[News:] ‘Special Operations’ officers disperse Assange supporters as U.S. extradition case delayed for months

(London, U.K.) Special Operations (SOs) officers took part in the Metropolitan Police’s dispersal of Julian Assange supporters outside of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday (May 4).

The elite troops within the capital’s force instructed free speech activists to return home and that being outside the west London court was “illegal” – although none of the 11 officers were social distancing while the 10 activists were.

Prior to the brief standoff, the majority of Assange supporters had been inside the court where District Judge Vanessa Baraitser agreed to delay the WikiLeaks publisher’s United States extradition hearings until September 7.

Hearings have continued despite the COVID-19 outbreak and the pursuant government “lockdowns” in Assange’s absence, who is reportedly too unwell to attend.

If extradited, the award-winning journalist who exposed numerous war crimes could face 175 years’ imprisonment once on U.S. soil. That follows more than a year that he has been held on remand without being convicted of a crime, in addition to the seven spent arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Once these extradition proceedings hear evidence in Assange’s case, he will have spent 18 months in H.M.P. Belmarsh where he is currently incarcerated.

Lauri Love, a British-Finnish computer scientist who successfully appealed his US extradition in 2018, told Bridges for Media Freedom that the court process was becoming the punishment itself.

“18 months is longer than I had to wait for my own extradition hearing. It’s a horrific legal process to go through under the best conditions. It takes a cumulative toll on your physical and mental health.

“I was able to participate meaningfully in my own defence, which Julian cannot, due to his unnecessary detention in Belmarsh. This has been exacerbated by restrictions on his access to lawyers and family as a result of the coronavirus.

“We cannot have justice if the process itself becomes a punishment.”

Assange’s case is contrasted with that of Anne Sacoolas – an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency who fled to America after crashing her Volvo XC90 into 19-year-old Harry Dunn’s motorbike while driving on the wrong side of the road, killing the Banbury man.

Niall Dunn, his twin brother, told the BBC that he and his family have “had enough of the lies” after accusing the Foreign Office of covering-up his brother’s death.

“I’ve had enough of the lies, the deceit. They think they can just walk all over us and get away with it,” he said.

“My parents have been and are going through hell. So am I. We all are.

“I just don’t understand how they think they can get away with it.”

Dunn has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging him to take-up his family’s case.

“It was bad enough losing Harry. But watching [my parents] go through this torture is just awful. It’s just cruel,” he said in the letter.

“Please get involved in our case… We are not the dirt at the bottom of the government’s shoes. We are U.K. citizens and we have the right to know the truth.”

Assange supporters, meanwhile, argue that the WikiLeaks publisher is being persecuted for exposing exactly these types of state crimes. Doctors fear he could die in prison if action is not taken to release him.

“Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, Julian Assange’s health and survival in Belmarsh prison was highly precarious,” a spokesperson for the campaign group Doctors for Assange said.

“Now, with coronavirus in Belmarsh, his history of chronic health difficulties, psychological torture, medical neglect, respiratory issues and inevitably compromised immune system is a deadly medical cocktail.”

Baraitser told the court that lawyers would receive confirmation of Assange’s September hearings by May 8 once a suitable Crown Court has been allocated. The hearings continue.