Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail

[midian182]

What just happened? Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who spent almost seven years inside the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK before his arrest last month, has been sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaching his 2012 bail conditions.

The Australian national was given refuge at the residence in 2012 while on bail in the UK over charges of sexual assault and rape in Sweden, which he denies. But on April 11, Assange was arrested after the Ecuadorian government withdrew his asylum claim.

#BREAKING: @wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested by police at the Ecuadorian embassy in London pic.twitter.com/4e3Xhu0Wzy

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) April 11, 2019

Assange was found guilty of breaching the bail act last month and was sentenced today. The 50-weeks handed down by judge Deborah Taylor was just short of the maximum one-year sentence.

Assange told the court he had been "struggling with difficult circumstances," and apologized to those who "consider I've disrespected them."

"I did what I thought at the time was the best or perhaps the only thing that I could have done," he said. His lawyer added that Assange was forced to take action as he feared “kidnap and torture” by the US. Because of his work on WikiLeaks, Assange was said to be “gripped” by fears of rendition to America.

Judge Taylor told Assange that "by hiding in the embassy you deliberately put yourself out of reach, while remaining in the UK."

“You exploited your privileged position to flout the law and advertised internationally your disdain for the law of this country,” she added, noting that the policing resources outside of the embassy during the time he was there cost the taxpayer £16 million.

Assange will face a hearing on Thursday related to his potential extradition to the US over allegations that he conspired with former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified databases. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to five years in prison.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/79888-julian-assange-jailed-50-weeks-skipping-bail-2012.html

 

[xxLCxx]

"noting that the policing resources outside of the embassy during the time he was there cost the taxpayer £16 million"
This is like the "Because you didn't give me your chocolate, I had to punch your sister!" argument.
Just when you think that nothing can be sillier than the US, Britain is dashing off - catching up fast.

 

[VitalyT]

50 weeks is just an excuse, for now, while they are cooking up a life sentence for him. They will never release him. And I don't think British care about Assange much, simply acting as US lapdog, like always.

 

[Reachable]

Assange didn't even violate the bail law. Under British law, bail is only breached if there's a failure to meet it "without reasonable cause". He had been granted asylum by Ecuador so that he would not be jailed and tortured by the U.S., not because he was unwilling to face the Swedish charges. Seeking asylum is a human right.

 

[yRaz]

"and advertised internationally your disdain for the law of this country"

I don't care who you are, I think anyone under risk of incarceration would act that way.... If the US is anything to go by, the prison system is almost completely ineffective. The higher risks of jail time just bring harder criminals on to the scene and then we all lose.

 

[Uncle Al]

Contrary to the mention, failure to appear before the judge and evading prosecution, regardless of reason is very much against British law. He was lucky to only get the penalty he received. There is also no guarantee he will be first extradited to the USA since there is another claim out there for rape of a child. Anyway you look at it he was a willing participant in espionage and which is punishable by death, but the US will not charge him with that because the British won't surrender a person that faces the death penalty and international law prevents more or other charges be added to him after he arrives. In the first release he only exposed a lot of political BS and some very poor decision making of the military but when he started releasing the names and contacts of intelligence officers he went way over the line. His excuse that he released the "locked" files and let the media choose to unlock them doesn't get him off the hook since he was a willful participant.
Personally, I don't want to see him executed but rather rot in prison for life as an example of what a real traitor looks like.

 

[xxLCxx]

... since there is another claim out there for rape of a child. ...

I heard that he also raped his cat, is the spawn of Satan and puts fruit cakes upside-down deliberately!

 

[kevbev89]

Contrary to the mention, failure to appear before the judge and evading prosecution, regardless of reason is very much against British law. He was lucky to only get the penalty he received. There is also no guarantee he will be first extradited to the USA since there is another claim out there for rape of a child. Anyway you look at it he was a willing participant in espionage and which is punishable by death, but the US will not charge him with that because the British won't surrender a person that faces the death penalty and international law prevents more or other charges be added to him after he arrives. In the first release he only exposed a lot of political BS and some very poor decision making of the military but when he started releasing the names and contacts of intelligence officers he went way over the line. His excuse that he released the "locked" files and let the media choose to unlock them doesn't get him off the hook since he was a willful participant.
Personally, I don't want to see him executed but rather rot in prison for life as an example of what a real traitor looks like.

If anything, the potential 5 years is almost like nothing for revealing the names of undercover intelligence officers???

 

[yRaz]

Contrary to the mention, failure to appear before the judge and evading prosecution, regardless of reason is very much against British law. He was lucky to only get the penalty he received. There is also no guarantee he will be first extradited to the USA since there is another claim out there for rape of a child. Anyway you look at it he was a willing participant in espionage and which is punishable by death, but the US will not charge him with that because the British won't surrender a person that faces the death penalty and international law prevents more or other charges be added to him after he arrives. In the first release he only exposed a lot of political BS and some very poor decision making of the military but when he started releasing the names and contacts of intelligence officers he went way over the line. His excuse that he released the "locked" files and let the media choose to unlock them doesn't get him off the hook since he was a willful participant.
Personally, I don't want to see him executed but rather rot in prison for life as an example of what a real traitor looks like.

Actually, he is a whistle blower in every sense of the word, just like Edward Snowden. He should be protected under whistle blower laws but the people in power are the ones who decide how, or even if, those laws are used. And while he did put those intelligence officers in danger, he also showed how the US is illegally interfering with international affairs. I don't know how he can be charged with espionage when he exposed the US for international espionage. I would argue that it is the US governments fault those people were put at risk in the first place. Assange didn't even uncover the files, he just posted them on wikileaks after they were already spread on the internet. All he did was make them easier to find.

That being said, Assange is a POS and a degenerate. I don't know if the allegations against him are true and frankly I don't really care.

 

[Reachable]

Publishing true information provided by whistleblowers is the only defense that the public has against attempts to hide the crimes and abuses of the powerful. A public that does not appreciate that is dooming itself to unfettered abuses.

Unfortunately, in the U.S., many Republicans cannot face the exposure of the wrongdoings of their beloved military, and many Democrats cannot face the exposure of the wrongdoings of their beloved Hillary. So they're willing to sacrifice the First Amendment.

Although the propagandists would try to confuse you into believing otherwise, this is no different than the Washington Post publishing the Pentagon Papers.

Wikileaks was extremely careful with examining every word of every file, and it redacted information that presumably would have put individuals' lives in danger. People here are making accusations that undercover intelligence officers were put at risk. This sounds to me like quoting misinformation or simply assuming it or making it up.

 

[pcnthuziast]

On techspot why? Please don't bring politics here. Truly toxic and thoroughly unnecessary.

 

[Evernessince]

Contrary to the mention, failure to appear before the judge and evading prosecution, regardless of reason is very much against British law. He was lucky to only get the penalty he received. There is also no guarantee he will be first extradited to the USA since there is another claim out there for rape of a child. Anyway you look at it he was a willing participant in espionage and which is punishable by death, but the US will not charge him with that because the British won't surrender a person that faces the death penalty and international law prevents more or other charges be added to him after he arrives. In the first release he only exposed a lot of political BS and some very poor decision making of the military but when he started releasing the names and contacts of intelligence officers he went way over the line. His excuse that he released the "locked" files and let the media choose to unlock them doesn't get him off the hook since he was a willful participant.
Personally, I don't want to see him executed but rather rot in prison for life as an example of what a real traitor looks like.

Actually, he is a whistle blower in every sense of the word, just like Edward Snowden. He should be protected under whistle blower laws but the people in power are the ones who decide how, or even if, those laws are used. And while he did put those intelligence officers in danger, he also showed how the US is illegally interfering with international affairs. I don't know how he can be charged with espionage when he exposed the US for international espionage. I would argue that it is the US governments fault those people were put at risk in the first place. Assange didn't even uncover the files, he just posted them on wikileaks after they were already spread on the internet. All he did was make them easier to find.

That being said, Assange is a POS and a degenerate. I don't know if the allegations against him are true and frankly I don't really care.

Assange is not a whistle blower. In order to be a whistle blower, you have to be in or from the organization you are revealing information about. Assange just leaked information that in all likelihood he got from Russia. It doesn't make sense to call him a whistle blower, he's not alerting people to issues he's seeing in some organization, he's simply passing along information from god knows what source.

 

[yRaz]

Assange is not a whistle blower. In order to be a whistle blower, you have to be in or from the organization you are revealing information about. Assange just leaked information that in all likelihood he got from Russia. It doesn't make sense to call him a whistle blower, he's not alerting people to issues he's seeing in some organization, he's simply passing along information from god knows what source.

I don't know the intricacies of this kinda of thing so I'm just going to play devils advocate for a moment. The information shared wasn't suppose to exist so it wasn't classified(to my knowledge), where along the lines does sharing information constitute a crime? I'm sympathetic to the people who's lives were put at risk over this, but I don't understand how exposing a nation for committing espionage is espionage in and of itself.

 

[Evernessince]

I don't know the intricacies of this kinda of thing so I'm just going to play devils advocate for a moment. The information shared wasn't suppose to exist so it wasn't classified(to my knowledge), where along the lines does sharing information constitute a crime? I'm sympathetic to the people who's lives were put at risk over this, but I don't understand how exposing a nation for committing espionage is espionage in and of itself.

I can't speak on the specifics of the legality of his information sharing, as he shared a ton and some may have been classified. That said, he is wanted on many other charges besides that. Then again, we don't know the specifics of those charges either and their legitimacy.

 

[Reachable]

Wikileaks publishes information that it gets from whistle blowers. It gets information from individuals inside organizations (leaks) and publishes them. This has been journalistic practice since journalism began.

Bradley Manning leaked information from the U.S. military. The information came straight from the military, from a person in the military. He offered it first to the New York Times and the Washington Post, but they turned it down, so he gave it to Wikileaks.

Wikileaks has not revealed from whom they obtained the DNC and Hillary files. They will never do so, because to reveal confidential sources would be a grave, grave violation of journalistic ethics. The FBI and CIA asserted that the files were given to Wikileaks by Russia, but they haven't provided a single shred of evidence to back it up, and their record, perpetually, of honesty, is dismal.

Where there is evidence of source is in the metadata of the files themselves. The data transfer rate from the DNC's computers was much higher than the maximum upload speed possible on the Internet at that time, but congruent with download speed to a flash drive. In other words, it was an inside job, a leak. The files had also been put into FAT format, again, a flash drive feature.

Wikileaks has published leaks from all over the world, including Russia. They have not endeared themselves to the powerful, but they've done a great service to everyone else. Every single thing they've published has been authentic, and they've committed not a single crime (unless you think journalism itself is a crime.)

It's pathetic that so much of the public has been indoctrinated by the elite and their subservient media to consider Wikileaks and Assange to be criminal. Please, for your own and everyone else's sake, know who it is who really does act in your best interest.