National News
8 FEBRUARY 2021
Assange Extradition Put on Pause Frances Howe, LLB Trigger warning: mention of suicide and sexual violence On 4 January 2021, the United States’ request to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the UK was blocked. Judge Vanessa Baraitser dismissed the request at the Old Bailey Crown Court on the basis that Assange’s mental health had deteriorated, putting him at risk of suicide. The US Department of Justice has applied to appeal the decision. Assange was denied bail on 6 January with Judge Baraitser citing his asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy as evidence that Assange may again attempt to abscond from future proceedings. Assange has already been in Belmarsh Prison for 18 months. The US Justice Department formally requested the extradition of Assange in June 2020 following Assange’s detainment by British police forces on 11 April. If the appeal is successful, Assange will face up to 175 years in prison in the
United States for multiple breaches under the Espionage Act of 1917. Assange is accused of publishing 470,000 classified documents pertaining to the US military through Wikileaks. On 4 January 2021, Judge Baraitser told the court that she found that the ‘mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America.’ Judge Baraitser noted the ‘extreme’ US prison conditions as a threat to Assange’s mental health. Judge Baraitser otherwise accepted the allegations by the US Department of Justice against Assange. Assange was arrested in April 2019 after British forces were invited into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he had spent seven years. Assange first sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 following an extradition request from Sweden to face an ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual assault against him. Assange remained in the Embassy until Ecuadorian President, Lenín Moreno, refused to continue to grant him asylum. Assange founded Wikileaks in 2006, wherein thousands of confidential documents have been published, including
information on US involvement in the conflicts Afghanistan and Iraq. The US Department of Justice began criminal investigations into the organisation in 2010. Both Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning have also been accused of committing crimes under the Espionage Act of 1917. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking around 750,000 documents to Wikileaks. Her sentence was commuted by Barack Obama. In 2013 Snowden released documents relating to masssurveillance by the US intelligence authorities. He remains in exile in Russia where he was granted permanent residency in October 2020. Neither Snowden nor Assange were pardoned by Donald Trump upon his departure from office in January of this year despite calls to do so. Snowden pleaded directly to Donald Trump on 3 December 2020 via Twitter saying, ‘Mr. President, if you grant only one act of clemency during your time in office: free Julian Assange. You alone can save his life.’
Death of Mohamud Hassan: Family and Protesters Demand Justice Fakhriya M. Suleiman, MA Global Media and Postnational Communications Following the night Mohamud Mohammed Hassan spent in South Wales Police (SWP) custody on 8 January, he was found dead at his home the next day. Hassan, a 24-year old Black man, was arrested for domestic disturbance but was released without charge. According to Voice Wales, Hassan had told his friend how police ‘beat the s***’ out of him’. Voice Wales also cited a neighbour of Hassan who stated that Hassan’s clothing was ‘bloodstained’ upon his return. While SWP described Hassan's demise as
‘sudden and unexplained’, his family claim he was beaten during his brief incarceration. His aunt, Zainab Hassan, lamented that her nephew returned with ‘lots of wounds on his body and lots of bruises'’ that were not there prior to his arrest. SWP, on the other hand, denies any wrongdoing, citing no evidence of ‘misconduct or excessive force’ used. SWP also confirmed the incident had been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). As of 12 January, the IOPC corroborated SWP's statement, concluding there being no ‘preliminary indication… [of] physical trauma injury… [but] toxicology tests are required’.
24-year old Mohamud Hassan’s death sparked protests in Wales and England. (Credit: Twitter/@ Hashim_PJ)
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In the aftermath of Hassan's death, protesters took to the streets demanding answers and justice for Hassan's family. Protests in Cardiff began on 12 January with hundreds of people at Cardiff Bay Police Station rallying with chants of ‘no justice, no peace’ and picket signs reading ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘stop police brutality’. Protests also erupted in the British capital. 17 January saw five people arrested at Parliament Square for breaching lockdown restrictions while protesting the death of the 24-year old. Somalis across the diaspora also took to Twitter to voice their anger. On Twitter, @AfricanAstro tweeted how this tragic incident highlighted, once again, ‘the reality of how UK law enforcement [has] treated Somalis before’. In his tweet, @AfricanAstro mentioned ‘the ‘Mohamud’ of 1952’. That was in reference to Mahmoud Mattan, a 28-year old Somali sailor wrongfully executed for the murder of Lily Volpert in Cardiff. Harold Cover, the key witness during Mattan's trial, was later revealed to have been paid to give damning evidence against Mattan, leading to his subsequent hanging. It was not until 1998 that the Court of Appeal's Lord Justice Rose declared Mattan's case, and eventually sentencing, ‘demonstrably flawed’ and overturned his conviction. Mattan's gravestone epitaph reads ‘killed by injustice’. BAME Lawyers 4 Justice's vice-chairman, Lee Jasper, has been vocal about Mohamud Mohammed Hassan’s recent death. On his personal blog he penned: ‘[Hassan's] death marks a grim and tragically familiar start for
2021’. On Facebook, Jasper demanded SWP release the police body-cam and CCTV footage recorded at the time of Hassan's arrest and during his detention. He wrote on 16 January that ‘if SWP have nothing to hide, there should be no problem releasing [the footage]’. In a statement on 9 January, a police spokeswoman for SWP stated that they have provided all the relevant CCTV footage and body-worn video to the IOPC for them to undergo their investigation: ‘Therefore, the footage cannot be released by SWP while the IOPC is investigating’. Hassan's cousins, Manal Abdirahman and Ikram Hamud, set up a GoFundMe online fundraiser the day after his passing to ‘raise money for funeral arrangements and legal fees’. Abdirahman and Hamud stressed in their petition that they do not want ‘the eldest son [of their family] to become another statistic’. As of 19 January, donations from the public reached £50,000. Liz Saville Roberts, a member of Wales' Plaid Cymru, tabled a motion in Parliament on 12 January for the House to mourn Hassan's death. Saville Roberts' motion recognises the ‘legitimate concerns arising from evidence that people of black and minority ethnic [background] die at a disproportionately higher rate as a result of the use of force or restraint by police’. The motion goes on to call for ‘institutional change to end racial discrimination within the criminal justice system’. For Zainab Hassan, she and her family ‘will not rest for a second until [they] have justice’.
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