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Fighting for More Evidence of Assange’s Political Prosecution

Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi has been in court trying to get some missing emails — or data about them — that could further expose the political motivation behind the prosecution of the WikiLeaks publisher.  

Joe Lauria and Mohamed Elmaazi / Consortium News, October 23, 2024

A tribunal in Britain is set to decide whether to order the government’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to prove it deleted emails that may have covered up more evidence of a politically motivated prosecution of Julian Assange.

The three judges heard arguments on Sept. 24 in the nearly decade-long freedom of information saga regarding the emails that top British prosecutors say were deleted. 

They involved an exchange with Sweden during a Swedish prosecutor’s attempt, beginning in 2010, to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher from Britain.  ……………………………………………………….

It was only when the U.S. realized it would lose on appeal after a four-year extradition battle that the Department of Justice cut a plea deal with Assange who was released on June 24 and returned to his native Australia. 

Assange had been charged in the United States under the Espionage Act for possessing and publishing defense information, which revealed evidence of U.S. war crimes. 

Britain took an active role in Assange’s prosecution. Its Crown Prosecution Service sought to stop Sweden from going to the embassy to question him. 

Seeking to learn more about Britain’s role against Assange,  Italian investigative journalist  Stefania Maurizi first made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in 2015 for all emails between the British and Swedish governments concerning Assange. 

Some of the emails she obtained showed political motivation on the part of the lead British prosecutor, Paul Close. One email Maurizi obtained from the Swedish Prosecution Authority (SPA) revealed that Close appeared to be pressuring Swedish prosecutors to continue seeking Assange’s extradition instead of dropping the case or questioning him at the Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange had been granted asylum………………………….

After Maurizi noticed a sizeable gap in the emails released to her she filed another FIOA seeking to obtain the missing emails. 

The CPS first claimed that it had destroyed the emails. It said that when Close retired, his account along with his emails, were automatically destroyed.  

But Maurizi did not buy it.  She asked the court at the hearing last month to order the CPS to turn over “metadata” — data about data, such as file creation and modification dates, email sender and recipient addresses, timestamps, email routing information, keywords, and subject lines — proving the emails really were deleted and when.

“We have NO certainty whatsoever” that the emails were destroyed, Maurizi wrote in a message to Consortium News. Maurizi is in court because she believes the allegedly deleted emails could provide additional evidence of a politically motivated prosecution of Assange.

……………………………………………‘When, How & Why’ Were the Emails Deleted?

Maurizi, who travelled to London from Rome to attend the Sept. 24 hearing at the First-Tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber), is challenging the ongoing failure of the CPS to respond adequately to her December 2019 FOIA about the missing emails.

………………………………………………………………….Maurizi is betting the tribunal will agree with her that metadata is clearly information that can be requested under the Act and which can clearly be provided with little difficulty. If she succeeds, future FOIA requests will also be able to demand metadata if and when an individual thinks it may be useful. 

Hillary, who was called to testify for the CPS, freely admitted to the tribunal that she could easily provide the metadata Maurizi requested and that she would be happy to do so, as long as any information which identified individuals is redacted.

The tribunal will also consider whether to “order the CPS to carry out a proper, full search for information held” as to “when, how and why?” the thousands of emails were allegedly deleted while Assange’s Swedish extradition case was still very much active. 

No date has yet been set for the announcement of the tribunal’s decision.  https://consortiumnews.com/2024/10/23/fighting-for-more-evidence-of-assanges-political-prosecution/

October 26, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | legal, UK