The Julian Assange extradition to Sweden appeal is to be read out / published / streamed live by Sky News on Wednesday morning:
Wednesday 30 May 2012
9:15am
Courtroom 1
http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/current-cases/CCCaseDetails/case_2011_0264.html
"Whether a European Arrest Warrant ("EAW") issued by a public prosecutor is a valid Part 1 EAW issued by a "judicial authority" for the purpose and within the meaning of sections 2 and 66 of the Extradition Act 2003. "
The Assangistas do not appear to have noticed how the choice of Supreme Court Justices to hear this case, appears to be stacked against Julian Assange,
if you assume that they are not ignorant of the WikiLeaks media hype and allow this to influence them to some extent in this European Arrest Warrant case.
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers
"Lord Phillips is the first President of The Supreme Court, having been Senior Law Lord from 1 October 2008. He was previously the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales."
As the President of the Supreme Court, he could decide to make the lead opiion, on the important legal point of the use or abuse of European Arrest Warrants, a system which must be reformed.
Or he could leave it to Lord Brown's last judicial opinion before retirement.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
Techically he has retired from the Supreme Court on his 75th birthday on the 9th of April, but the Supreme Court has discretion to appoint recently retired Justices and he had not yet retired when the case was being considered from January onwards.
He produced the lead opinion in the Law Lords (who were re-branded as the Supreme Court) in their rejection of the Appeal by Gary McKinnon extradition to the USA case. Assange is correct to fear that he may be extradited to the USA to face simuilar computer hacking of US military computer charges or worse.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldjudgmt/jd080730/mckinn-1.htm
He even managed to sneak in some damaging nonsense implying that the as yet unproven allegations against Gary McKinnon regarding the New Jersey naval base, were somehow akin to creating a danger to navigation i.e. like a Cornish Wrecker or someone who moves marker buoys etc.
"the equivalent domestic offences include an offence under section 12 of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990 for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment."
even though the US authorities have never alleged this and any Naval Captain should be
court martialled if he relies on unencrypted internet emails, rather than lookputs, radio, radar, sonar, charts, Global Positioning Satellite systems etc. for navigation or the safety of his ship.
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers was content to agree with Lord Brown over the Gary McKinnon appeal rejection, so he is likely to do so again, if Lord Brownis given the job of writing the lead opinion.
The Assangista conspiracy theorists do not seem to have realised that "Lord Brown also served as President of the Security Service Tribunal from 1989 to 2000, President of the Intelligence Services Tribunal from 1995 to 2000, Intelligence Services Commissioner from 2000 to 2006"
As a Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) Commissioner, his bland, uninformative Annual (censored) Reports to the Prime Minister are notable for their utter lack of any criticism of the British Intelligence Agencies whatsoever.
He utterly failed to convince anyone that the role of Intelligence Services Commissioner provided a method of "security cleared" protection for the general public against any bureaucratic excesses or malpractice by GCHQ, MI5 the Security Service or MI6 / SIS the Secret Intelligence Service
Lord Brown will be completely familiar with the "special intelligence relationship" i.e. "bend over backwards to the USA" attitude
It will be utterly astonishing if Lord Brown finds in favour of Julian Assange.
Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore
Lord Kerr is a former Crown Prosecutor and then Chief Justice of Northern Ireland i.e. he and his family have been / still are under the threat of assasination and worse by terrorists,
Several of his colleagues will have been threatened or killed during "The Troubles".
He is likely to be very familiar with the need to protect the identities and lives of Covert Human Intelligence Sources.
He is extremely unlikely to be sympathetic to Assange's recklessness / malice in publishing the unredacted names of people mentioned in the WikiLeaks US Diplomatic Cables and the Afghan and Iraq war diaries and even the personal details of the
hated and derided, but still legal British National Party members, some of whom were then harassed.
Lord Wilson of Culworth
A recent appointee to the Supreme Court, he "was a judge of the Family Division of the High Court. From 2005 until May 2011" presumably he will be familiar with "he said / she said" domestic arguments and alleged sexual offences between initially consenting adults.
At a guess he will be the most sympathetic to Assange's "rape trial by media", but he is unlikely to dissent from the lead opinion of his more senior colleagues.
The only thing worse for Julian Assange than a rejection of his Supreme Court Appeal, in which case he will be sent off to Sweden forthwith (assuming that the European Court of Human Rights does not allow an appeal), would be for the Supreme Court to allow his Appeal.
If Julian Assange is not to be extradited to Sweden on the dusbious "invetigation without charge" European Arrest Warrant, then he will be far more likely to be arrested and held in the United Kingdom, if the United States authorities unseal their Grand Jury Indictment of him in relation to the Bradley Manning military case, which appears to have provided WIkiLeakS/org with so much material.
Extradition from the UK to the USA requires no prima facie case, just like the European Arrest Warrant and so it is much more likely to happen from the UK than from Sweden.
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