He was in isolation in a high security prison without having been convicted of any crimes since 22 September 2019. He was only released after 'admitting' that he was guilty...

I think the UK and US should abstain from criticising any countries' courts and justice system after that...

Plea deals and innocent people being pressured into accepting guilt is a huge problem in the US criminal justice system, but I'm not sure Assange in particular fits this. I think he did what is alleged. You could also separately argue that it shouldn't be a crime or that penalties should be less? I think that is a separate discussion.

> I think he did what is alleged

‘Think’ is the operative word here. Assange would not have had a jury trial if extradited without the plea deal, and for a jury trial, mere opinion isn’t enough to convict

Well yes, the fact that he was held without trial for a long time is worse than the fact he did a plea deal.

But certainly a causal factor in a plea deal being reached. Without the extended incarceration (and the threat of prolonging it) there would have been little leverage to get Julian to sign the dotted line.

Given that he was released with time served, I don't think US prosecutors gained much from allowing him to plea. What is the motivation for them to pressure him to do so when they are not seeking any additional outcome?

He is now a convicted felon. The US can avoid further diplomatic damage with one of its military and economic allies while still securing legitimacy for their protracted judicial overreach (across continents no less) and deterring whistleblowers in the future. In exchange, Julian gets to leave his shoebox.

This is totally symbolic. There's no practical downside to him being a felon in the US and a free man in Australia.

> totally symbolic

Err, yep. An effective symbol in all the ways I mentioned. Namely:

> securing legitimacy for their protracted judicial overreach

and

> deterring whistleblowers in the future

all while

> [avoiding] further diplomatic damage with one of its military and economic allies

Mission accomplished for the US "national security interest".

You are fear mongering for the first two, and the damage for the third was already done a long time ago, would not be undone even with a full pardon.

I'll be very honest. You have a bias. You will fit everything to that bias. You don't care about how the legal system works, or that the plea deal was a great deal for him compared to what they could have pursued. Note that when they got that guilty plea on ONE CHARGE which is inconsequential for him, they dropped a lot of other stuff.

> You are fear mongering for the first two

You're kidding right? This has had a chilling effect on journalists and whistleblowers worldwide. A large part of Julian's support base are journalists, including many of those that won awards from the published leaks that got him in trouble.

Blow the whistle, and then maybe be in solitary for 5 years? An agent from a three letter agency shows up in the middle of your investigation, and reminds you about your life, family, and friends, and what it might be like to not see them for a very long time. Or maybe just don't blow the whistle.

> You don't care about how [...] the plea deal was a great deal for him compared to what they could have pursued

Not sure where you got that idea. As you imply, it's not anywhere near as bad as, say, Julian had been locked up in supermax until he died, but I think 5 years in solitary has secured enough deterrence. And the conviction is the veneer of justification that the US needs to avoid admonition for blatant and prejudiced torture, while enabling them to cease the ongoing diplomatic hassle (and negative press).

> I'll be very honest. You have a bias.

I'll be very honest. You have a bias. /s

Actually, being honest, I don't even know that you do. But believing it doesn't make it true, and saying it here doesn't really further the discussion.

I'll leave you to have the last word

Isn't that the definition of a jury trial? That the opinion of the jury decides whether or not the defendant is convicted?

Yes, 'decide' based on evidence not 'opine'. The jury is properly instructed to only assess the facts of the case as presented by the defense and prosecution. There's some wiggle room as to what a 'reasonable person' might consider to be plausible, but ultimately juries will only convict if they can unanimously agree that the defendant is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This is clearly distinguishable from opinions of the public, or a potentially biased panel of judges in a military court.

The thing is, I'm not on any jury, and I'm expressing my opinion. I never claimed to be a juror, judge, or anything. I'm saying it's my personal opinion that his case is different from the many people I've read about who were railroaded by the criminal justice system, pressured to plea guilty and serve time. Typically those look very different from an espionage act case or compromised government emails, or whistleblower-like scenarios, or questions of press freedom, whatever. Often it looks more like some African American dude you've never heard of being wrongfully accused of a violent crime or drug offense.

> Typically those look very different from an espionage act case [...] Often it looks more like some African American dude you've never heard of being wrongfully accused of a violent crime or drug offense on flimsy evidence.

I suppose? There's maybe some qualitative distinction to be made. But essentially I'd say that Assange was:

> railroaded by the criminal justice system, pressured to plead guilty and serve time.

Though time already served was factored into the sentencing. The pressure to plead guilty was the prospect of dying in solitary confinement.

I mean, this isn’t a jury trial, it’s a forum discussion, and opinions about current events are legitimate. If not, we should delete the entire thread.

Not quite what I meant. GP was suggesting Assange's just desert. My counter to that, is that it couldn't be known if it was just for Assange to be forced into a plea bargain using extended incarceration as leverage, as Assange would not have been assessed by an properly instructed jury, which is the best (least worst) way we have of knowing if someone is guilty beyond reasonable doubt and in absence of bias that a military court might have.

> If not, we should delete the entire thread

TBF, I don't think 'I think Assange is guilty/not guilty' without any factual backup is really a worthwhile contribution to the discussion.

That you can't apply any level of nuance to this compared to truly authoritarian countries, is kind of childish.

Which ones are truly authoritarian?

Russia and China both have authoritarian governments.

https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2024

I think the country that imprisons the highest proportion of its own population in the world ought to qualify, but this list doesn't think so. Interesting.

So if a country has laws written by democratically elected bodies - and people break those laws, they shouldn't be imprisoned if the law calls for it?

Is it possible that they just commit more crimes?

Clearly it's not enough of a deterrent and we need harsher punishments, like prison camps in Alaska with a threatening name like "gulag".

That’s just a bunch of statements made by people in the US.. Maybe you should ask the Chinese and Russians for a list and compare lol.

I appreciate what you’re saying here, but it’s impossible to view the opinions of residents of an authoritarian state as unbiased and unaffected observers.

They know they cannot possibly openly share their opinions without the potential for severe penalty. This is exactly why Putin did what he did to Alexei Navalny; it reminds the populace to keep the opinions to themselves or die in the most horrible way possible.

The Chinese and the Russians could say the exact same thing about you and be just as convincing.

Trump and Biden are fucking useless and shouldn’t be in office. I think they both should be banned from the office of the president.

While we’re at it: George W. Bush is a war criminal and should be tried at The Hague.

Obama was the best Republican president we’ve ever had.

See? No.

What are you, waiting for a Chinese person to come here and post things about Xi? All you are practically doing is clowning around with those statements. Try doing what Assange did and see where that gets you lol.

> Putin did what he did to Alexei Navalny

Using this logic we can say that Trump did what he did to Epstein?

Yes. Absolutely.

And you don't think that what happened to some folks that said/did stuff that displeased the US and UK rulers might have a similar effect on their population? Like, for example, what happened to Julian Assange?

Swerving into flamewar like this is not ok on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Edit: we've had to ask you this multiple times before-

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28885166 (Oct 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28319175 (Aug 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26613766 (March 2021)

He wasn’t convicted of any crimes because he was avoiding trial.

He helped reveal far more serious crimes committed by US officials -- none of whom faced any consequences.

If I murder 2 people and reveal that john murdered 22 people and Bob murdered 36 people, does that mean I get to skip trial because I revealed bigger crimes? Sometimes, if I can get a plea deal, but this was not the case, so what is the problem here?

Getting a plea deal is contingent on the state caring about the larger crimes in the first place. See the problem?

One does not have to believe that the state is entirely corrupt to believe that Assange's treatment by the USG in the past decades has been highly inappropriate.

The upcoming 2024 elections in the US find both parties trying to court subsets of the population who mistrust the government, so surely freeing Assange was done for realpolitik reasons.

It is not too late for Mike Pompeo to end up serving time. Let's hope that he is brought to justice ASAP.

The problem here is that Assange didn't kill any people, while Uncle Sam has killed hundreds of thousands for oil, revenge, and preserving the hegemony.

Assange is alleged to have released unredacted info that exposed informants in warzones. This while running a service - not an infrastructure, a service - for exposing information.

Arguing that he hasn't personally killed anyone is not a strong rebuke against such allegations.

Compromising informants working for a foreign government invading another foreign land is not a crime, nor much of a moral dilemma.

The risk inherent to collaborationism is also not one anyone but the informant must account for. Just as mercenaries operate in that same high-risk-reward / low-solidarity space, and accordingly join the cast of characters in war zones along with spies and informants without international sympathy.

Assange did not release unredacted information. The person he entrusted to clean it, did.

Really bad example when the war crimes revealed were actual murders etc. of many, many civilians, and Assange’s crime was telling the secret (by the rules of a country that he was not a citizen of, and of a country where he wasn’t located) that these war crimes happened and that nobody faced any consequences for them.

Revealing information about many murders is very different from doing murder.

I had not been following wikilinks. Had he revealed any actual crimes?

A helicopter gunning down civilians and journalists.

The Iraq and Afghanistan war logs were a highly significant piece of journalism that revealed significand (and in my opinion treasonous) misconduct by US Government officials. See my description in another thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40800817

This is the thing though. The cables were extremely embarrassing to the US and damaged international relationships, but they didn't really disclose any new crime that was committed.

The Iraq and Afghanistan war logs revealed significant crimes. In my view, the worst was the significant misrepresentation of civilian casualties, the level of involvement of Iran in the conflict, torture and abuse tolerated by the US. In general, the war logs revealed that the US Government had classified information specifically because releasing it would have likely led to Americans opposing the war. There was no justification for classifying most of the information other than that the truth getting out would have turned public opinion against the war.

At the time, the US Government was prohibited by law (Smith-Mundt Act of 1948) from propagandizing the American people. This was repealed by the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 which allows US Citizens to be exposed to propaganda.

Notably, one US Government strategy for propagandizing is to disseminate/test the stories in the British press and wait for them to be picked up by the US press. This strategy is still used even though the Smith-Mundt modernization act makes it less necessary for legal compliance.

Wikileaks revealed that the US Government withheld and classified information solely for propaganda purposes. In other words, a small group of people deceived the public so that a very expensive and consequential war they wanted to have would not be interrupted by common sense insights that the public would have had.

The whole thread that emerged under mine is interesting.

The intention of my comment was a plain statement of fact. You can’t have an unfair trial if you never have a trial.

Crimes he was definitely guilt of and could likely have plead to at any time, served a sentence and been free years ago.

My memory is the US was trying to extradite Assange to the US and was threatening to charge him with Sedition with a possibility of decades of prison time. That was at least the stated intent of the previous CIA director

Wouldn't he have to be a citizen of the US to be charged with sedition?

The US tries to charge foreigners of crimes all of the time.

Here's a slightly biased summary, but in this case I think the extreme outrage and bias is totally justified.

https://prospect.org/justice/julian-assange-espionage-act-19...

No. Until the recent convictions in relation to January 6th, the most recent US conviction for sedition was against an Egyptian for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He died in federal prison.

They could even murder him.

i was never clear on how you can charge a foreign national on foreign soil with a US Crime but that doesn't seem to mater when your the US. dont piss of the US government and dont piss off the MPAA Kim Dotcom and Assange were both charged with breaking us law while not residing in the US, being from the US, or committing their alleged crime in the US.

"Following his arrest, he was charged and convicted, on the 1st May 2019, of violating the Bail Act, and sentenced to fifty weeks in prison."

So sure, given you said "since 22 September", but with a huge embassy-shaped reason why they didn't let him out on bail a second time.

That's right he was convicted of a crime and jailed. He should have been released from prison for that on 22 September 2019 but was instead kept imprisoned because of the extradition request by the US.

So from 22 September 2019 until his release now he was jailed in very strict conditions without having been convicted of anything, which to me is unacceptable whatever the extradition request situation. Especially now that we see that the instant he pleads guilty he is immediately freed...

That is indeed the consequence of skipping bail after having lost an extradition hearing, yes.

What would you have done? "Oh, he ran away again, nothing we could have done, this was totally unforeseeable?"

Normally people get a tracking bracelet and they have to check in every few days but are free to go otherwise, given that you know, they haven't been found guilty of anything at that point - being kept in a tiny cell in isolation for 23 hours a day for 5 years is reserved for the worst of the worst criminals, people who even in prison are extreme danger to everyone else - it made zero sense to keep him locked up that way.

Normally people don't go into an embassy for seven years and give speeches from the window to an adoring* crowd, leaving the police obliged to post an officer at the embassy door 24/7 just in case he leaves because they're not allowed in without permission that isn't coming.

Was he even wearing a tag on the first bail?

* at least, I assume those crowds were adoring rather than booing…

That's 5 years in jail (and in isolation 23h a day) without trial however you look at it...

I mean, you’re not wrong that the entire extradition system is a stain on justice. I just wish anyone cared when it’s not about someone accused of hacking.

> I think the UK and US should abstain from criticising any countries' courts and justice system after that...

Couldn't disagree more. By this logic, no country should criticize any other country's courts and justice systems because they all have problems and massive miscarriages of justice.

Do we want more scrutiny and criticism or less? I think the world is better if the US and UK aggressively criticize and pressure other countries to improve AND ALSO everyone else criticizes abuses by the US and UK and pressures them to improve.

IMO that is a much better world than one where nobody is highlighting abuses or asking anyone else to improve.

When it comes to questioning another’s moral standing, it helps to have a leg to stand on

Abuse is always highlighted (or minimised) because of ulterior motives, not because of the abuse itself.

What I am highlighting is the hypocrisy.

> Abuse is always highlighted (or minimised) because of ulterior motives, not because of the abuse itself.

That strikes me as almost tautologically untrue. It simply doesn't seem possible that every decision about how much to highlight or criticize or ignore a country's abuse of their legal system could be based upon ulterior motives. It implies that there can never be genuine moral outrage, and honestly, for me, that just makes your whole point and outlook feel unfounded or uncommonly sad.

For example, how much of the criticism of Otto Warmbier's detention in North Korea is based upon ulterior motives? Is it all of it? Or is it like, 50% or 10% or less? And if it's a smaller amount, are you actually highlighting a hypocrisy that is meaningful enough for it to be the main thrust of your comment?

It feels like someone cooked you a gourmet meal and you said, "Food only ever tastes good or bad because of the salt."

There is no moral when it comes to national interests, that's correct.

Well if you object to the hypocrisy and want to advocate for something unlikely to happen, wouldn’t it make more sense to say the US and UK should stop doing bad things, rather than that they should stop criticizing other countries for doing bad things?

They indeed should do that and then maybe not use lawfare and unjust measures themselves.

But it is indeed questionable, why someone should submit to such pressure if there are no consequences in this case either.

After that? US and UK should abstain from criticising any country since as long as one can go back. The only reason they could criticise and even meddle is because they are powerful, too powerful; at least USA is and UK is not anymore, not so much.

> He was only released after 'admitting' that he was guilty...

There is the deeply philosophical, mathematical (Bayesian estimates), legal and political question whether the fact that he admitted that he was guilty increases or decreases the probability/likelihood that he is actually guilty or not.

Yes, he would have been treated much better for being involved with the dissemination of classified material in... which country exactly?