The Duran Podcast
ASSANGE'S LAST STAND? - Chris Hedges, Craig Murray & Alexander Mercouris
- Get out your notebook, there's more. (dramatic music) - Is this Asajj's last stand? I'm Joel Oria, the editor-in-chief of Consortium News. - And I'm Melissa Bitboss. - In prison, Wikileaks publisher Julian Asajj's fight continues to stop his extradition to the United States. We've been charged with espionage and computer intrusion for the routine practice of journalism. However, what Asajj revealed is anything but routine. As Mark Summers, one of his barristers who argued in his defense at this week's two-day hearing, told the High Court, there's a nexus between Asajj's publications and his pursuit by the United States. Making that government no better than any authoritarian regime that hunts down a journalist for revealing their secret crimes. - Justices Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp informed the court after 10 hours of hearings over two days that they are reserving their judgment of Asajj's fate for an unspecified future date. A deadline of March 4 was given for final submission of papers. A decision can come anytime after that. Johnson and Sharp are considering whether to allow Asajj to appeal the home secretary's extradition order and various points of law in the magistrate's court decision three years ago. She had ordered Asajj released on health grounds, but on the basis of assurances that it would not mistreat Asajj in the United States, the US won an appeal at the High Court and reversed her decision. The UK Supreme Court then refused to take Asajj's challenge of the legality of these assurances. And last June, a single High Court judge also refuses Asajj's leave to appeal. This week's two-day hearing was an attempt by Asajj to reverse that decision and appeal for the right to appeal as it were. It was a drive-around this week to try to convince the judges that there is enough contested evidence in the case to permit a full-blown appeal. It was possibly Asajj's last stand in Britain to avoid being sent and changed to the United States to face espionage and computer charges, and he could end up with 175-year sentence. There were myriad issues covered in these 10 hours over these two days this week, including why the Home Office has not asked the United States for assurances, it will not seek a death penalty for Asajj. Whether a foreign national can be denied for its amendment protection on US soil, whether Asajj is being extradited for a political offense that is forbidden by British law, and whether Asajj, by practicing routine journalism, was actually a villain trying to get US informants killed and to bring down precious US national security. Joining us from London, where all are, except for Elizabeth, are, well, Craig Murray, we're hoping he's going to join us in a moment of foreign British diplomat with the blower, journalist and friend of Julian Assange. What is right now is Chris Hedges, full of surprise-winning former New York Times correspondent and author and Alexander McCurris, legal analyst and editor of the Duran gentleman, all welcome to the show. I want to get general impressions from all three of you before we get into some of the details of which there are many time permitting. Let me start with you, Chris. You were in the courtroom. We sat next to each other. You had a glass of water poured on you by Claire Dobbins. The prosecutor, you got so close we were, we were sitting right underneath them. We had a good seats 'cause we could actually hear what was going on. We could talk about that later as well, about the restrictions that were put on, covering this case. But Chris, give me your general impressions of what you saw over these two days and where we stand now in this saga. - Well, the argument by the defense, just on legal grounds was incontrovertible. I don't really know how he could be extradited. Of course they pushed the adherence to the Anglo-American extradition treaty. I thought they did a fascinating job of using law and jurisprudence to prove that espionage itself was defined as a political act. I thought that was very stooped. And then once they did that, arguing that because he's charged with espionage, although of course he did not commit espionage, it would be a violation of his rights as someone who's politically persecuted. But the second day for me was the most interesting because the prosecution not only was so weak, and as you correctly said, spent a lot of time, obviously they didn't know much about journalism. Talking about, I mean, there was a quote I put in my story today from Dobbins about how journalists who seek and try to get sources to give material, it's not journalism, it's criminal activity. I mean, this is just staggering having done this for most of my life. So that was the first thing. They would describe routine acts of journalism as criminal offenses. And then they relied very heavily on the affidavit of Gordan-Promberg. And that surprised me because, and I know him, or I don't know him personally, but I know of him because he went after 9/11. And he was one of the major figures prosecuting Palestinian activists and Palestinian charities such as the Holy Land Foundation. And he went after a friend of mine, Dr. Samuel Arian. So that was a trial I followed very closely. He made all sorts of derogatory comments about Muslims. It was just farcical. They didn't have anything on Sammy. And it would, you know, it had kind of echoes of the show trial of Julian Assange. So he, in that, argues that people named and unwritated, Julian didn't redact the documents. It's just factually incorrect. Julian spent weeks with his media partners, The Guardian, The New York Times, were dacking the documents. It was two Guardian reporters later in their book who published The Pasco than another online media organization used to access the unredacted documents. So that's just, that argument struck me, yeah. And then there's been no evidence that any of the names mentioned in the documents, any of those people came to harm, but they were talking about how they had disappeared. And even the judges were very skeptical of that, in fact, asked about it several times. And then the computer hacking charge that Julian had assisted Chelsea Manning, which again was completely debunked, has been completely debunked. And those were the pillars of their case, which are just factually untrue. She was reading, you and I got the Promberg after David afterwards. And she was just reading directly from it. It was remarkable how little work they had done and relying on such a discredited figure. So I walked away from it. And I think that my sense was that the judges realized this. And my sense was that there's probably a possibility that they will grant on some of the accounts and appeal, the death penalty issue was a big one. The defense spent a long time talking about Vault 7. He's not being extradited for the disclosures of Vault 7. These were the CIA hacking tools that our phones and even our cars and everything. And even when they're turned off, can be used as monitoring, recording, listening devices. And there's no question that if he was extradited, that would be added. He was already facing 175 years. And the judges seemed to be cognizant of all that. So those are my general kind of impressions from two days in the courtroom. - Yeah, do you think that this was self-confidence on their part or arrogance, that they were so badly prepared, that there's a cake walk for them. They're gonna just get them eventually. They don't have to bother working very hard. - I don't know. You don't have to do much homework if you're just reading Grumberg. I mean, that's what Dopins was doing. I mean, literally she had it in her hand. So yeah, I was surprised at how weak. It didn't look to me like they'd done much work. Whereas I thought that the defense, Summers and Fitzgerald had worked very, very hard and made very strong points against extradition and had provided legal precedent in order to buttress their arguments. - Very good. Alexander, if you're with us again, thank you. Could you give us your general impressions of what you've learned about this case? - But the first thing to say is that, of course, I wasn't there. So I haven't got the whole atmosphere of the courtroom. But to the extent that I've understood, I've been able to follow what's happened. I've heard, I've heard a detailed accounts of what's happening. This was the first hearing that has happened in the entire Assange proceedings, which bears a certain resemblance to what I would expect of a court hearing to be. In the sense that the lawyers who were representing Assange were allowed to put forward, they're immensely powerful and well argued legal points. The judges seem to be listening carefully to what they were saying. They weren't cutting in. They weren't preventing these points from being developed. And over the course of the second day, the incoherence of the case that the United States and the British authorities have brought against Assange began to be exposed and fall apart with the judges again, seeming much more skeptical about it than they have been at any point. We've seen judges be at any point before. And I'm going to make two short observations. The first is that in a case of this kind, the fact that the judges have reserved judgment that they're going away and they're saying that they're going to think about what they're going to say and that they've asked for further submissions and further comments. That normally in any other case, I would say, is a strong sign that they're going to grant leave because it suggests that they think that there are issues that need to be thought about and thought through and discussed in a case. And if that is so, then the logical thing to do is to grant leave and have those points argued out fully in an appeal. The second point I want to make is that in my opinion, if it's Gerald's did an absolutely brilliant job of focusing on the main and critical issue in this case, which is the inherent political nature of these proceedings. Now, he also provided this long catalog of authorities setting out the fact that one should not extradite people in political cases. That is the long established tradition here in England. It is the tradition under the common law. It is also what the extradition treaty between Britain and the United States says. He was absolutely right in saying it is abusive for the United States to seek to extradite someone in a political case, relying upon a treaty which actually precludes extradition in political cases. And I think he dealt in a masterly way with this absolutely phony argument. I mean, I consider it to be a phony argument that because the law, the subsequent law which was enacted doesn't specifically preclude extradition in political cases. That is in some way allowed so that you can ignore what the extradition treaty itself says. And disregard the long historical legal tradition which exists in this country. And I thought that on every other point as well, when we actually started to look at it, immediately it became clear that the position of the US and British authorities looks flawed at multiple levels. I mean, the denial that this is journalism that pretends that people were put in danger as a result of a sandwiches activities and that kind of thing. And again, people who have been in the courtroom, they say that the judges, for the first time, seem skeptical about some of these points that the prosecution, if I can call them that, were trying to make. However, all of this sounds positive, but we know the reality of this case. We know the history of it. It should never have got to this point at all. The fact that it is a political case is obvious from the first point. The all the points that have been made before by the defense, they've been made in the past. And all sorts of strange and inexplicable legal and procedural moves have been made previously. And that has, I have to say, that makes me very concerned because I can't be sure that what I am seeing, which in any other case would make me confident that we are actually going towards a decision to grant leave, that that will be granted in light of what has happened previously. I want to just finish with one specific point, which demonstrates how the judiciary have got themselves tied into knots over all procedural decisions that they have made in the past. We've discussed many times on consortium use. The extraordinary, the procedurally bizarre decision to accept assurances from the United States government without having a proper hearing on the back end of an appeal brought by the United States against a decision of the judge in the lower court. That appeal being brought on a completely different issue. Note that the United States on that issue, which was the basis of the appeal, lost. The result of that decision to accept the assurances in that way is that the assurances were never examined by the court properly because there was no hearing to review them and to discuss them and to analyze them properly and to see whether they were really strong and that they really covered the situation that has arisen in this case. And over the course of the hearing that we have just had, we already see the problem that in fact the assurances do not cover the very real possibility if Assange goes to the United States that more charges might be brought against him, charges which could potentially give rise to the risk that the death penalty might be ordered against him. Now, had there been a proper hearing discussing the assurances, that problem would have been identified at that hearing and it would have been resolved properly. But both the high court and the Supreme Court look the other way and you can see, I think that the judges in this hearing were troubled and embarrassed by that, but of course, they're now very constrained in what they can do. So, I'm very faintly hopeful, very faintly, but I'm not going to take out the champagne courts, not by any stretch of the imagination. The previous events of this case make me wonder and make the fear that things will not turn out well, but purely on the basis of what I have heard of the legal arguments, of the way they were received, of the response of the judges and of the way the case was conducted, the hearing was conducted. I would say that the last two days have been the best days that Assange has had in any courtroom up to now. - Let me follow that up, Alexander, and thank you for that. Why do you say they're constrained? Who's constraining them and in what way? - Because it's res, because technically, it's res judicata. The high court made the decision to accept the assurances. The Supreme Court at that point should have stepped in. They refused to do so. So, in theory, it is res judicata. Now, we are dealing with very clever people in the high court. If they want to try and find a way round to reopen the assurances, there are potential procedural ways to do it. I'll give one, I'll give one. They can go back to the original judges who made this completely misconceived order and they can come back and say, "Well, we didn't actually consider this possibility "that has arisen now." And maybe with hindsight, we would have ordered things differently and there should be a proper hearing to look at that. That's one thing that might happen. I mean, I've known of cases where that can happen, but we are now looking at extremely unconventional, unorthodox procedural devices to resolve a problem which should never have arisen in the first place. Because how the assurances we argue through properly, we wouldn't be where we are. - Well, even though this sounded like an appeal hearing, it wasn't, it was just an appeal to be able to appeal. So these judges cannot make a decision about anything related to the assurances, can they? - No, that's their constraint. Of course, they can express concerns, but of course, that takes it to the appeal court. - But they can grant him leave to appeal. - They can ground him leave to appeal. - And based on what you heard, you'd think they will. - No, I don't, again, based on what I have heard, I think they should and in any other set of proceedings, I think they would. But based on the previous history, bear in mind, it's absolutely clear to me that what we're seeing in the courtroom, in court five, is only what is going on on the surface. And that is one of the things that's very concerning about this case, all sorts of things are going on all the time that we are only getting glimpses of. But based on the previous history, I can't be confident that they will grant him leave, even though all the indications suggest conventionally that they will. - Just two procedural questions. First of all, these are senior judges, I understand. There's nowhere else for them to go in terms of promotions, pretty much. So they would see some independence, is that right or not? - Not unfortunately, they can be promoted. They can go to the court of appeal, which is not in fact involved, and then they can go to the Supreme Court. But they are judges. Their job is to administer the law. So they shouldn't be allowing these considerations to affect their decisions. - Right. - That's but I'm sorry, sorry. - What has to say? - Two quick procedural questions. There's two judges, I asked you this once before, but a while ago, and I've forgotten the answer. There are two judges, suppose they are split. Does it have to be two new judges or three judges? What happens if they split on them? - Well, the normal course is that it would go with the senior judge, who I believe is-- - The judge? - Yeah. - But having said that, and they're getting worked very hard to make sure that they're not split, because this would be extremely embarrassing and very, very difficult in the case of this gun. I'm confident we will get a single decision. - And if they did grant leave, there would be two other judges. These judges would not appear, they would not be in the-- - One would like-- - Again, in theory, they should not be appearing. But again, we've seen that in the past, in this case, leave has been granted. It was granted in the previous case with the United States, and judges who were involved in making that decision were slotted in to hear the appeal. We'll just have to wait and seek. If he's granted leave to appeal, given the importance of this case, I would have thought that the logical and correct thing to do was to hear the appeal before the Lord Chief Justice. In other words, the Senior Judge of the Queen's Bench Division, with a stronger panel of judges, perhaps, well, certainly three, perhaps even five, so that might be stretching it. And to come to a point which I've made before, why was one of the smallest courtrooms in this particular row chosen? Court five, why not court number one or court number two, which are much bigger courts, given the public interest in this case, why was it confined to this small court? But that's perhaps something we can talk about later. - Maybe they should have it in the bare garden, which is a lot bigger, the bare garden upstairs. Elizabeth. - Yeah, no, that brings me to a point that I wanted to ask you all about, which is just commenting on the lack of transparency, whether it's the technical issues with sound in the courtroom and the people who were shoved off into the annex, trying to listen via video link, or whether it was the internal being barred from listening if they were outside the UK. I mean, it seems like they're very much trying to have these proceedings take place under the cover of secrecy. Can you, maybe Chris, would you like to comment on that? - Well, that's been endemic from the beginning, these technical glitches in which the live feed was silent, 'til they got it up, the acoustics in the annex, who are apparently not good, that's not new. I think it's probably a combination of an antiquated system. I mean, they had microphones hanging from wires in the courtroom, and coupled with the fact that it serves their interests, not to provide links and audio feeds that are reliable. They've run rough shot over the most basic legal norms, starting with the fact that through UC Global, the CIA had access to all of Julian's meetings with his attorneys. I mean, the evisceration of attorney-client privilege to alone should see the case thrown out. The idea that somebody who wasn't a spy or spying and is not American citizen and wasn't even on American soil when they receive the documents is being charged with espionage, I mean, it just goes from there. So I think the egregious violations of judicial procedures and basic law is probably not lost on those who are carrying out this process, and I can see why they particularly wouldn't want it advertised. It's a pretty devastating commentary on the bankruptcy of the British judicial system. - Yeah, and adding to that, we saw that the mainstream press basically came in only to hear the prosecution's arguments. It seemed like, which is very similar to the way that the cable news and corporate media only covered Israel's presentation in the ICJ proceedings as well. Any thoughts on that? - Well, the problem with the mainstream media is they don't understand the case. That serves the interests of the mainstream media. I was seated next to the Guardian correspondent. He's been the legal correspondent for three years, but it's not a case that he knows particularly well. And I mean, I read a lot of the reports and I honestly, you'd have a very hard time figuring out what was happening or why from those reports. And again, that's kind of the way they like it. So, yeah, the media, yeah, I would say, you know, I don't know that they went in there as shills for the prosecution, but they were sending people in there who really didn't understand the case very well. And when you don't understand the case very well and you have a prosecution that is patently lying about charges, you're just going to echo back those charges, which makes everyone happy. The same thing happened with the Chelsea Manning in that the New York Times of the Los Alamos would come on the first day in the last day and I read the reports and they didn't know what they were talking about because they hadn't sat through the case. But they're not gonna get in trouble for that. If they pair it back, if it's that classic, he said, she said, "Form of journalism." You know, maybe he's right and maybe he's wrong and maybe she's right and that's, you know, people will see an event like this and they're just even more confused than they were before they read the article. And that's the problem. - Yeah, and given the fact that all the violence in Gaza right now and all the political fallout that's, you know, the Biden administration is suffering because of that. Do you think that the Biden administration really wants a successful extradition of Assange and having to deal with that right now? - No, and I think part of the entire policy towards Julian has been what Neil Smelzer calls this slow motion execution. Julian's psychological and physical health is precarious. That's by intent. And I know because I covered the imprisonment of Palestinian activists. I spent seven years covering the Middle East for the New York Times. I was Middle East spiritually for the Times. A lot of time in Gaza. So immediately I had all these contacts after 9/11 and that was used to break them. They would use SAM, special administrative measures or put them into MCUs. That social isolation has severe psychological consequences. I covered the case of Fahad Ashmi who was actually extradited from Great Britain and in the court, they were playing recordings. He had been at Brooklyn College of speeches that he gave him in Palestine as if that was the way to incriminate him, which... But by the time he was isolated, I think, for 23 months, by the time he stumbled into the weekly plaid out, which is what they want, by the time he stumbled in the gourmet, hardly knew where he was. So they're using those techniques to break Julian as anyone would get broken. And if they can add on a few more months and not have it interfere with the election, I think, yes, that is beneficial to Biden. He's in a very precarious state given the wholehearted backing of the genocide. Israel's genocide in Gaza. But I think we do have to remember that, as was said previously, this is not a normal case. There's heavy political pressure. And after Vol7, that pressure comes from the CIA. And if you look at the power of the CIA within the American court system, they get what they want. They can declare evidence, even in evidence that they're using against you, as classified and you can't even see it. I mean, so they have all sorts of mechanisms by which they can railroad you. And I think in the short term, Julian may be able to appeal, but I don't think the CIA is gonna let up on this. They were highly embarrassed. And in their eyes, they were hurt. They were hurt. And we saw now with the person who leaked the documents, he got a 40-year sentence through terrorism and Antsman laws. So he got 40 years that didn't bode well for Julian. It was 52. Now, let's turn it over to Kathy, who was following very closely these events online. You know, in part of that strategy to limit coverage, unlike previous hearings at the tradition here in 2020, and the High Court hearing in October 2021, journalists had to be in England or Wales physically in order to get the remote access, which is just no explanation for that because it was possible before, suddenly it didn't, except that they wanted to limit the coverage. So Kathy is in London, so she was able to get the remote code and watched it and did the live tweets for us in an excellent job. Our tweets were quoted yesterday at a rally in front of the British consulate in New York. By name, this is what informed a lot of the activists about what was going on inside the corpus of Kathy. - I should say first that there was a terrible kerfuffle in Australia about the Australian media being completely locked out, but not only the media, but politicians who wanted to monitor, and it was taken to the Australian Journalists Union, and then the head of the union took it, the director took it to the High Commissioner, the Australian High Commissioner in London who wrote to the courts, and well, he didn't have any joy. So I just wanted to make a comment about Dobbins arguments. It seemed to me that there was a lot of insistence on Julian's behavior in obtaining information, being unlawful, and by virtue of that, his article 10 rights didn't apply, right? The US doesn't allow journalists to break the law, and there was so much insistence on that, and one point that she really labored on was that he had aided Chelsea Manning to crack a hash password in order to hide her identity. It's one of the old canards that have been around since the extradition hearing, and it was demolished by the forensic examiner in the extradition hearing, Patrick Eller. However, if you've read the 150 page high court submission on page 124, something very interesting is written, and that is that the US prosecutor, Gordon Kromberg, wrote to the court belatedly, just before Barreza handed down her ruling, and said that it was now, quote, "not alleged that the purpose of the hash-cracking agreement was to gain anonymous access." So they had disavowed that narrative, and yet we had Dobbyn in the courtroom asserting that, had she not read the submission? Did she decide to go ahead with that anyway, because it would reinforce the idea that Assange had committed an illegal act in order to bolster the idea that he should have no article 10 rights? Well, we don't exactly know, but in a way, it sounds like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. It seemed to me to be terribly incoherent. But one thing that really alarmed me was, when you actually wrote it down, Chris, when you said that all 18 counts filed against Julian alleged that his purpose was, quote, "that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States and the advantage of any foreign nation." And that so much reminds me of the fact that Chelsea Manning was originally charged with aiding the enemy. She was acquitted of that charge, but that charge alone could have meant the death penalty. And this just sounds very, very similar. And you said that in Kromberg, when he wrote that brief saying we're dropping this charge, basically that the-- Not the charge, the narrative. The allegation that he was trying to correct a password is to your documents. Didn't be rates are then say, well, I'm going to agree with it anyway. Agree to agree with it anyway. Yes, that's right. Well, let the court in the US decide this issue. Yes, the prosecutor, James Lewis QC, managed to convince be rates, sir. Well, if it wasn't to hide Manning's identity, there might have been some other hidden purpose that you don't understand, whereby it would enable Manning to obtain information illegally in a more general way. And in fact, the defense argues that there was never any allegation that Manning would obtain information in a more general way. Let's not forget, going back to 2011, Joe, when Biden said it all depends on how Julian obtained the-- - Right. - documents. And it has been imperative right from the beginning that they maintain this charge, that he obtained those documents illegally. Mark Summers actually addressed that right at the end. And he said, well, okay, just say he did, obtain the documents illegally. Charge him with that. That doesn't make the journalism illegal. And then we would immediately make an Article 8 application for time served. - Yeah. - That doesn't mean that that's not important. That's their hook, as we know, that has enabled them to go for the espionage thing. And the thing that has set him aside from any other journalists that has, as Biden said, the material dropped on their lap. It is very important. And that's someone we've got to kill. - Thank you, Kathy. Let's ask Alexander. What do you make of that? Were you aware of that? That they actually just decided to basically drop that? - No, I wasn't, but it doesn't surprise me, because can I just say something straight away about this? This is, in essence, a very simple case indeed. A very simple case in terms of English law. This is a political case brought by the United States against a journalist for carrying on the work of journalism. That's all it is. Now, if it's simply argued in that way, and that is where I think Assange's lawyers did an excellent job on the first day, if it's just understood in that way, then, of course, an extradition is impossible. And by the way, I suspect a case in the United States would be impossible as well. So, what does the United States do in that situation? They obscure the fact. They bring in all kinds of strange arguments. They sometimes advance them. Sometimes they retreat from them. Sometimes they then bring them back. They say he's actually committed crimes when he obviously hasn't. Sometimes they say that he actually put people in danger when there's no evidence that he did. But it's a cloud of obfuscation and misdirection to take us away from that essential point about this case. Now, again, judging from what I saw, what I heard about what happened in the hearing, the one that's just ended yesterday. I think this time, the judges saw through it. For Ritza, a much lower level judge, clearly didn't. If you go back to her judgment, the point about the political nature of the case was something she only addressed and dealt with in passing. She went ahead, spent all her time going through all of the other issues that the United States had brought up, issues which, of course, as Sanjay's defense had to work through. And she didn't focus on that essential point. In this case, in the hearing we've just heard, that focus, it seems, was there. And that's why we're starting to see all the contradictions and incoherence that was so obvious to so many people on the second day come to the fall. - Well, Alexander, I completely agree. I thought it was a fantastical story that Dobbyn had weaved. And it was in stark contrast based on what especially what Mark Summers had laid out on the first day. And then in his rebuttal at the end, it was strong, strong statements that you would be surprised to hear. And I wonder, I got this idea that Mark Summers is living in the actual real world. And he talked about real world things like American war crimes, mentioning this in a British court. And then here she comes with a wasting the court's time to describe journalism quite well. And then calling it some evil plot by this dastardly villain. Assange was trying to bring down US national security. It was just extraordinary. But I wonder, Alexander, you just spent a lot of time and I learned so much from you and Alex on your Doran videos about the changing world. And this world has changed dramatically, particularly since Ukraine and now Gaza. But this chipping away at American credibility of this fantasy world that the US has constructed, that we saw displayed in the courtroom, in the mouth of Daben, that this world that doesn't really exist, the credibility is being chipped away to begin with Julian Assange, if you look at it, in the week he leaks releases. And that's one of the reasons they're so furious because he's outed them and opening people's eyes to what these guys are really up to. And that fantasy world is, as I say, being broken down and I think particularly now because of Ukraine, creating a whole 'nother system in the world that's the need United States, American rule was being questioned in a way, probably hasn't been since the Second World War ended. And I wonder, I wonder if the outpouring we now saw, there were hundreds of people in front of that courtroom, all the major human rights and press freedom organizations, presidents of countries in Latin American elsewhere. There's an enormous support that's risen up, people don't buy the American story anymore. Am I making too much to conflate that with this globally, people are not buying American lies anymore like they used to, could these two judges step out of the fantasy world that they're plunged in because let's face it, British and American populations believed this world, this lies, this fantasy world, more than other countries, could we see that, does this having any effect on the Assange case, could it? What I've just described, Alexander. - Well, one would like to believe so. Now, I worked in that building, I worked in the Royal Corps of Justice for 12 years, and there's two, what do things I want to say? The first point is that what goes on outside the Royal Corps of Justice absolutely has an impact within it. I mean, the idea that this is an isolated bubble where things just happen, and what people say, the fact that all these people are out there in the world, making their protests known, making their strongest agreement known, that there's protesters outside, that all of that has no effect at all. That emphatically is not true. If there had been no protests, no issues from world leaders, no comments of people like Nils Meltzer, no concerns expressed by jurists from around the world, we would not be, we would be in a different situation. We would be looking at a completely different situation in this case. So that does have, absolutely does have an impact. So that's one thing. The second thing I would say is that, of course, judges are people who are trained, one would like to believe to see through the smoke stream and focus on facts. That's what being a judge is, being able to separate the nonsense and the fantasy world and get through to the heart of the issue. And one would like to believe the judges at this level are able to do that and have done this. The problem is that, of course, they're also part of the establishment world. As I said, we don't know what is going on behind the scenes, what pressures are being brought. There might be, for all we know, push back within the court itself. Now, I know that also happens that some judges become concerned that the court is taking a course, which they are very uneasy about, because they say, well, what are we here for? We're here to administer the law, not to do the bidding of a government far away across the sea. However close and friendly it is to us. We're undermining ultimately that which we stand for and which has made us what we are. That does happen. So we can't be sure, but certainly, the pressures that we see around the world, the anger that there has been about this case, the comments that so many people have made, the protests, that makes a difference. And as for the judges, well, we'll just have to wait and see. I absolutely believe, maybe wrong, that I think they know what they should do. I think they do. From everything that I've heard about what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday. That is what I think. Whether they will find the courage to do it, that's another matter. I think the same having been in the court and watched their faces carefully, particularly when Mark Summers, a British Parisist, ending up in a British court telling British judges that the United States is committing war crimes. I looked at the faces of these judges and I saw no flinching whatsoever. Now they may be also trained to keep poker faces, but I've just found some of the scenes in there hard to believe that these issues were being discussed and they were not pushing back in any way as previous judges may have, as you pointed out, Chris, maybe thinking about that court from your friend, Michael Ratner, who said of the importance of the public in his cases. - Yeah, Michael was Julian's lawyer, close friend of mine. That's how I met Julian. Michael, I used to travel over to London with Michael when he had meetings with Julian at the Ecuadorian Embassy. He tried a lot of controversial cases. He was the driving force behind getting legal representation for the detainees in Guantanamo. And he said that he can't do his work in the courtroom unless people are mobilized outside to put pressure on the establishment with him. That that was a fundamental part of his legal practice. - I'm a little bit pessimistic based on Alexander's words that he doesn't feel that these judges, despite knowing what they should do, will do what they should do. So let's have some closing remarks from you, Alexander, and then Chris. - Well, the first thing to say is, let's hope they do find the courage. I mean, clearly this was, well, in my opinion, this was, as I said, a proper hearing at last. None of the other hearings that we've had up to now, it did go back all the way to the original sex abuse allegations. None of the hearings have made any kind of sense to me. This one for the first time did. It was a proper real hearing. So I'm not going to abandon hope at this stage, not after a hearing like this one, not after seeing how the judges acted. And just two things to say, first he came back to Elizabeth's question, which I wasn't able to answer. If he gets granted leave, I would hope that there is a some mechanism whereby the lawyers who represent him would be able to make another application, either for bail or at the very least for a transfer of Julian from Belmarsh. I mean, the man is very seriously ill. There is no doubt about it. Even the judges in a kind of a way seem to acknowledge the fact. So given what the judge at first instance, Barritza, already said about, you know, the risk stick his life, I would have thought that it is imperative for the court if they do decide to grant him leave, if they do think that he has actual points to make, that they actually this time finally get round to doing it. I am not familiar with the bail application procedures, but I would have thought that something like that can be done. That is one point I wanted to make. The second point I want to make is, of course, if we do get full appeal, hopefully, as I said this time in court number two or court number one, with people there in able to participate in here, probably what goes on and we know that none of these technical issues, well, I think that will be very embarrassing for the United States, because in a properly argued and conducted appeal, all of these issues that we've been discussing, the political, the ultimately political and oppressive nature of the case will come through. And though I would never ever suggest that the price that Assange himself has paid would in that case justify a decision in his favor in that appeal. It would nonetheless be important to say that we would then have an extremely important precedent which would defend journalists in future. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm not giving up. - The only thing I would say is that as long as he's not in the United States, there's hope. I think once he's in the clutches of Gordon Cromberg and the Eastern District in Virginia, he's not gonna get out of that bear trap. So there is pressure, the Australian Parliament, Prime Minister, and I think we all remember Joe, these very bleak times when that character assassination was extensive and quite effective. I think that's dissipated. So while I wouldn't call the ability to appeal a victory, it's a victory in the smaller sense that as long as he is not in the clutches of the United States, he has some chance of being freed. I think once he's extradited, that's probably gonna be impossible for him to get out of spending the rest of his life in a supermax prison. - Well, we've reached one hour in the show. I wanna thank Alexander in London and Chris in London and Cathy in London. And I'm speaking to you from London as well. We'll be keeping a close eye on this. We've published several stories and videos and we're gonna continue to cover this story in the way we have because it's so darn important. So thank you all again for joining us. And until next time, this is your alloria for seeing life saying goodbye. (upbeat music) - Good afternoon, my name is Mark. (upbeat music) If you are a consumer of independent news and the first place you should be going to is consortium news and please do try to support them when you can. It doesn't have its articles behind a paywall, it's free for everyone. It's one of the best news sites out there and it's been in the business of independent journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades. I hope that with the public's continuing support of consortium news, it will continue for a very long time to come. Thank you so much. [BLANK_AUDIO]