World needs to get behind Assange: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Scott Bennett, a former US army psychological warfare officer in San Francisco, about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been held up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, and has urged British and Swedish authorities to allow him to walk free from the ‘arbitrary detention’.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: From a legal perspective, how is or can the UN panel’s ruling be binding? And in addition what consequences may it have on the fate of Assange’s case?  

Bennett: Well let me just start out by saying this is a great victory for freedom and for the nations of the world to see that they are not under the yoke and enslaved to the United States and its minions, the United Kingdom and Sweden and any other nation that is … paid for by the US Treasury. So this is a great case. This is a great vindication of all nations.

Now the United Nations’ jurisdiction on this matter comes from the agreement that is set down by all nations that sit at the table. When all of the rest of the nations of the world agree that certain groups and studies and areas of formal global policy are being determined by the United Nations, then all countries that sit down and make that agreement are bound to the findings of that body. It is almost like going into the courtroom and you are recognizing the judge and the jurisdiction of the judge and then when she issues a decision you have to abide by that decision. You simply cannot say, ‘Well I do not agree with that decision, so I am not going to go to jail or I am not going to pay the fines’. See how far that gets you. You are going to get killed.

Press TV: You touched a very important point there. If the UN ruling is not taken seriously by the Swedish and the British authorities, I mean what kind of a precedent may it set for similar or even non-similar cases in the future?

Bennett: Well here is what immediately needs to happen and the solution. This needs to be acted on very quickly and that is that Mr. Assange needs to immediately appeal to the Russians and say make me a diplomatic agent, give me diplomatic immunity, send me over a diplomatic passport with a group of your politicians, security intelligence personnel, specifically Spetsnaz, send over a delegation to the Ecuadorian embassy to provide him with this diplomatic immunity cover and get him out of the country, get him over to teach at Moscow  University but give him the diplomatic cover, simultaneously file an appeal in the International Court and the United Nations to say that he is being continuously tortured and imprisoned in direct conflict with the decision that was just made because we know by past episodes of stupidity and blindness and arrogance, the United States and the United Kingdom are both going to disrespect, disregard and not abide by this decision.

So now it becomes a global issue, now all of the nations of the world should say you have to respect that law or else you respect no law and you are a law unto yourself and if you are telling the world that you are a law unto yourself, we are not going to trade with you, we are not going to send people over in any form of tourism, we are not going to look at you, you are now ostracized, you are a plague, you are a leper in the family of nations and that is how serious this is because otherwise you are going to have a rule over the world  by the strongest nations and that is tyranny. That cannot be allowed to stand and the only way to overthrow it is by all of the nations collectively gathering over cases like this.

There is a lot of other people that should be filing cases but Mr. Assange is one of the most public but all the world needs to come around not just because of him, you may not like him, you may not like his hair color, you may not like what he says or what he reports but you cannot imprison the man in a cave with guard dogs surrounding him under these silly charges that were never charges, that were in fact dropped because there was nothing there.

Now I have said and we have said, Bradley Birkenfeld and myself and other who have looked at the terrorist financing elements, we have reported to the United States and the United Kingdom back in August 2012 that WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was very important to the intelligence that revealed terrorist financing was being covered up by the Obama administration, by Hillary Clinton and by several members of the Bush administration. WikiLeaks was essential to that report and the WikiLeaks cables that came out showed all sorts of criminal activities done by the United States, political establishment and the military and the intelligence and we posed that Mr. Assange should be immediately debriefed by Washington congressional investigators and that was covered up, that was hidden, no one wanted to do with anything with that, Bradley Birkenfeld was paid off 104 million dollars to be quiet. I was thrown into prison and kept quiet and fought my way out and I am still in the courts and I am still presenting that WikiLeaks cables is absolutely essential to see some of the terrorist financing that has been going on.

So Mr. Assange is a hero and now the world needs to get behind him, get him out of London, get him over to Russia or get him to Iran or get him to a nation that can provide cover and let him continue to educate the world about the war crimes that we have been seeing for the last 15 years in order to stop future war crimes from unfolding. This is really a chance to put the enemies of freedom and human liberty on the defensive and I hope Russia and Iran will help and get behind Mr. Assange and give him some teaching positions.

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