Solidarity with Tommy Sheridan

Solidarity with Tommy Sheridan - from the Right To Work web site.

I’m shocked and angered over the guilty verdict against Tommy Sheridan and the fact he faces jail.

Tommy’s a good guy whose always stood by working people. My personal view is that the whole issue required one response at the very outset. Tommy’s never preached Victorian values – unlike News International – and what consenting adults do in private is a matter for them. Instead the people who gave evidence for News International effectively destroyed the Scottish Socialist Party, a success story for the left.

Millions were spent on investigating Tommy. The vigour of the police investigation contrasts with the treatment of ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson and the allegations of illegal phone tapping. Coulson is a Tory insider, Tommy’s a class fighter. Interesting contrast.

My message is solidarity with Tommy, Gail and family. Have a good Xmas because don’t let them rob you of that.

Editor: Nice to see a very clear statement from one part of the Left for a change - I wish others would do the same.

Link: Right To Work

Miliband plans to sever 'big money' ties with unions

Miliband plans to sever 'big money' ties with unions by Andrew Grice in The Independent.

Ed Miliband is to distance Labour from its trade union paymasters by diluting the party's financial dependence on them and reducing their role in electing the party leader.

Labour has proposed introducing a ceiling on donations to any political party which could be as low as £500, The Independent has learnt. The move could break the long-running deadlock between the parties on agreeing a new system of financing politics.

Previous attempts to halt big donations have failed, partly because Labour was reluctant to give up its multimillion-pound gifts from the unions. But Mr Miliband is ready to gamble on Labour attracting thousands of small donations from individual supporters as part of a drive to take "big money" out of politics.

He also wants to change Labour's culture by allowing the public a vote when the party chooses its leader. He plans to give 25 per cent of the votes to non-party members who register as Labour supporters. MPs, trade unionists and party members would also each have a quarter of the votes in Labour's electoral college. At present, MPs, union and party members each have a third of those votes.

Mr Miliband's moves are bound to cause tensions with the unions. They are all the more surprising because he depended on union support to defeat his brother, David, for the Labour leadership in September.

The shake-up of party finances has been suggested in Labour's evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which is holding an inquiry into the issue. With Mr Miliband's backing, Ray Collins, Labour's general secretary, has told the committee in a letter: "While some argue for a cap of £50,000, a much lower cap of around £500 would be more equitable, democratic and less susceptible to avoidance." Labour sources say the party is ready to negotiate on a cap of between £500 and £50,000 in a new round of talks with the Tories and Liberal Democrats.

Unions contribute more than 80 per cent of Labour's funding, after many of its wealthy backers stopped giving following the "cash for honours" affair which engulfed the Blair government.

One reform option would be to treat Labour's income from union members who pay the political levy as individual donations. This helps to fund the party's day-to-day spending. But a ceiling would stop Labour appealing for big one-off union donations – notably at election times.

Mr Collins made clear that Labour still wants to keep its union link: "Any proposals should be respectful of the different traditions, backgrounds and structures of the various political parties. Party funding reform should not be used as a means to alter the institutional constitutional arrangements of individual political parties."

Shadow Cabinet allies of Mr Miliband deny that he wants a symbolic break with the unions in order to tackle the "Red Ed" image painted by the Tories. They say he is serious about modernising his party and is prepared to approve bold reforms – including a campaign to emulate Barack Obama by attracting small donors via the internet.

The Liberal Democrats and Labour may back a new deal on financing politics, which includes increased public funding. Nick Clegg's party had to make 20 staff redundant after losing taxpayer-funded grants to opposition parties when it entered the Coalition.

Options include a "pound for pound" system where the state would match small donations raised by the parties – perhaps up to £20 – or allowing people to make a £3-a-year donation by ticking a box on their tax form. Another proposal is to grant special tax status to political donations, like the "gift aid" scheme for charities.

The Tories worry that increasing state funding would provoke public hostility, but have supported a £50,000 cap on donations – which would end big gifts from supporters such as Lord Ashcroft, the party's former treasurer.

Unions are wary of Mr Miliband's proposals. Len McCluskey, the new general secretary of Unite, warned Mr Miliband not to weaken the unions' influence. "If anybody is attempting to sever the link with the unions, we will oppose that. This is our party," he told Tribune newspaper. "What Ed needs to understand is that the trade union movement created the Labour Party. If there are people who just see us as a cash cow, the dotty aunt and uncle who are... just brought out to sign cheques, then that's not going to happen. We want to make certain that our views and beliefs are listened to."

Link: The Independent

Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder baffled by sex assault claims

Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder baffled by sex assault claims from The Australian via The Sunday Times by Marie Colvin.

ONE of the women claiming she was sexually assaulted by Julian Assange took a "trophy photo" of him lying naked in her bed, he says.

The white-haired computer impresario had been invited to stay in her empty flat when he visited Stockholm to give a lecture last August, shortly after WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of classified US documents on the Afghanistan war.

Mr Assange, 39, and unmarried, said the woman had returned home early and insisted he sleep in her bed. He does not feel he needs any excuses for what happened next. "We went to bed, and things went on from there," he said.

However, the 31-year-old woman, who is identified in legal documents as Miss A, subsequently went to the police.

Her claim was that although he had reluctantly used a condom at first, he then appeared to have ripped it. Having unprotected sex without a partner's consent can be considered a crime in Sweden.

Mr Assange believes her intention in going to the police was to put pressure on him to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, but the case was investigated as an alleged sexual assault.

Mr Assange, who is staying at Ellingham Hall, the mansion where he has lived since being arrested and released on bail pending an extradition hearing, said he was bewildered by the allegations. He argued that Miss A's behaviour, beginning with the taking of the photograph, had given no indication of any problem between them.

"The day after this incident, she invited friends around to her flat for a dinner in honour of me," he said. "Does that sound like someone who was upset by what had happened? And at the dinner were a couple who had offered to have me as their guest. Instead, she insisted I remain with her. I stayed the rest of the week."

Mr Assange, whose WikiLeaks organisation has infuriated US officials by releasing a stream of classified information, has led a nomadic life in recent months, moving from country to country "as the threats against us shifted", and has become the object of attention from women drawn by what they perceive to be the glamour of his mission.

Mr Assange has also been accused of sexual assault by another young woman he slept with during his trip to Sweden.

According to him, the woman, named only as Miss W, arrived at a lunch in a revealing pink cashmere sweater, flirted with him, and took him home.

She says they had consensual sex but she woke up the next morning to find him having intercourse with her to which she had not consented.

When she asked him if he was wearing anything, he had allegedly said: "I am wearing you."

He said he believed his accusers became angry when the younger woman, Miss W, contacted Miss A and they realised he had been to bed with both of them in swift succession. They went to the police station together, apparently to seek advice. A policewoman who heard their stories is said to have suggested they could pursue criminal charges.

Mr Assange is now wanted on suspicion of rape, sexual coercion and sexual assault. It is important to him that it is known he has not yet been charged with any crime anywhere else.

Mr Assange regards himself as a victim of radicalism. "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism," he said. "I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism."

Most recently, however, he has been preoccupied with financial problems as Mastercard, PayPal, Amazon and Visa cut off donors' payments -- under pressure, he claims, from the US government.

He is at pains to emphasise that he had nothing to hide.

"I was in Sweden for five weeks after the claims," he said. "I have offered to give evidence by video, or to British police, or to Swedish police if they come over here."

Link: The Australian via The Sunday Times by Marie Colvin

Tommy Sheridan: QC lambasts Sheridan case as "prostitution of Scots law": Law "lies in shame"

QC lambasts Sheridan case as "prostitution of Scots law": Law "lies in shame".

Ian Hamilton QC, one of Scotland's most respected jurists, has said the Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini "prostituted" Scots law to appease press baron Rupert Murdoch, patron of the News of the World which lost £200,000 in damages to Tommy Sheridan, who has this afternoon been found guilty of perjury.

Evidence during the trial also said that several prosecution witnesses were paid by the newspaper.

"For the Lord Advocate to bring this case was a prostitution of Scots law," said Hamilton.

"The Lord Advocate is a member of the Scottish government and the government was the pimp. The aim was not to seek justice but to placate Rupert Murdoch and the News of the World."

In a withering assessment, Hamilton criticises the wisdom and impartiality of the Crown in bringing the case, claiming the case was motivated "entirely by a desire to placate a powerful press baron."

"Scots law used to boast that it protected the weak against the strong. Now it lies in shame," he added.

"Consider this. In every case where someone seeks damages there are two sides. Mr Sheridan won his civil case because the jury believed his witnesses and disbelieved those for the News of the World. In the eyes of the law and in the eyes of common sense these latter witnesses were now tainted. Yet they were then called by the Crown against the Sheridans. In a criminal case a jury must decide the issue of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. I can think of no better example of reasonable doubt, than a case which rests on the evidence of witnesses already discredited by another jury.

"In all my years as a lawyer I have never known a case where the successful side in a civil action was prosecuted for perjury. If anyone had to be prosecuted it was the side held to have lied under oath."

Hamilton says he has "no doubt the Lord Advocate was leant on by Rupert Murdoch’s employees."

"The case raises wider issues still. Who is responsible for the behaviour of our police? They spent thousands of man hours and over a million pounds on this investigation, while the gangster bosses go free. All the police do with the gangsters is make it hard for them to get contributory pensions: yet they spend prodigiously where a press baron is offended. Dear God! Has it come to this?

"Mrs Sheridan was then senior air hostess with BA in Glasgow. (She has since retired.) She had a collection of whisky miniatures exhibited freely in her living room. The police without further enquiry charged her with their theft, and leaked it to the press that they had done so. This attempt to blacken her character was an affront to justice.

"The prosecution of Mr and Mrs Sheridan was against every known principle. It was motivated entirely by a desire to placate a powerful press baron. Scots law used to boast that it protected the weak against the strong. Now it lies in shame."

Hamilton's remarks can be read in full, here.

P.S. Perhaps Ian Hamilton is the man Tommy needs to represent him at any appeal!

Link: The Firm

Tommy Sheridan: Solidarity Statement On Todays Decision

Tommy Sheridan: Solidarity Statement On Todays Decision.

Solidarity Scotland’s Socialist Movement today reiterates our support for our Co-Convenor Tommy Sheridan despite the jury’s verdict following the most expensive perjury investigation in Scottish legal history. Tommy Sheridan’s only crime has been to speak truth to power for as long as he has been involved in socialist politics.

For over four long years, Tommy, his wife, their family and other members of Solidarity have found themselves under investigation by the police and the crown office following his libel victory over The News of the World in 2006. During this time and despite the pressure we have found ourselves under, Solidarity as a party has remained united and committed to raising socialist arguments and campaigning on the issues that matter to ordinary people.

We will enter 2011 determined to campaign and fight with renewed vigour against the public sector cuts and austerity measures introduced by a class of politicians determined to make ordinary people pay the price for the bailout of the banks. We will continue to oppose illegal wars, campaign for justice for the Palestinians, support asylum seekers and stand shoulder to shoulder with trade unionists and communities fighting back against the cuts.

We will demonstrate SOLIDARITY WITH those fighting against low pay and oppression. SOLIDARITY AGAINST poverty and discrimination in all its forms. SOLIDARITY FOR an independent socialist nuclear free Scotland.

Between 1999 and 2007, Tommy Sheridan was a fantastic advocate on behalf of the poor, the disadvantaged, the vulnerable and the working class of Scotland as an MSP in the Holyrood Parliament. During this time he had an unparalleled record in raising the issues that matter most in an effective and mature manner. Tommy took only the average wage of a skilled worker, donating the rest back to the socialist movement and worked tirelessly to build the socialist cause. He is a working class fighter who has waged war on poverty and injustice where ever he has found it.

We in Solidarity are proud to call ourselves comrades and friends of Tommy Sheridan.

Link: Solidarity Scotland

Sheridan trial put spotlight on News of the World phone hacking scandal - new evidence

Sheridan trial put spotlight on News of the World phone hacking scandal - new evidence.

By Severin Carrell - The Guardian

The trial of Tommy Sheridan cast new light on the News of the World's use of private detectives who have been convicted of illegal phone hacking and "blagging" confidential data.

Sheridan's attempt to highlight the practice saw Andy Coulson, David Cameron's chief media adviser and former editor of the NoW, appear in court. Coulson, thought to be the first NoW senior executive to be questioned on oath in a criminal trial about the affair, repeatedly denied having any knowledge of illegal activity by his staff.

The high court in Glasgow heard that Sheridan's name, home address and personal mobile details appeared twice in the notebooks of Glenn Mulcaire, a NoW freelance investigator convicted of illegally accessing private phone messages of the royal household and other public figures for the tabloid in 2007.

The two sets of notes, believed to date to 2004 when the NoW's first investigation into Sheridan's alleged adultery was at its peak, could suggest Mulcaire was twice ordered to hack Sheridan's mobile phone or pass on his private pin code to NoW reporters.

The heavily censored notes, published here (pdf) and here (pdf) for the first time, appear to show that Mulcaire recorded Sheridan's Vodafone pin code.

The Metropolitan police said there was no evidence that Mulcaire ever "hacked" Sheridan's phone but admitted these leads were never investigated (Ed: just remember this, the lead police officer in this "police investiagtion" was give a job as a journalist on Murdoch's Times on his retirement!!). Coulson and Bob Bird, the NoW's Scottish editor, both told the court they did not know Mulcaire had Sheridan's details and said they had never dealt with him.

It also emerged during the trial that Douglas Wight, then the news editor of the NoW's Scotland edition, had used Steve Whittamore, a private detective who admitted "blagging" confidential information from the police national database for Fleet Street newspapers.

Whittamore was found guilty of breaching the Data Protection Act in 2005. He and his associates also illegally accessed private information from the DVLA database and BT's phone records.

Mulcaire was called to give evidence, but refused to attend on medical health grounds. Whittamore was not called.

Sheridan told the court Wight had been one of the NoW's heaviest users of Whittamore, with Wight's name appearing about 70 times in Whittamore's records.

Bird told the court he had no proof of that. But he had found payment records showing that Wight had paid Whittamore about 10 times in about 2001 and 2002.

However, Bird said there was no proof that Whittamore had been connected to the paper's inquiries into Sheridan. He confirmed Wight's account at the trial that all this research was legitimate. "As far as I can see, it's nothing to do with you. It's difficult to say, some were very genuine inquiries about public records," he told Sheridan.

Link: The Guardian

Cops spent £1m chasing Tommy Sheridan

Cops spent £1m chasing Tommy Sheridan by CHRIS MARSHALL from Scotsman.com.

Force chiefs defend £1 million cost of Sheridan inquiry.
POLICE chiefs today defended their decision to spend more than £1 million investigating Tommy Sheridan in the run-up to his perjury trial.

Lothian and Borders Police spent four years investigating the case, travelling the UK and Europe (!!) to interview witnesses.

Officers ranging from constables to a detective chief inspector had been involved in the investigation, costing the force almost £920,000 in staff payments between August 2006 and August this year, the News can reveal.

A further £270,000 was spent conducting the inquiry itself, including overtime payments, "transport, supplies and services".

Police chiefs today said the money had been spent as the force had a "duty to investigate all allegations of criminal misconduct in order to ensure that the ends of justice are met".

The figures, which were obtained using freedom of information laws, were revealed in the aftermath of yesterday's guilty verdict against the 46-year-old former MSP at the High Court in Glasgow.

He was found guilty, following a 12-week trial, of lying during his successful defamation case against the News of the World newspaper in 2006 over stories that he was an adulterer and visited a swinger's club.

Sheridan, who once led the Scottish Socialist Party, now faces a prison term when he is sentenced in January.

During the trial, Hugh Kerr, press officer for Sheridan's Solidarity party, suggested from his own freedom of information requests that upwards of £1.5m had been spent on the police investigation, with the trial costing, he believed, an estimated £2m or £3m.

A police spokeswoman said: "This was a complex investigation spanning four years, and there is no doubt that the complexity and length of the inquiry has had a significant cost implication for Lothian and Borders Police.

"Nevertheless, the force received a direct instruction to investigate by the Crown, and we have a duty to investigate all allegations of criminal misconduct in order to ensure that the ends of justice are met."

The force said none of the witnesses lived within Lothians and the Borders, causing officers to travel throughout the UK and to Ireland, Denmark and the Channel Islands.

Link: Scotsman.com

Vendetta against Tommy Sheridan results in "guilty" verdict

Vendetta against Tommy Sheridan results in "guilty" verdict - Socialist Party Scotland.

“I have fought the power of News International all my political life and I make no apologies for taking on the might of Rupert Murdoch. Several million pounds of public money has been spent investigating myself and my wife. Isn’t it about time that similar resources were devoted to investigate the activities of the News of the World.” Tommy Sheridan

After a12 week trial on charges of perjury – the longest and most expensive case of its kind in Scotland – Tommy Sheridan has been found guilty by a jury on a majority verdict. He will be sentenced in late January.

This outcome represents a blow to Tommy Sheridan, his family, friends and comrades. But it will also be widely regarded as a politically driven prosecution achieved through an unprecedented vendetta by the state against Scotland’s best-known socialist. As such it will provoke anger among many genuine socialists, trade unionists and working class people here in Scotland and internationally.

Tommy Sheridan may have been found “guilty” in a capitalist court of law. But for socialists he is innocent of any crime against the interests of the working class. This prosecution has only been achieved through an unholy alliance of the might of News International, the capitalist legal establishment, the police and the leadership of the SSP. Moreover, many will contrast the treatment of Tommy Sheridan with the way that the prosecutors and the police have allowed Andy Coulson and the News of the World to avoid charges over widespread illegal phone hacking.

Although this verdict will be celebrated in the plush offices of News International, it will prove to be an empty victory. It will neither defeat Tommy Sheridan as an individual, nor the determination of the new generation of workers’ and young people from looking towards socialist ideas in the coming period.

This was a trial through which the rich and powerful enemies of the working class and socialism saw the opportunity to inflict a defeat on an individual who has been a thorn in the flesh of the capitalist establishment for over 20 years.

Tommy Sheridan is Scotland’s most high profile socialist. He was a leader of the mass campaign that defeated Thatcher’s poll tax in the late 1980’s and early ‘90’s. As an elected socialist MSP for eight years, he fought for the interests of the working class and lived on a workers wage and donated the rest of his salary back to the socialist movement.

The verdict follows four years of a thinly disguised vendetta against Tommy Sheridan, Gail Sheridan and other members of Solidarity by the police and the legal establishment. The perjury investigation came after Tommy Sheridan had won a famous civil defamation victory over Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper in 2006.

After calls for a perjury inquiry by the judge in the 2006 case, the leaders of the Scottish Socialist Party, who were applauded by the Sun and the News of the World, handed in so-called minutes of a party meeting to the police in August 2006. An SSP member, George McNeilage, who was very close to the party leadership, sold a “video” to the NotW for £200,000 that was designed to implicate Tommy Sheridan in perjury. McNeilage claimed he sold the video to assist the SSP leaders. We would like to know how much of that £200,000 went to the SSP?

The SSP have attempted to justify their actions by claiming they were trying to "save the party" and on a desire to "tell the truth." And yet it was the actions of the SSP leaders who, rather than welcome the defamation victory in 2006 as a defeat for the News of the World, threw themselves into the arms of the enemies of socialism to get Tommy Sheirdan.

Police investigation

Their actions triggered a perjury inquiry for the first time ever following a civil case in Scotland. More than £2 million of public money was spent by the police which usurped tens of thousands of hours of police time.

During the police investigation Tommy and Gail’s house was raided by a dozen officers who were searching for evidence – traumatising their two-year old daughter. Tommy Sheridan was arrested in a media-staged police action outside his place of work and charged with perjury.

Gail Sheridan was suspended from work for 5 months after police tipped off her employer, BA, that miniatures, that they claimed she may have stolen, had been found in her house during the police raid. She was cleared of all these allegations. To add insult to injury, when being interrogated by police, Gail was accused of acting “like an IRA terrorist” because she refused to answer police questions.

During the trial Tommy Sheridan accused Lothian and Borders police and the Scottish Crown office of carrying out a “persecution not a prosecution”. And all the evidence points to a planned and orchestrated campaign against the Sheridan’s that amounts to an abuse of power by the police.

It also emerged during the trial that the News of the World had paid out huge sums of money to various witnesses for their stories, including the huge £200,000 paid for the “video”.

Gail Sheridan was also charged with perjury. But after 44 days of a trial, during which the prosecution did not bring forward a single scrap of evidence, all charges were propped against her. It’s clear that she was only charged in the first place to increase the psychological and emotional pressure on the Sheridan’s.

Of the 42 prosecution witnesses, 24 were members of the SSP, including 16 of the original Executive Committee who gave evidence against him in the 2006 defamation action. Without the SSP there was little possibility of a prosecution being achieved. Their central role in this vendetta against Tommy Sheridan, alongside that of the police and the legal establishment, will condemn them forever in the eyes of genuine socialists and class-conscious workers.

Socialist Party Scotland has supported Tommy Sheridan over the last six years in his battle against those powerful forces ranged against him. We will continue to give our full support to Tommy Sheridan, Gail his family, friends and comrades in the continuing battles that lie ahead.

Link: Socialist Party Scotland

Tommy Sheridan - targeted because he is a socialist

Tommy Sheridan - targeted because he is a socialist - Socialist Worker.

Socialist Worker is appalled that an alliance of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World and the police has secured a perjury verdict against socialist Tommy Sheridan.

Those who gave evidence against him should reflect that only the rich and the powerful will rejoice when, as is very likely, Tommy goes to jail.

The blog which has produced excellent reports on the case tells how, "At 3.40pm today the jury returned to the court and gave their verdict. A hushed court heard the jury's spokesperson declare that on a majority, the verdict was one of guilty on the charge of perjury.

"The Clerk of the court then asked if there were any parts of the indictment the jury wished to delete. The court was told that the jury wished to remove the parts of the charge relating to Anvar Khan and part of the charge that had said Sheridan had a sexual relationship with Katrine Trolle.

"The court then heard from the Advocate Depute who informed the judge of Tommy Sheridan's 'criminal record', which he said were charges relating to 'protest activities'. The judge Lord Bracadale then asked Tommy Sheridan to rise and informed him that he would continue to grant him bail but when he returned for sentencing, on 26 January 2011 Sheridan should 'expect to be sentenced to prison'."

Tommy's real crime was to be a principled socialist and then to win a libel case against the Murdoch press.

That is why he was singled out for a perjury case, an extraordinarily unusual procedure.

Tommy was one of the foremost leaders of the great anti-poll tax movement during Margaret Thatcher’s Tory regime.

He was jailed for his actions, but still managed to be elected a councillor. Later he was voted in as a socialist Member of the Scottish Parliament.

The case that concluded today dates back to 2004, when Andy Coulson, now David Cameron’s media chief, was editor of the News of the World. The newspaper, one of whose journalists has been jailed for illegally tapping phones, ran a story about Sheridan’s private life.

Sheridan sued the paper for libel and, in August 2006, he was awarded damages of £200,000.

News International responded with fury. It demanded that Sheridan be hounded down for daring to fight back.

The Lothian and Borders police launched a major investigation that cost over £2 million.

Mow Sheridan is found guilty but Coulson, who gave evidence in the case, escapes without charge

Solidarity, which the SWP supports, has put out the following statement:

"Scotland’s Socialist Movement today reiterates our support for our co-convenor Tommy Sheridan despite the jury’s verdict following the most expensive perjury investigation in Scottish legal history.

"Tommy Sheridan’s only crime has been to speak truth to power for as long as he has been involved in socialist politics.

"For over four long years, Tommy, his wife, their family and other members of Solidarity have found themselves under investigation by the police and the crown office following his libel victory over The News of the World in 2006. During this time and despite the pressure we have found ourselves under, Solidarity as a party has remained united and committed to raising socialist arguments and campaigning on the issues that matter to ordinary people.

"We will enter 2011 determined to campaign and fight with renewed vigour against the public sector cuts and austerity measures introduced by a class of politicians determined to make ordinary people pay the price for the bailout of the banks.We will continue to oppose illegal wars, campaign for justice for the Palestinians, support asylum seekers and stand shoulder to shoulder with trade unionists and communities fighting back against the cuts.

"We will demonstrate SOLIDARITY WITH those fighting against low pay and oppression. SOLIDARITY AGAINST poverty and discrimination in all its forms. SOLIDARITY FOR an independent socialist nuclear free Scotland.

"Between 1999 and 2007, Tommy Sheridan was a fantastic advocate on behalf of the poor, the disadvantaged, the vulnerable and the working class of Scotland as an MSP in the Holyrood Parliament.

"During this time he had an unparalleled record in raising the issues that matter most in an effective and mature manner.

"Tommy took only the average wage of a skilled worker, donating the rest back to the socialist movement and worked tirelessly to build the socialist cause. He is a working class fighter who has waged war on poverty and injustice where ever he has found it.

"We in Solidarity are proud to call ourselves comrades and friends of Tommy Sheridan."

For full coverage of the trial go to http://sheridantrial.blogspot.com

© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.

Link: Socialist Worker

Britain assured US its interests would be protected in Iraq war inquiry

Britain assured US its interests would be protected in Iraq war inquiry by Robert Stevens from World Socialist Web Site.

Among the first US State Department documents released by WikiLeaks were cables sent from the US Embassy in London and dated September 22, 2009. One of these reveals that the British government informed a US official it had “put measures in place” to protect American interests in advance of the Chilcot Inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war.

The cables, marked secret and classified, were first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

The assurance was made to US Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher by Jon Day, the director general for security policy of the British Ministry of Defence. The cable reads: “Day also promised that the UK had ‘put measures in place to protect your interests’ during the UK inquiry into the causes of the Iraq war.”

The discussion took place at one of several meetings Tauscher held with British defence officials, diplomats and the Labour government’s then-foreign secretary, David Miliband.

The meeting between Tauscher and Day was held some two months before the formal opening of the inquiry on November 24, 2009. Its convening had been announced by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown five months earlier. The inquiry is ongoing, though it has not held public hearings for months.

Commenting on the cable, the Guardian speculated as to what the “measures put in place” may have been. It wrote: “No American officials were called to give evidence in public, and evidence from US officials was heard in private during visits by inquiry members to the US. The inquiry was also refused permission to publish letters between George Bush and Tony Blair written in 2002 in the run-up to the war, even though they were referred to in evidence.”

Whilst the exact nature of the measures is unknown, the cable underscores the fraudulent character of the inquiry, headed by Sir John Chilcot, a former top civil servant who has been described as a “safe pair of hands” for the political establishment.

The personnel on the inquiry committee were all hand-picked by Brown and include two people, Sir Lawrence Freedman and Sir Martin Gilbert, who are on record as supporting the war.

The inquiry’s remit extends only to establishing the “lessons that can be learned” from the Iraq war, and those testifying were assured beforehand that that no prosecutions or legal proceedings would arise from their appearances.

The cable on British assurances to the US on the inquiry also states: “He [Day] noted that Iraq seems no longer to be a major issue in the US, but he said it would become a big issue—a 'feeding frenzy'—in the UK 'when the inquiry takes off’.”

Along with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, all the major British figures involved in the planning and conduct of the war have now appeared. These include Brown; the former foreign secretary, Jack Straw; then-Defence Minister Geoff Hoon; Blair’s director of communications, Alastair Campbell; and former UK Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock. Blair and Straw have been re-called to appear in the New Year.

Whilst millions of people in Britain were supportive of Blair and his co-conspirators being summoned for questioning, they have faced hardly a single probing question from the inquiry team.

Blair and the rest have used the Chilcot Inquiry as a forum to defend the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. Blair even used his appearance to draw a comparison between Iraq and the danger supposedly posed by Iran, stating that there were “very similar issues” involved.

Chilcot remarked in closing the first part of the inquiry on July 30 that it must “identify lessons for British governments facing critical decisions or operations overseas of a similar kind in the future” (emphasis added).

Link: Britain’s Chilcot inquiry: A whitewash of war crimes and Iraq war
Link: World Socialist Web Site

WikiLeaks: Swedish government 'hid' anti-terror operations with America from Parliament

WikiLeaks: Swedish government 'hid' anti-terror operations with America from Parliament by Andrew Hough, and Christopher Hope in the Telegraph.

The Swedish government asked American officials to keep intelligence-gathering “informal” to help avoid Parliamentary scrutiny, American diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show.

The secret cables, seen by The Daily Telegraph, disclose how Swedish officials wanted discussions about anti-terrorism operations kept from public scrutiny.

They describe how officials from the Swedish Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a “strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements” with the American government.

Making the arrangement formal would result in the need for it to be disclosed to Parliament, they said.

They disclose officials’ fear that intense Swedish Parliamentary scrutiny could place “a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism” operations in jeopardy.

Under the heading “teams visits to discuss terrorist screening information exchange with Sweden”, they show Dr Anna-Karin Svensson, Director of the Division for Police Issues, saying the Swedish government would strike controversy if its intelligence methods were disclosed.

The cable claimed that the "current Swedish political climate makes any formal terrorist screening information agreement highly difficult". Swedish citizens are said to place high value on the country’s neutrality.

"The MOJ team expressed their appreciation for the flexibility of the U.S. side in regards to memorialising any agreement," said the cable.

"They expressed a strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements with the U.S., and wondered whether the putative advantages of an HSPD-6 agreement for Sweden would be offset by the risk that these existing informal channels, which cover a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism co-operation, would be scrutinised more intensely by Parliament and perhaps jeopardised.

"Dr. Svensson reiterated MFA concerns about the current political atmosphere in Sweden."

It continued: "She believed that, given Swedish constitutional requirements to present matters of national concern to Parliament and in light of the ongoing controversy over Sweden's recently passed surveillance law, it would be politically impossible for the Minister of Justice to avoid presenting any formal data sharing agreement with the United States to Parliament for review.

"In her opinion, the effect of this public spotlight could also place other existing informal information sharing arrangements at jeopardy."

The publication of the new cables, sent to Washington from the American embassy in Stockholm in 2008, came after Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, was granted bail on Tuesday over sexual assault claims in Sweden.

Despite a judge ordering his release with strict conditions and £200,000 guarantee from high profile supporters, the Swedish authorities appealed, meaning the 39 year-old remains behind bars.

Wikileaks claimed the new cables, which discuss terrorist screening programs, added weight to suggestions that Sweden and America were engaged in “back room deals”.

Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s lawyer, has claimed his client was facing a “show trial” and his case was politically motivated. The Swedish government denies the claims.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, a Wikileaks spokesman, said that the website was “concerned about political influence on the prosecution of Julian Assange”.

“The new revelations contained in the Swedish cables … shed some light on the ferocity of the Swedish prosecutorial process in this case,” he said.

“The prosecutor has said there is ‘no condition’ for bail that will satisfy them.”

Link: The Telegraph

Gail Sheridan Acqitted by Jim Monaghan

Gail Sheridan Acqitted by Jim Monaghan (reposted from the Socialist Unity blog).

"When Advocate Depute Alex Prentice decared yesterday that it was no longer in the public interest to pursue charges of perjury against Gail Sheridan, many people must have been wondering what had happened between yesterday and today that had changed the public interest. Thr truth is that nothing changed. The Crown launched a perjury investigation in October 2006 following the publication of the ‘McNeilage Tape’, Gail Sheridan was charged with perjury in February 2008. Between then and now, despite an expensive and extensive police investigation and an 11-week criminal trial, nothing has been offered in evidence for these charges. It is not in the public interest now, because it never was in the public interest.

We have heard in court how Gail faced a torrid interrogation by police. Despite exercising her right not to comment, she was shown the NotW stories about her husband, stories that the Crown no longer appear to believe, she had her rosary beads confiscated when she held them for comfort and was accused of behaving like an IRA terrorist. Her elderly father was also arrested and faced with 6 hours of listening to graphic stories and accusations about his son-in-law and daughter.

Her home was raided by police, with bags of evidence taken away including a new Christmas party frock for her daughter, still in it’s bag with a receipt. This was supposedly a reasonable item to take in evidence, an unworn piece of clothing belonging to child who was unborn at the time the allegations took place.

During that search police were also looking for evidence relating to an allegation of theft from her workplace - British Airways at Glasgow Airport. A collection of airline minature bottles, from many airlines across the world built up over decades of her work, was taken as evidence of this. She was then charged with theft resulting in her being suspended from work pending an investigation. The charges were dropped before the workplace investigation re-instated her.

The striking thing about that action was that Lothian and Borders police did not pass on this allegation to Strathclyde Police, who have jurisdiction over crime in Glasgow. Edinburgh police and an Edinburgh fiscal ruled on these charges that had taken place in Glasgow. We can only assume that they considered the alleged theft to be part of their perjury investigation.

In court she has faced personal attacks from witnesses in the stand, accusing her of being a weak woman, ”dragged” into this case by her husband.

The fact is that the theft charges, the dramatic raid, the anti-catholic abuse in the police station, the perjury charges, her trial, were all part of a very expensive tactic to intimidate and threaten Gail Sheridan in the hope she would “crack”.

The truth is, Gail Sheridan is a strong woman, she has faced pressure constantly and is used to standing up and fighting back. The initmidation didnt work, she didnt crack, she didnt back down, she faced the charges, head held high, and beat them.

Every true socialist will be celebrating her acquittal yesterday, as will anyone who has watched in horror as money and resources have been wasted on trying, unsuccesfully, to intimidate her. This cash and resources could have been used to help women in the criminal justice system, that would have been more in the public interest than what we have seen over the last 3 years.

The question is whether this was a prosecution or a persecution. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions".

Picture: heraldscotland

Link: Joy for Sheridans as Gail is cleared
Link: Defend Tommy Sheridan

Phone-hacking inquiry left a mountain of evidence unexplored - Nick Davies

George Galloway is one of nearly 200 celebrities who have asked Scotland Yard if they have evidence that their voicemail was intercepted.

Phone-hacking inquiry left a mountain of evidence unexplored - Nick Davies - The Guardian.

Here's the riddle. If the Guardian, the New York Times and Channel 4's Dispatches can all find numerous journalists who worked at the News of the World who without exception insist that the newspaper routinely used private investigators to gather information by illegal means, why can't Scotland Yard find a single one who will tell them the story?

In their original inquiry into the phone-hacking affair, in 2006, detectives arrested the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, and charged him with listening to messages on the royal household's mobile phones. Goodman refused to answer questions.

Scotland Yard then interviewed not one single other journalist, editor or manager from the paper. Detectives took this decision despite holding evidence that – we now know – clearly identified other News of the World journalists who were involved in handling illegally intercepted voicemail.

In their recent inquiry, which ended fruitlessly last week, they attempted to interview only three journalists, all of whom were identified for them by news organisations.

They approached those three not as witnesses but as suspects, warning them that anything they said could be used to prosecute them: two gave interviews in which they declined to answer questions; the third challenged them to arrest him in handcuffs, and so they never even spoke to him.

Scotland Yard appears to be playing a dangerous game. The latest inquiry was the third time police have looked at the phone-hacking saga and the third time they have come up empty: neither the prime minister's media adviser and former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, nor anybody else from the paper has any case to answer, they say.

The police will say they are playing by the rules. The danger is that some of the public figures who believe their voicemail was intercepted will bring out the evidence that police have failed to find, in which case Scotland Yard is going to be accused of being involved in a cover-up. A kind of do-it-yourself policing is emerging.

These public figures span a spectrum from the most powerful in the land – Tony Blair and his family, Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah, through to global celebrities such as Sienna Miller, to classic tabloid targets including the late Jade Goody's trustees.

Some have been told that police do have evidence that Mulcaire was targeting them, although Scotland Yard refuse to reveal it without a court order. Some have been told there is no evidence about them. Some have complained that they have received misleading answers. And several dozen of them have recently received letters admitting that they may have been misinformed.

A growing number is now on the way to court. And there is the real danger.

This whole affair broke open last year because one of the few victims named in court, Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association, sued the News of the World. The judge ordered police to hand over relevant evidence, which implicated three journalists, and the paper paid £1m to Taylor and two others on condition that they kept it quiet. Which they did – until the Guardian revealed the secret settlement last year.

Now, more and more public figures are following Gordon Taylor to court, where they will ask judges to order disclosure of relevant material from two caches of evidence, which police have been sitting on for more than four years. The first cache is the data they gathered from phone companies in the first six months of their inquiry, in 2006. It was this data which enabled them to tell the Crown Prosecution Service at the time that "a vast number of unique voicemail numbers belonging to high-profile individuals have been identified as being accessed without authority". The CPS said this revealed "a vast array of offending behaviour".

Police then arrested Goodman and Mulcaire, at which point, from the investigator, they obtained their second cache of evidence: a mass of computer records, hand-written notes, audio tapes, including 3,000 mobile phone numbers, as well as invoices on which Mulcaire had identified the public figures he was targeting.

The original investigation failed to pursue the "vast array of offending" revealed by the phone data and simply filed the cache of material seized from Mulcaire without even searching it.

When the Guardian revived the story last year, an assistant commissioner, John Yates, spent less than 24 hours "establishing the facts" of the case and announced his conclusion without knowing the contents of the seized material. The most recent inquiry, which ended last week, was tasked to consider only "new" evidence and so once again ignored the material which the police have held for more than four years.

Quite why Scotland Yard should behave like this remains unproved – another riddle waiting to be solved.

Link: The Guardian

LIAR LIAR - ON SALE FROM TODAY

Captain SKA - Liar Liar.
Forget X- Factor, make this the Cristmas NO1!!
Proceeds from sale to: Crisis, Disability Alliance, FalseEconomy and Women’s Health Matters.

More details: Click here
Link: Captain SKA - Liar Liar on YouTube

WikiLeaks Cables Show Deeper U.S. Military Role in Muslim World

WikiLeaks Cables Show Deeper U.S. Military Role in Muslim World.

From the Miami Herald via Information Clearing House.

From the Saudi-Yemen border to lawless Somalia and the north-central African desert, the U.S. military is more engaged in armed conflicts in the Muslim world than the U.S. government openly acknowledges, according to cables released by the WikiLeaks website.

U.S. officials have struck relationships with regimes that generally aren't considered allies in the war against terrorism, and while the cables show U.S. diplomats admonishing the regimes to respect the laws of war, they also underscore the perils of using advanced military technologies in complex, remote battlefields with sometimes shifty friends.

Cables released this week indicate that the United States:

-Provided Saudi Arabia with satellite imagery to help direct airstrikes against Shiite rebels after earlier strikes resulted in civilian casualties.

-Collaborated with Algerian forces in 2006 and 2007 to capture militants allegedly bound for Iraq and, more recently, obtained permission to fly U.S. surveillance planes through Algerian airspace to hunt suspected al-Qaida members.

-Killed a militant Islamist leader in a 2008 airstrike in Somalia and, later, fielded requests from Somali officials to "take out" more suspected militants.

Experts said that the revelations of secretive American operations in Muslim countries could offer fodder to Islamist militants who accuse the United States of aggression against Muslims and of siding with authoritarian and unpopular regimes.

"This kind of feeds the al-Qaida narrative, that we're doing it everywhere," said Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington and a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration.

The Pentagon hasn't acknowledged its role in Saudi Arabia's sporadic fight against a Yemeni Shiite group known as the Houthi.

But a cable from the U.S. embassy in Riyadh says that in February, a senior Saudi defense official asked the U.S. for satellite maps of its border with Yemen to help the underequipped Saudi air force target the rebels, and the U.S. ambassador, James B. Smith, agreed.

A previous Saudi airstrike had hit a medical clinic, while another bombing run turned back when pilots learned that the target - selected by the Yemeni government - wasn't a rebel site but instead the headquarters of a political opponent of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The strikes "were necessarily being conducted without the desired degree of precision," said the Saudi official, Prince Khaled bin Sultan. When Smith produced a satellite image of the bomb-damaged clinic, bin Sultan suggested that his air force needed more advanced aircraft.

"If we had the Predator, maybe we would not have this problem," he said, referring to a drone aircraft the U.S. has used extensively in strikes on suspected terrorists in Pakistan and elsewhere.

The cable said that Smith agreed to furnish the Saudis with the satellite imagery because, while the Houthi clashes appeared to be dying down, the imagery would help Saudi forces keep a better eye on suspected al-Qaida activity in that area.

In the meeting, however, bin Sultan said that the more immediate priority for his government was reaching a cease-fire with Yemen and the Houthi.

"Then," the prince said, "we can concentrate on al-Qaida."

Peter Singer, the director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington, said the exchange illustrates the dangers of U.S. forces relying on local allies who have other objectives.

"There are no guarantees that our ally might not also use the tools against another of their enemies - indeed, they would be almost remiss not to," Singer said. "The end result is that you may get the action you may have wanted, but you also incur all sorts of unexpected side effects, including in these cases being drawn into local disputes that aren't fully in our strategic interests."

Cables also show that the U.S. military has established a partnership with Algeria to combat al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the terrorist organization's most fearsome franchises.

In February 2008, U.S. officials in Algiers reported that they'd worked with Algerian military intelligence - a "prickly, paranoid group," according to a cable - to root out networks funneling dozens of militants to Iraq. However, the cable noted that Algerian authorities "do not like to discuss our cooperation" publicly, and that while the FBI had opened an office at the U.S. Embassy, "the Algerians are not rushing to cooperate."

Late last year, U.S. officials asked - and promptly received - permission to fly EP-3 surveillance aircraft through Algerian airspace to hunt militants. However, two months earlier, senior Algerian defense officials complained to a visiting U.S. diplomat that the U.S. military hadn't shared information from previous surveillance flights.

In Somalia, the Pentagon acknowledged at the time that a 2008 U.S. airstrike killed Aden Hashi Ayro, an Afghanistan-trained jihadist who U.S. officials thought was al-Qaida's "point man" in the East African nation. It remained unclear, however, whether the U.S. military was coordinating with Somalia's weak and unpopular transitional government, which has been battling al-Shabaab, the Islamist militia that Ayro led, since 2007.

A May 2009 account of a meeting between U.S. officials and the Somali prime minister didn't specifically refer to the Ayro strike, but it said that the Somali government thought such strikes were "necessary" and discussed a phone call two weeks earlier in which the country's prime minister had asked the U.S. to "take out" insurgents that Somali officials had learned were meeting in a remote southern town.

The cable was the result of a brief meeting between U.S. officials from the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Somali prime minister, Omar Sharmarke, who'd stopped over at Nairobi's airport on his way from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, to a meeting in Libya. The U.S. has no diplomats in Somalia.

During the meeting, Sharmarke mentioned that his May 16 phone call to U.S. military officials in Kenya asking for actions against the militants had been made with the consent of Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif.

Such strikes had angered the Somali population previously, however, and U.S. officials asked Sharmarke whether his government could withstand fallout from additional strikes "and their potential collateral damage."

The prime minister, the cable recounted, "without hesitation, said 'Yes.'

Link: Information Clearing House

Julian Assange accuser may have ceased co-operating - now in the Palestinian Territories

Julian Assange accuser may have ceased co-operating - now in the Palestinian Territories.

Its gets stranger by the day but just remember Julian Assange is in a UK jail without bail for something that NO charges have been laid!!

From Crikey.com.au:

Anna Ardin, one of the two complainants in the rape and sexual assault case against WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, has left Sweden, and may have ceased actively co-operating with the Swedish prosecution service and her own lawyer, sources in Sweden told Crikey today.

The move comes amid a growing campaign by leading Western feminists to question the investigation, and renewed confusion as to whether Sweden has actually issued charges against Assange. Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf, and the European group Women Against Rape, have all made statements questioning the nature and purpose of the prosecution.

Ardin, who also goes by the name Bernardin, has moved to the West Bank in the Palestinian Territories, as part of a Christian outreach group, aimed at bringing reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. She has moved to the small town of Yanoun, which sits close to Israel’s security/sequestration wall. Yanoun is constantly besieged by fundamentalist Jewish settlers, and international groups have frequently stationed themselves there.

Attempts by Crikey to contact Ardin by phone, fax, email and twitter were unsuccessful today.

Ardin’s blog has restarted after a fortnight hiatus, and her twitter feed has restarted after a two-month break. The twitter feed appears to be commenting on her ongoing profile in the media with the latest entry reading: “CIA agent, rabid feminist / Muslim lover, a Christian fundamentalist, frigid & fatally in love with a man, can you be all that at the same time …”

The previous tweet appears to extend support to WikiLeaks, after financial agencies withdrew their services, reading “Mastercard, Visa and Paypal — hit it, now!”*

One source from Ardin’s old university of Uppsala reported rumours that she had stopped co-operating with the prosecution service several weeks ago, and that this was part of the reason for the long delay in proceeding with charges — and what still appears to be an absence of charges.

News of Ardin/Bernardin’s departure comes as reports circulate of Ardin’s connection to the right-wing Cuban exile community in Miami, something that Crikey readers learnt of months ago. The reports have helped fuel wilder conspiracy theories about the nature of Ardin’s involvement with WikiLeaks and Assange.

A former politics student who had done internships at Sweden’s DC embassy, Ardin completed her thesis on Cuban political opposition groups, many of whom have involvement — and funding — from the US interests section, the only US diplomatic representation in Cuba. Ardin initially began her research in Havana and left after being advised that her position was no longer safe. She completed the research in Miami.

However, it seems more likely that the Cuban episode is part of the same political nomadism that led her to WikiLeaks. An office holder with the Social Democratic party’s Christian “brotherhood” faction, Ardin is active in a range of causes from Latin America to animal liberation.

Ardin’s move and confusion over her involvement and the real status of the charges against Assange come as the campaign questioning the charges against him has come to include a number of leading feminist activists. Naomi Klein tweeted that:

“R-pe is being used in the #Assange prosecution in the same way that women’s freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up! #wikilieaks”

While in The Huffington Post, Naomi Wolf posted a (quite funny) article asking Interpol to apprehend every date she’s had who turned out to be a narcissistic jerk.

In The Guardian Karin Axelsson of Women Against R-pe questioned why Assange’s case was being pursued more assiduously than cases of r-pe judged more serious (Sweden has three degrees of severity for r-pe charges).

These moves are evidence of the situation your correspondent suggested in Crikey yesterday — that the Assange case is proving to be the final process by which the second-wave feminist coalition formed in the late 1960s splits substantially, with feminists with differing attitude to Western state power finding themselves on different sides of the debate.

Indeed, it puts one in the unusual position of saying that commentators such as Wolf are being too anti-complainant in their construction of the charges as nothing other than a couple of bad dates. It’s a strange world, and getting stranger.

The lawyer for Ardin and Wilen, the two complainants, has hit back at attacks and criticism of his clients, saying that they had been put on trial and effectively assaulted twice. He claimed to be in daily contact with the women, which suggests that he has a better reception to Yanoun than many of its inhabitants have to the outside world.

Even if the case comes to trial, the prospects of conviction look slim. Crikey asked Flinders University s-x crime law expert Dr Mary Heath to go over the charges (which may still be accusations at this stage) as they were relayed in Assange’s extradition bail hearing, and she made the following comments:

“Practically speaking, I would not like the chances of the prosecutor on charge 3 — pressing his erect p-nis into the complainant’s back … legally speaking I would have to suggest the chances of conviction would be slim for any Australian offence where both accused were adults. Proving non consent might be difficult but proving awareness of non consent would be even harder.

“Charges 1 and 2 (holding partner down, and unsafe s-x despite earlier expressed opposition to such) involve contexts where there would be room for defence argument about consent. On charge 1, when is one person ‘holding down’ another person lying beneath them, and when are they simply having consensual s-x in a position involving one person being on top of the other person? Is this force or just rough but consensual (compared to cases I’ve read, the allegation would hardly count as rough).

“On charge 2, prior unwillingness is not enough, the complainant must not be consenting and the accused must be aware of this ‘at the time of int-rcourse’. Did complainant one change her mind? Did Assange believe she changed her mind, and perhaps on reasonable grounds the charge does not disclose?

“On charge 4 (s-x while complainant was sleeping), recent experience in South Australia suggests this also could be difficult to prove if there was any kind of s-xual interaction prior to the complainant falling asleep, which might give the defence a plausible argument that belief in consent was present. I was deeply unimpressed by the level of protection the courts (let alone public attitudes) offered to people who are asleep or unconscious due to drugs/alcohol.

“… The one thing that is clearer, perhaps, is that the charges may turn on withdrawal of consent once a s-xual act had commenced. The law of almost every jurisdiction in Australia would recognise withdrawal of consent after a s-xual act commenced as rendering that s-xual act non consensual (and therefore r-pe). As for proving it … I reiterate what I said about proof previously.”

The Guardian reports that former Crown Prosecution Service extradition expert Raj Joshi said that extradition was unlikely:

“On what we know so far, it is going to be very difficult to extradite. The judge has to be satisfied that the conduct equals an extraditable offence and that there are no legal bars to extradition.

“Assange’s team will argue, how can the conduct equal an extraditable offence if the [Swedish] prosecutor doesn’t think there is enough evidence to charge, and still has not charged.”

This has added to speculation that the Swedish moves, which have coincided with the release of the Cablegate stories, are politically motivated as stalling tactics, allowing Assange to be detained while the US “prepares an extradition/rendition request”, according to Assange’s UK lawyer Mark Stephens.

* I might have that completely wrong. The Swedish is “Mastercard, Visa och paypal — skärp er, nu!” I’m happy to be corrected.

See also: Informal discussions have already been held between US and Swedish officials about the possibility of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being delivered into US custody, according to diplomatic sources.

Link: Crikey.com.au