[000:00:00;00] the, the breaking news, the nazi international of all the show leak shows gym and generals discussing the bombing of the crime in bridge. although germany refuses to comments on the issue versus of the topic. diplomats so again, love rough because it's obvious that nato powers are tied greatly involved in ukraine. will they clearly understand what they are talking about. and one of the exchanges, someone says lovely that there are americans in civilian clothing on the ground. so it's obvious that our natal colleagues have a finger in the pipe at least a $115.00 palestinians have been musket as they were rushing to receive 8 in gaza. that yep. and since they only 520 shots, hello sends you an invoice as the police,

when suggest to the wife? dozens of them have bullets in that head. this is not like, you know, fighting in the sky to that is today and people there was a confusions and class and view and human rights commission to condense legislation . the crushed stone on the l g. b t. community in the west african nation has gone to one of the bill splunk that says the us tons is hypocritical. why should anybody think that they have the right to tell gunny and so when the something fall them and they've done, what we should do are to have done some of our phones to our independence and our silver entity. and people show mind your businesses and take care of their own business because you'll headlines it to am moscow time. do you feel free to head over to our website or dot com for more on any of those stories funded? speak to scott on the back in about an hour, the

millions of people around the world. this we have watched developments and fold in the case of what he likes, co founder julian assange. the case high court heard arguments on february 20th and 21st. as to whether assange should be granted permission to appeal his extradition to the united states to face 17 felony counts of espionage and one town of conspiracy to come. busy computer intrusion, all the charges related to the rock and asked in war logs the guantanamo bay detaining files and us diplomatic cables released to weaken links by u. s. army whistle blower. chelsea manning. this includes the infamous collateral murder video, which show us helicopters gunning down 12 civilians, including 2 writers. journalist assigned faces, 175 years in prison. in the united states, the high court did not make an immediate decision on the request to grant assigned to the right to appeal the decision to extradite him. a decision is not expected

until after march 4th. i'm john carry onto welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 2 2 2 has made no secret over the years that i believe julian assigned is a bona fide hero. without julian assigned you in which you weeks we would have no idea what crimes the u. s. government in the us military have committed in the name of the american people. we wouldn't know that the military deliberately lied about military prospects and ask in a stand during the war there. we wouldn't know about the cold blooded murder of 12 civilians, including 2 writers, journalists in iraq. we wouldn't know that the c, i a had the technical ability to take over control of a moving car by hacking into its computer system. we wouldn't know that the c i a could hack into a smart tv and turn the speaker into a microphone to spy on what's being set in

a room. even when the tv is turned off that we have, julian assigns to thank for all of this. the past 14 years have not been easy for assange. he was initially arrested on trumped up allegations of sexual assault and spent 10 days in solitary confinement in london's ones worth prison. that was followed by 550 days of house arrest. that in turn was followed by 4 and a half years of asylum in the ecuadorian embassy in london, although asylum is in the eye of the beholder. the ecuadorian authorities works closely with a c, i, a and with the case m, i 5 and m i 6 to wire, literally the entire embassy for video and audio, including in julian's bathroom, where he sometimes met with his attorneys, thinking that it was safe to speak there he was forcibly dragged out of the ecuadorian embassy almost 5 years ago after the upper door in government turned on him and threw its lot in with

a c. i a and he's been in london's maximum security bill march prison since april 11th. 2019. he's been in solitary confinement for much of that time. assange did not attend this most recent hearing. he was too sick to do so. his wife said that he had been coughing so severely for they actually broke a rib. but maybe that's the american government's plan, just keep him in prison until he dies. then the problem just goes away. we're going to discuss this important issue with an independent investigative journalist mohammed. eliza mohammed is based in london where he's been reporting on the assign sharing for the dis center. mohammed, thanks so much for joining us. thank you very much for having me here. well, there is so much to discuss in this fast moving story. let's start with what was said in the court room. over the course of the 2 days, the us justice department's attorney, claire dobbin asked the judges to reject julian's request to appeal the order to

extradite him. dobbin said that julian acted far beyond what any journalist would have done. so what exactly does that mean and did the judges react to it in any way? so i can see the reaction of the judges. although they did ask a number of probing questions, which at least i and another other observers are the journalist people like at craig, murray and joe laurie, i did find that helpful that they did seem to be following, not just what the prosecution was making a saying but what the defense was as well, but in terms of that cleared up and then the us government's arguments that both julie and a song is not being an ordinary journalist, but also we could, leaks, they said as well. and they said this goes well beyond well before a chelsea manning, which is something i don't recall them arguing before they said at the very beginning they, they use language like julian,

the sounds and we can weeks have been in citing people to steal classified documents, right? in violation to commit crimes at this deal. so that's why they didn't refer even to chelsea manning or others as whistle blowers or leakers. right. obviously they wouldn't use the term was a lower, but even the term leak. they didn't say they said steal. they use terms like insights, which normally you hear in terms of incitement to violence, right? not incitement to leaking, and they really hammered home these allegations about oh, well, julian hassan released the complete on redacted cables and, and that's why this is very important. this is fundamental to our case, they said, even though only 3 out of the 17 or 18 charges even relates to documents that were on redacted. so then, and that was a point raised by the defense lawyer just like, well, if that's the case, why the all these other charges that exist? and as we've discussed the last time i was on your show,

there is no need to prove harm under the espionage as phrases or damage of any kind . that's it, not to mention the facts. yeah. and so he wouldn't even be able to raise the defense that actually the allegations put forward by the us government about potential harm unproven. whereas the evidence of torture, of rape of assassinations of drone strikes killing civilians. and these are things that they actually said in court during the 2 days. those are approve and there have been court cases that have considered use as evidence conclusive proof of, of torture and drone strikes being used in course, including your pin cord of human rights. in the case of highlighted, we must see which i know you're aware of them as was randomly picked up. mistaken for somebody else, tortured for months, and then dumped on the streets of i want to see macedonia, but i can see i can't recall. it wasn't, the country was picked up and that's right. and he won a case of the do europe in court as

a result and no small part because of the of the leaks. so they did, i mean, it may be useful for people to know briefly the kinds of things that the defense were arguing. so the 1st day was mostly focusing or a 100 percent focusing on the defense arguments. the 2nd day was mostly the us government's response as to why a julian assign should not be granted permission to appeal. so even though it feels like an appeal hearing, because they're making their appeal grounds, it's actually you're presenting a sort of a compressed version of what you would be saying at an appeal for the judges to then go, go off and consider where they will even give you permission to appeal and if they do, they should issue a further dates where they'll say, ok, we'll, we'll go into this more depth. and the kinds of arguments they've made are, or they're presenting, are the, the us and u. k. extradition treaty. it clearly prohibits extradition for political offences, and that defense is that he's charged with the name of the espionage fall into the

category of political offences. that is an abuse of process for the us seek extradition for us of his sons under the treaty for political offences, since they know it is bard, the extra dining him would result in the tension which is arbitrary, i e, outside of the law. and that his expedition would represent a flagrant denial of his right to freedom of speech and freedom of press on the article 10 of the are being cut a convention of human rights, including given the possibility that you'll be denied protections under the 1st amendment of the us constitution because both the lead prosecutor gordon chrome berg and former c. i a director when he was the director of mike compel. both said that julian, his own being a non us person, would not be entitled to a cert 1st amendment protections where he to be tried and us. and even though they are a sorting domestic criminal law to prosecute a non us person who is based outside of the west, when the,

when he publish the documents and when he is source was also based outside of the us in iraq. so is interest writing? it's, they get to apply domestic us law, but he doesn't get to us constitutional protections. and then there was also matters about the fact that he could be subjected to the death penalty. and the us government has refused to issue assurances that they won't ads charges that could lead to a death penalty charge. there are also some other other things they also raised as well. but that's the, that's the broad strokes of what was argued. over the few days, julian's attorneys brought up the c. i a plot to kidnap or to kill julian. this was a plot that was exposed by yahoo news. a few years ago, i've been dismissed the relevance of the article, arguing that it's not evidence. what was the reaction to that statement? because, to the best of my recollection, that article quoted 36 current and former american intelligence

officers. that's correct. and in fact, the defense raise the blinds that the yahoo news article was preceded by 2 witness statements from members of u. c. global. the security firm which was hired to protect the ecuadorian embassy, which then got recruited by the c. i a to then spy on everyone who the ecuador, s embassy, especially julian assigns, where they, where they stated in their statements, but the lawyers were priority targets. i remember that and that was evidence presented during the mains. extradition hearings were judge braids are basically dismissed. those arguments and one of the that the points that the defense made in, in opposition to, to dobbins. arguments that this is not evidence. as you said it's, you have both many current and former members of intelligence services. you have these other whistle blowers who came before you have this court case going on in

spain as well. and, you know, this basically corroborates. this is evidence that corroborates each other. yes. uh, not to mention the fact that the us government, in its case, original case, you know, 2 years ago. and this was quoted again here during these trials. pushed and repeated repeatedly quoted from a letter that was signed by the new york times, the guardian and others were they denounced wikileaks after julia sondra ended up publishing the redacted versions of certain documents. bear in mind that they were not the 1st to publish them. they had already been published and they had already been published by a website which expert testimony previously explains a, it was with the website, crypt home, data far greater reach and those days on google right then. then we can weeks back in those days and was as

a result of the publishing of the passwords to the encrypted file which contains the on redacted documents there by making it available for everybody. and that was done by 2 guardian journalists. that's exactly right. set that aside. yeah. set aside for the moment. they use that as evidence to say that he's not a real journalist. look here these frame is establishment news outlets. they've come out and say, oh julia sondra weekly. it's across the line, like i say, not mentioning any of the other factors that play um but so that's okay as evidence, but it's not okay is to have evidence that as far more details are an article is far more detailed and it is corroborated like i said by whistle blower testimony to be presented as evidence. i think i think they said that that's ludicrous on his face. actually we are going to take a short break and when we come back we'll discuss the public response to this hearing for julian assange as well. as what julian can expect in the coming weeks and months,

stay tuned. 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 the. 2 the, [000:00:00;00] the condition you should see me or your boss a homeless and you sooner legend. but by the last or last for this or i for your interest in the future. great. and how strong are the ones on you're going to go in here? so 3. so just to introduce,

you've got the proxy publishing page of you definitely have it for you just to make sure you got me place up with the 3 literally. and then the the, the new due at the 6th is okay. what's the word line

that comes to us on this the of the the welcome back to the whistle blowers and john kerry onto were speaking with independent journalist mohammad on monday about the hearing and london related to the extradition to the united states of we can weeks co founder julian assigned mohammed. good to have you with us. thanks for hanging on. we appreciate your time. absolutely. mama to you in special rapid tour for torture. alice edwards, again called for julian to be released as did reporters without borders, amnesty international and own wide variety of other groups. this is great in terms of public opinion, but does it carry any weight inside the court room? is it even presented inside the courtroom?

it will, if it has been presented, it will have been perhaps in written submissions or it may be presented if they get a chance to appeal. but i didn't hear it mentioned in any of the oral arguments. and it's may have something to do with the incredibly limited time they had. i mean, not sought seem like it that you have a one full day and a bit of the 2nd day towards the end. mm hm. but it actually given the amount of ground they have to cover, given the fact that they know that the pressure is on the other side. and they're trying to convince the judge to basically find that a lower court judge has errands and law. um yeah, i don't think that i don't even know if they, if they would have been able to find a way to kind of shoehorn that in. but it does help. i think in making it easier to to if you like make the right decision because we, we didn't even so recently that astray the past. uh, a resolution doctor name parliament and the prime minister,

calling for the extradition to be a whole to it. and that's fine. and lead the prime ministers come out publicly strongly, and that's quite, that's as a result of growing pressure. i remember when it was just one or 2 m d 's, i met them. andrew wilkie was one of them who had come here and that, and then fact he was here a 2 days ago. he come over from australia. so it's, there is a growing amount of pressure. i think it helps where wherever there is flexibility, i mean at the end of the day, if, if you're of the mind that this is indeed a politically motivated prosecution is political forces which are driving it. then it makes sense that political forces can result in the prosecution being either dropped or, and judges being, being pushed. if he likes feeling the least have the cover to be pushed in the right direction. if they had can interpret something one way or another,

it could be just enough to kind of push them along onto the right side. so it's, it is one of those situations where you need legal arguments need political arguments, you need public pressure, you need campaigns. and i mean, it's not an accident that in cases such as these, the more campaigning and public pressure there is. the more likely cases will find themselves decided in the way that people didn't originally expect. and we saw that with them with people who were, who the american solid and previous extradition cases exact. right, right. but who were accused of hacking computers, but they were autistic. and on the autism spectrum, um and um, in the end they but they won their cases. i mean they were grueling cases, but in the end they won their cases where the home secretary ended up intervening. okay, the, the see, i didn't want them as badly as they want. juliet sounds right. the point is that it was political pressure to help to push the needle. tell us

a little bit about julian's health. he didn't attend either day of the hearing and we learned from his wife stella that he has been sick and has been coughing so hard that he actually broke a rib. i hope this isn't a permanent situation. after all, everybody knows that tuberculosis runs rampant through prisons. how is julian's health? i mean it, it, it's, as you've described. and i think people so need to remember the, the context right, that he's been incarcerated now for years before that his health wasn't exactly great when he was in the ecuadorian embassy either right. people have this image as though it was some kind of mansion with a giant garden where you could as though you're on holiday, but he was a, he was, he wasn't exactly able to do whatever it is you wanted. i don't know if you ever visited them there. oh, he also had a mini stroke people and some people may have forgotten about that during previous hearings. and you know, as we know, people who spend the long periods of time incarcerated,

especially much of that time, is in solid, treat confinement, or solitary light conditions combined with the anxiety and the stress of not knowing what is going to happen. many people's, you know, lives shortened in terms of their life expectancy. many people who leave prison, many of them die within a few years. for those who have spent many years through install a tree, that's absolutely true. i've heard of variety of rumors this week about what the potential outcome could be from this hearing. julian could be extradited on march 4th, there could be as a 2nd hearing a follow appearing. any extradition could be delayed in definitely an extradition could be dragged out until just after the us presidential election on november. the 5th and extradition could be delayed until the european court of human rights makes its own decision. i understand certainly that nobody knows what's going to to

happen, but do any of these alternatives make any logical sense to you or do you think julian will indeed be sent to the us to face the trial of his life? well, britain is still a member of the council of your organization, which it around you. right? and the are being, excuse me, right, is the highest for or it is the court of appeal that one would appeal to. so if you open up the exhausted all these meals, we're on the day, let's say for example, good or don't give permission to appeal. then the next stage is then to apply that on an urgent basis on an emergency basis for what's called interim measures. to get an order from the european court for them to say you, you cannot extradited him. and so we consider his appeal. and at which point, i think it has very strong grounds at the europe and chords, not least of which, because i the open court has more independence then domestic course

are. yes, there bridges, british judges there, but they're also spanish and french, and german judges. and various bodies, various parts of the council of europe have come out against julian's extradition. so if there is no medical pressure that helps to give them coverage, you decide the case as they should and not as a result of stage pressure as it were. so he does have very good grounds, which frankly should have one here and all the might still we are in the u. k. position, but if he doesn't, i mean, could he be bundled up by the u. k. government before an interim order enter measure is applied or even after it is sure, but i think that would be especially the given the level of focus, i think would be very dangerous. politically. i mean, you know, anything is possible, especially in the case like this. but it would be largely unlawful if you like. so it's unlikely to have a decision where i'm likely to have a decision by 4th of march,

because they've requested certain documents to be presented to them by court that they asked for certain documentation from the lawyers. and one of the documents they said by the 4th of march, which it seems unlikely that they're going to be able to make a decision on whether to grant permission to him to appeal, to here, you know, have a proper appeal. if they're only getting certain documents on the 4th of march, so could some people have suggested that given the election? right, that's maybe that's, let's see. when they come out, let's say it takes a month for them to decide and they say fine, we'll give you permission to bill and we'll give it to you on $1.00 to $3.00 of these arguments. and then we'll, they'll set it for a certain date. and then that one will come and then they'll have to make a decision on that. by the time all of that happens, we could well be, you know, by, you know, election time period whether right liberally or ice, right? i could see them the us government eventually walking away from this whole case. i hope that's not a wishful thinking. but anyway,

mohammed looking at the bigger picture, what is the prosecution of julian assange mean for journalism in the united states? well, i mean, they're saying that the mere possession of what they call national defense information is a criminal offense. there's no public interest defense. your motivations don't matter. the contents of the documents don't matter, doesn't matter if it exposes war crimes or anything else. um, which means that typically you're not permitted to discuss these things. so if they are able to successfully prosecute somebody, or even if he's found guilty, which we've already discussed, you and i previously how i'm likely that is given the fact that he'll have a national security jury and the eastern district of virginia and correct in the nature of the law, this would set a precedent that the people who even use us courts have recognized uh works as a journalist and would you need whatever the government to saying in this case, courts and us have to have recognize what takes as being

a news organization even the miller reports that, right, right, this would mean this could open the door to prosecuting other journalists and other prosecute other publishers and other people engaging journalistic activity. because remember, the 1st amendment doesn't protect people who are recognized by the state as journalist. that's right. it protects the activity. so even if you're a doctor, if you engage an activity that is deemed to be journalism is the, is the activity that is protected. right. and not a class of people or, or profession. mm hm. um and uh, let's not forget that if they have the ellsberg case, i think it might have been the 1st time that the espionage act was used to target whistle blowers if i, if i recall correctly, i guess i don't know. no, you're exactly right about that. that's exactly what it was. so they could. yeah, yeah, so previously, so you use of, you know, you do, you have a precedent setting case and then it gets used again and again. and again, we saw how many times that we'd use during the bush and obama administration, you should know,

because you're one of those people who found themselves prosecuted under the espionage act. indeed, mohammed thank you so much for joining us. and for enlightening us on this important and quickly changing case, the case of julian assigned isn't just about julian assange. of course, it's about press freedom and freedom of speech. it's about holding government's accountable for war crimes and for crimes against humanity. it's about over classification, transparency, secrecy, a prosecution of julian assigned to the prosecution of the entire media. it's a blow against freedom. so it's up to all of us to support him. it's up to all of us to warn our governments that they do arrive their authority from the people, and the people have a right to know what governments are doing in their name. thank you to my home. it all minds you for joining us and thanks to our viewers for being with us for

another episode of the whistle, blowers, i'm john to reaku. we'll see you next time the . 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 the, [000:00:00;00]

the united nation says at least 576000 people in gaza, or one step away from famine. meanwhile, 2 volumes is seen using about a potential ceasefire while enjoying an ice cream coat. this is a state of play. this is the policy of genocide the