You're doing exactly what I am talking about.

The actually contents of this article is just Assange's own lawyer complaining that it is difficult to meet with a client who is on remand in a high security prison. As far as I can see the phrase "denied access" is not even used. The only actual quote is "obstructed".

This is not what "UK has denied Assange access to a lawyer" means. You are deliberately using the language of more serious issues in order to confuse people.

I am sure you know full well the meaning of "denied access to a lawyer", it is something that people around the world actually experience regularly. This does not apply to someone who has met regularly with his world class defence team.

Of course, they did not prevent access with merely regulating access in a high security prison. They prevented access to his lawyer by physically restraining and locking up the suspect IN A COURTROOM. And when they did find a VERY inconvenient way to have basic communication, the state immediately dragged the suspect out, without even the judge's permission.

We are NOT talking here about regulating access to a lawyer because of security issues. That is NOT it. They prevented him from seeing a lawyer at all before the case starts, and before he faced the courtroom. This is explicitly forbidden.

And look the question is very simple. The law, both in the UK and the US, so pick whichever one you like, CLEARLY states that

IF anyone in the government physicially prevents contact between a suspect and a lawyer before trial (which means any individual courtroom hearing), the state LOSES the case AND the suspect goes free for whatever crime he was accused.

And let's not pretend this is the only issue. The state denied medical care to a prisoner. The state locked him up in solitary more than is legally allowed. The state denied medical care again, as a punishment. EACH OF THESE will get the suspect to go free, whatever the crime. And the list goes on.

At this point it's painfully obvious: it does not matter, at all, what Assange has done for the prosecution. And because of what the state did to him, it no longer matters for the defense either. This is no longer what is being discussed.

The case is mostly about whether the state gets to do whatever they want, including things defined in the law as torture (e.g. refusing medical care, refusing medical care as a punishment) in order to get a conviction?

The law's answer to this question is VERY clear: NO THEY DON'T, in fact they (the state) should be punished for trying it in the first place. Frankly the laws state the state should be punished for getting into a situation where they're even suspected of doing so. First by being forced to let the suspect go, and there's punishments on top of that (such as getting the individuals involved barred from government service). The judge refuses to acknowledge this, despite accepting that the state did indeed torture him.

Obviously at this point, the position of anyone is clear: we should be cheering for the defense. Unless you want allpowerfull police just beating up people, locking them up for years, for whatever reason they see fit. And your position on what Assange did, does not really matter.

Long, aggressive, and vague comments like this are very difficult to respond to because it's hard to understand what you are actually saying.

> "They prevented him from seeing a lawyer at all before the case starts, and before he faced the courtroom"

What do you mean by this? Are you saying that before his first hearing regarding the US extradition, he had not met with his lawyers at all?

Regarding the rest of your comment, it appears that you think there is some kind of IFTTT list of things that somehow "get the suspect to go free, whatever the crime". That's not how it works. You can have a prosecution stayed as an "abuse of process", but there's no single law covering this, just a patchwork of precedent. The definitive legal textbook on this (Abuse of Process in Criminal Proceedings) was actually co-written by one of Assange's lawyers. If this avenue was open to him they surely would have taken it.

> Long, aggressive, and vague comments like this are very difficult to respond to because it's hard to understand what you are actually saying.

No it's not. It's just hard to argue that the details are wrong that way, despite the original article having no shortage of those details.