Julian Burnside QC gets the bums rush ... Response from attorney general to questions about US investigations and possible extradition of Julian Assange ... Government reply leaves open the equal possibilities that Canberra knows everything or it knows nothing ... It is certainly doing nothing … Polly Peck reports
Burnside: seeking answers
THE anticipated obsfurcation from the government arrived this month in reply to Julian Burnside's four questions asked on behalf of his client, Julian Assange.
The Melbourne silk requested answers from the Attorney General to the following:
- Has Australia asked the US authorities whether Assange has been investigated by the FBI or any other agency; whether a grand jury has been convened to consider charges against him or whether it has found he should be charged; whether an indictment has been prepared; and whether the US intends to seek to have Assange transferred from Sweden to the USA?
- If Australia has asked any of these questions, what reply did it receive?
- If it has not asked these questions, will they be asked?
- Will you seek assurances from the US authorities that if they do seek to move Assange from Sweden to the USA they will give you advance notice of their intention and a reasonable opportunity for the government to oppose the proposed move?
The fact that a grand jury has been convened in Virginia is hardly a secret.
See: evidence at Bradley Manning's pre-trial hearing and statement from Justice Department spokesman.
It is also known from Manning's case that the FBI investigation into Wikileaks runs to 45,000 pages.
On previous occasions the Australian government has answered these questions with all the obliqueness a public servant can muster.
Burnside claims this "arouses legitimate concern about what Australia knows".
The non-reply from acting AG Jason (Pretty Boy) Clare, written by a departmental drone, said:
"The Australian government has no advice from the United States to suggest that it has laid any charges against Mr Assange ... [and] no advice that the US will seek Assange's extradition from Sweden."
Anyway, all these discussions are "conducted in confidence"
A request for extradition from Sweden is between Sweden and the US, and "Australia would continue to make robust representations that it expects any proceedings to be undertaken in accordance with due process".
Further, Australia has no standing in this matter.
The acting attorney general gave no confort on the "temporary surrender" provisions of a US-Sweden bilateral treaty.
These allow for the "requested state" to interrupt its own legal proceedings so as to permit extradition for a criminal case in the country seeking extradition.
The government believes that the same protections exist for "temporary surrender" requests as apply in extradition proceedings.
That is a fine gloss on the reality of temporary surrender.
What should be read are the redacted Department of Foreign Affairs emails, which show how the government is advised to respond to questions about Assange, the US and extradition.
See also AG's FOI page.
The reply from Jason Clare is straight out of the handbook. It is also evident that Clare has not rocked the boat on his recent schmoozing visit to meet the US attorney general.
In other words, in respect of the US our government retains the traditional lap dog posture.
A number of other points were made by Burnside, which went completely unremarked by the acting attorney general.
For instance, it would be open to the US attorney general to arrange for the authorisation of "special administrative measures" should Assange be detained in America.
These are the same measures that applied to Bradley Manning: solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, torture-light and restricted access to lawyers.
Further, as with the Manning case, the prospect is that the United States would over-charge Assange in the hope of extracting a plea deal after long confinement.
Most disturbing of all, is the realisation that George W. Bush's Svengali, Karl (Turd Blossom) Rove has fetched up as chief political adviser to the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt - leader of the right leaning pro-USA "Moderate Party".
Rove: advising Sweden's PM
ROVE is also a confidant of the former prime minister and now Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, who has been outed in a State Department cable as a US informant.
Bildt was a member of the International Advisory Council of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group supporting the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Accompanying the Melbourne's silk's missive to the government was a collection of quotes from US government officials, politicians and other worthies on how the US should deal with Assange.
Robert Beckel took the cake. He's a Fox News "analyst" and a deputy assistant Secretary of State in the Carter administration:
"A dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, a treasonist [sic], and he had broken every law of the United States. And I'm not for the death penalty, so … there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."
See: Burnside's letter to the AG
See: Reply from acting AG