There can surely be a surprise when the next three to four weeks of hearings in the extradition case of Julian Assange at Old Bailey are completed. There is still every possibility that when the last word is said in court, Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser will decide that the United States has not made its case and that Assange will not be sent to stand trial in Alexandria, Virginia.
But judging from the first week of hearings in February at Woolwich Crown Court, all signs point to a decision already having been made to extradite Assange, and that the next three to four weeks will be simply justice going through the motions to make it appear that the WikiLeaks publisher is getting a fair trial. There is a name for such a thing:
Is there any better way to describe what has been happening to Assange than the above definition?"A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt, and/or innocence, of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so they will serve as both an impressive example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors." (Wikipedia)
Comment: What kind of court case prohibits the accused from having access to one's lawyers?! And yet, that's exactly what's happening: Assange's US lawyer goes into some detail about how the case is being handled in this interview: