By Barry Dalgleish
In a candid and explosive interview with Swiss magazine Republik, Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture opened up a Pandora’s Box of Western corruption and criminality.
The persecution of Julian Assange was right from the outset a con and a fabrication. ‘I have never seen a comparable case’. This coming from a man who is also a professor of international law at the University of Glasgow and holds the Human Rights Chair at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in Switzerland, where he has been teaching since 2009, including as the Swiss Chair of International Humanitarian Law (2011–2013). Prior to that, he served for 12 years with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as Delegate, Deputy Head of Delegation and Legal Adviser in various conflict areas.
The story began in Sweden in 2010, where Assange allegedly raped two women. But what actually happened wasn’t what was reported in the press:
‘According to the testimony of the woman in question, a rape had never even taken place at all. And not only that: The woman’s testimony was later changed by the Stockholm police without her involvement in order to somehow make it sound like a possible rape. I have all the documents in my possession, the emails, the text messages.‘
As Melzer reveals, the relationship Assange had with the women was consensual. Indeed when the first woman went to the police with what should have been a routine query, she was:
‘informed that Assange would be arrested on suspicion of rape. ‘S. W.’ was shocked and refused to continue with questioning. While still in the police station, she wrote a text message to a friend saying that she didn’t want to incriminate Assange, that she just wanted him to take an HIV test, but the police were apparently interested in ‘getting their hands on him.’
Two hours later, the case was leaked to the Swedish press by the authorities in violation of Swedish law, which prohibits the release of the identity of anyone involved in sexual offences. That marked the beginning of a process that would lead Assange to the Ecuadorian embassy and ultimately to his arrest by British police.
The narrative that followed was that Assange was trying to avoid the Swedish authorities over the rape allegations. But that was a fabrication. As soon as Assange was aware of the allegations he approached the police. But his attempt to engage with the authorities was persistently stonewalled.
Assange left Sweden for London. It was then he became aware that the US had opened a secret criminal case against him. He continued to engage with Sweden under the provision that the Swedish authorities wouldn’t extradite him to the US. Again, Sweden refused, itself a clear indication of Swedish complicity with the US, as Melzer explains:
‘For exactly these kinds of judiciary issues, there is a cooperation treaty between the United Kingdom and Sweden, which foresees that Swedish officials can travel to the UK, or vice versa, to conduct interrogations or that such questioning can take place via video link. During the period of time in question, such questioning between Sweden and England took place in 44 other cases. It was only in Julian Assange’s case that Sweden insisted that it was essential for him to appear in person.’
After five years of legal toing and froing, the Swedish supreme court told the public prosecution to either close the case or press charges. The UK was then informed that the case could be dropped. The Crown Prosecution Service responded with an email carrying the statement, ‘Don’t you dare get cold feet!!’
Assange now faces the prospect of being extradited to the US with a possible prison sentence of 175 years. Melzer makes it clear that Assange will not receive a fair trial in the US and that any criminal proceedings will be a sham:
‘He will not receive a trial consistent with the rule of law. That’s another reason why his extradition shouldn’t be allowed. Assange will receive a trial-by-jury in Alexandria, Virginia – the notorious Espionage Court where the U.S. tries all national security cases. The choice of location is not by coincidence, because the jury members must be chosen in proportion to the local population, and 85 percent of Alexandria residents work in the national security community – at the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Department and the State Department. When people are tried for harming national security in front of a jury like that, the verdict is clear from the very beginning. The cases are always tried in front of the same judge behind closed doors and on the strength of classified evidence. Nobody has ever been acquitted there in a case like that.’
What’s really concerning about the Assange case is what it represents. A journalist exposes war crimes that reaches the very top echelons of power. He becomes the victim of a conniving smear campaign involving four countries and the corporate media. Melzer spells out the ramifications:
‘In the 1930s, Germany and Japan left the League of Nations. Fifteen years later, the world lay in ruins. Today, the U.S. has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council, and neither the Collateral Murder massacre nor the CIA torture following 9/11 nor the war of aggression against Iraq have led to criminal investigations. Now, the United Kingdom is following that example. The Security and Intelligence Committee in the country’s own parliament published two extensive reports in 2018 showing that Britain was much more deeply involved in the secret CIA torture program than previously believed. The committee recommended a formal investigation. The first thing that Boris Johnson did after he became prime minister was to annul that investigation.‘
The subsequent ‘trial’ of Assange following his arrest from the Ecuadorian Embassy encapsulates everything that underpins the case:
‘Assange has the right to a fair trial. But he has been deliberately denied that right – in Sweden, the U.S., Britain and Ecuador. Instead, he was left to rot for nearly seven years in limbo in a room. Then, he was suddenly dragged out and convicted within hours and without any preparation for a bail violation that consisted of him having received diplomatic asylum from another UN member state on the basis of political persecution, just as international law intends and just as countless Chinese, Russian and other dissidents have done in Western embassies. It is obvious that what we are dealing with here is political persecution. In Britain, bail violations seldom lead to prison sentences – they are generally subject only to fines. Assange, by contrast, was sentenced in summary proceedings to 50 weeks in a maximum-security prison – clearly a disproportionate penalty that had only a single purpose: Holding Assange long enough for the U.S. to prepare their espionage case against him.’
Melzer continues to elaborate:
‘We give countries power and delegate it to governments – but in return, they must be held accountable for how they exercise that power. If we don’t demand that they be held accountable, we will lose our rights sooner or later. Humans are not democratic by their nature. Power corrupts if it is not monitored. Corruption is the result if we do not insist that power be monitored.’
There can be little doubt that the accountability of those in power is under scrutiny more than ever. As scrutiny increases, so does the backlash from those desperate to hold onto power at any cost. We have seen that also from the intense smear campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. But if power is left unchecked, then each and every one of us may end up paying the price. We see that not only from the results of violence from proxy wars in the Middle East and elsewhere but from climate change and environmental degradation that threaten our civilisation like never before. Let’s have the last word from Melzer on this:
‘As the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and, before that, as a Red Cross delegate, I have seen lots of horrors and violence and have seen how quickly peaceful countries like Yugoslavia or Rwanda can transform into infernos. At the roots of such developments are always a lack of transparency and unbridled political or economic power combined with the naivete, indifference and malleability of the population. Suddenly, that which always happened to the other – unpunished torture, rape, expulsion and murder – can just as easily happen to us or our children. And nobody will care. I can promise you that.’
Join a protest march in London:
The march on Saturday, 22 February begins at Australia House in Aldwych, London WC2B 4LA, at 12.30pm: assemble at 11.30pm