem they really do not want that. So I tend to take Murray's words with a grain of salt, at least for the human interactions and the scene-setting. But so far, his description is consistent with every bit of coverage that I have read elsewhere. The rest of the coverage is just much more matter-of-fact and often misses crucial things and nuances.

For example, the description "judge refuses motion to adjourn", which is what I read in other media, if anything at all, is correct as a summary for the Monday proceedings, but it is also woefully incomplete.

Edit: I'm sorry about the rollercoaster. I first rage-downvoted. Then I figured it would be better to respond. Now I upvoted because in phrasing my reply I realized this is actually one of the main scandals about this trial, and should be discussed more.

I'm pretty sure people who read Murray/support Assange believe his extradition is a foregone conclusion.

I've been reading Murray since about 2005. He's always interesting and it would be a mistake to dismiss him on one opinion. I lose count of the number of big stories he's broken, or found himself in the middle of. He wasn't as radical in 2005 as he's become. His book on Alexander Burnes is serious and fascinating history. If you google his site for "Guardian" or "Rusbridger", you can follow the evolution that has led me, and perhaps readers of his site, to have a great deal more confidence in what we read there than in, scary quotes, the main-stream media.

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