AP reports that during a speech in Adelaide, Australia, chairman of the Supreme Court of Sweden Justice Stefan Lindskog supported Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and called the sexual assault allegations against Assange "a mess."
Lindskog praised Assange's actions suggesting that history would view him favorably:
He'll be thought of as a person who made public some pieces of classified information to the benefit of mankind.
Lindskog
understands the basic democratic principle that seems lost on a U.S. Justice Department currently pursuing a record-breaking war on whistleblowers:
It should never be a crime to make known (a) crime of a state
The eloquently expressed principle should be obvious to the self-proclaimed "most transparent administration in history," but whistleblowers who exposed government waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement,and illegality have been criminally prosecuted under the Espionage Act more by the Obama administration than all previous administrations combined.
Currently trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after receiving Asylum, Assange has offered to answer questions about the sexual assault allegations remotely. But, Sweden has refused and continues to seek extradition, likely because the real motivation is to get Assange to the U.S. where there is a confirmed this week ongoing grand jury investigation into Assange and Wikileaks.
According to Lindskog, extraditing Assange to the U.S. would have to overcome the legal hurdle that exempts "military and political" crimes from extradition treaties. Mishandling classified information is generally viewed as a "political" crime, an obstacle U.S. officials ran into when trying to extradite another Espionage Act defendant.
Nonetheless, whistleblower crucifier prosecutor Neil MacBride is doggedly pursuing the investigation into Assange and Wikileaks when he's not busy fighting to compel New York Times reporter Jim Risen to testify about his sources or putting CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou in jail. (Meanwhile, MacBride's name has been floated as a possible new Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) along with two other candidates with leak prosecution baggage.)
The Wikileaks grand jury investigation threatens more than just Assange and Wikileaks - it threatens the First Amendment, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) articulated:
If the mainstream media thought they were protected by the 1st Amendment while WikiLeaks could be prosecuted, they should now be on clear notice that the government makes no such distinction.
If the mainstream media leaves Wikileaks to hang, their own necks are at risk too.
Despite the fact that the U.S. Justice Department and much of the main-stream-media miss the First Amendment implications of criminally prosecuting Assange, one Swedish judge gets it. We can only hope American judges will have as much common sense.
Meanwhile, Bradley Manning supporters will gather tomorrow in Washington, D.C. to hear peace activist Malachy Kilbride and in New York with Icelandic Parliment member and Wikileaks volunteer Birgitta Jonsdottir and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.