Observations on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s failure to overturn the warrant for his arrest
Stuck with a cat adorned with a tie and visited, presumably for intimate relations, regularly by Pamela Assange, Julian Assange had hoped a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday would result in him treading the pavements of Knightsbridge for the first time since August 2012.
Sadly for him, but completely correctly, Senior District Judge (The Chief Magistrate) Emma Arbuthnot – a heroine of decency who sent down Viscount St Davids in July 2017 – Assange’s feeble excuses that he was not an absconder from bail were rejected. In her ruling, Lady Arbuthnot remarked: “[There is] no reasonable cause [to lift a] warrant that is still valid.” She added:
“Many authorities underline the importance of a defendant attending court when bailed to do so and they describe the way that the administration of justice can be undermined by defendants who fail to attend.”
Aside from bizarrely quoting the case of his fellow evader of the law, the filmmaker and fugitive from the US criminal justice system Roman Polanski, as part of his attempt to ‘break out,’ Assange garnered support from his ragbag of followers on Twitter after the hearing. Amusingly, however, as the world’s media looked on, a courier van advertising Jeremy Clarkson’s Amazon Original series turned up alongside the world’s media at the Ecuadorian Embassy in Knightsbridge. One passerby remarked: “We all know who won’t be going on that particular Grand Tour” and pointed towards the window of the building where Mr Assange will continue to remain holed up.
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