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Spanish Superjudge To Represent Assange
First time accepted submitter ccguy writes "Spanish ex-judge Balsazar Garzón will represent wikileak's Julian Assange in his extradiction case. In the past 30 years Garzón has led the most important investigations in Spain: Against drug cartels, against terrorist groups (ETA), and against corruption. He's also famous for his attempt to extradite Chilean dictator Pinochet to Spain to judge him for crimes against humanity. In his last investigation Garzón ordered in-prison conversations between corrupt politicians and their lawyers to be monitored. This is legal in Spain if the goal is to prevent further crimes to be committed (such as the inmate telling his lawyer to destroy evidence, or offshore funds). This caused Garzón to be disbarred as a judge. The president of the Supreme Court that signed this disbarment (Carlos Dívar) was later on made to resign, after it was discovered that he used taxpayers' money for deluxe vacations."
I live in Spain and they used to call him the "star judge", because he was always on the media, without getting nothing done, actually.
He made it again!
He is banned from practicing law in Spain but can still practice anywhere else in Europe. The reason he was unseated in Spain was for issuing illegal wiretaps on member of the government that were suspected of corruption. Kind of like if you pointed out some serious flaws in your supervisor's business plan and were then fired for it.
I got here through a series of tubes
Spain claims worldwide jurisdiction over certain crimes, though I think they only try to enforce it in the Spanish-speaking portion of the world. The War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague claims worldwide jurisdiction over certain crimes as well.
Both are fine with me, as long as they use legal means to attempt extradition, and stick to prosecuting mass murderer, genocide, etc., against people who would never be tried in their home countries. Some morality has to be global, and any reasonable person can differentiate between basic, fundamental morality and things that reasonably vary from culture to culture. Slippery-slope arguments to the contrary are fallacious.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I'm referring to Pinochet case, obviously.
I hope the irony isn't lost on /. crowd of the fact that Garzon attempted to extradite Pinochet asserting "universal jurisdiction" for crimes that weren't prosecuted in Pinochet's home country. It isn't all that much of a stretch from Pinochet to Kim Dotcom or Assange.
My point is, let's be consistent. If Pinochet case was a good precedent, then Dotcom and Assange are in trouble. Otherwise, Garzon is talking with both sides of his mouth.
I see no duplicity in what he's doing:
* Pinochet was bad for humanity.
* The people trying to extradite Julian Assange are bad for humanity.
In both those cases he's fighting against the bad people.
No sig today...
It is incredible that even after almost 40 years, the judicial system in Spain still looks pretty much the same as in Franco's time. By the way things are going, every mobster should get a law degree. This way they can argue that every conversation they have should be protected by attorney/client privilege. As I understand the case, that's how they got rid of Garzón.
There's nothing to represent. Assanage has lost his case, and all appeals. He is to be deported. Hence why he jumped bail (which means he screwed all his supporters who posted it, they don't get their money back) and is hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy. This judge isn't going to accomplish shit. Either Ecuador will decide to grant him asylum or not, and if they do he'll either successfully get out of Britain or not. If the answer in either case is "not" he'll be deported to Sweden.
This judge is just pulling a stunt. Had he wanted to help fight extradition, that time was months ago. This guy is just trying to get his name in lights, something that it would seem he's succeeded at.
"Can we stop pretending that what he is accused of isn't rape"
That's a bit of an insult to all the women who have definitely been raped, beaten, and dumped in an alleyway. And didn't throw parties next day to celebrate. Or tweet about how cool their rapist was. And certainly didn't get international police hunts organized to find/extradite their rapists.
The last thing I read, Julian Assange was accused of "Surprise Sex", punishable by a 750 Euro fine. Maybe the girl's stories have got more elaborate since then. Why wouldn't they? With no evidence it's just his word against theirs.
No sig today...
Do you have any idea how hard it is to even admit to yourself what happened, let alone admit it to others, let alone go to the police? There's a reason most rapes go unreported.
I let my rapist walk me back to my car. What's the point in fighting *after* the fact? No, I never filed charges. I couldn't imagine going through that against someone who's *not* an international celebrity, let alone someone who is like Assange. Yes, it took days before I told anyone what happened to me, but it took about three months before I could manage to say "rape" without trying to couch it in terms like "unwanted sexual experience". You just want to forget about it. You just want it to go away. The last thing you want is to have to relive it and have everyone in the world trying to discredit you and treat you like some slut who's trying to "ruin some poor innocent guy's life". So no, I never went to the police. But if just a couple days after it happened I had happened to meet someone else who the *same guy* had done the *same sort of thing to*? I don't know how I would have reacted, but it definitely would have changed the picture.
Anyway, in case you actually care, here are the actual accusations against him. To which two British courts have reviewed the evidence and found the charges credible.
"... Sean Hannity, whose surgery to remove those bolts from his neck was apparently successful,