 Hi, my name is Sandy Baird and this is our monthly show called What's Happening and today I have as a guest the lawyer, Kurt Mehta, who's often on the show with us to talk about legal cases and public events. And today we're going to be talking about the legal case but also the political kind of case of Julian Assange and getting an update on his whereabouts and what's happening in his case. As everyone perhaps knows maybe not that Julian Assange has been kept in jail in London, England and Belmarsh prison for years facing charges of espionage in the United States and it's a curious case. He has been in jail for what other people call publishing material because he is a journalist with WikiLeaks and he did publish classified information about the United States, correct? I don't know how to put it exactly. So Kurt is here to talk about who he is, what's happened to him and the legal consequences of his case. So, hi Kurt. Hey Sandy, thanks for having me. So what's going on? First of all maybe you can say a little bit about who Julian Assange is. Yeah, yeah. So while Julian Assange is an Australian citizen who spends a good part of his time in Europe or has spent much of his time in Europe, his background is he's considered one of the world's greatest computer hackers since he was in his early 20s late teens to provide some people context. So Mr. Assange has been in and out of the Australian legal system for crimes of hacking but then he's also been resurrected in Australia in many cases because he also assisted law enforcement in Australia to catch pedophiles and people who were accused of sexual molestation. And you did that with the Australian... Sure, local deputies, police in cases that they were working because of his masterful knowledge of getting into encrypted computer programs. And this was when he was in his early to mid 20s. So Bright Guy in terms of his skills with respect to computers and again has probably been on both sides of the legal system even locally in Australia as a helper. And an enforcer. Right, and also as someone who is claimed to have breached privacy and security protocols in Australia. Okay. So why is he... He's in Belmarsh prison, a high security prison in London, right? That's correct. So how did he get there? What happened to Julian Assange? Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the route that ended in Belmarsh for Mr. Assange. In 2006, Mr. Assange established a company along with a couple of other journalists, mathematicians, and some other social justice warriors as they're called now, maybe that's a pejorative, but to establish a company called WikiLeaks. A company. A company, yeah. The objective of WikiLeaks when it was formed was the philosophical underpinnings was to expose hypocrisy of government and corporations even occasionally where and through that exposure through the internet, through the online world to force change in behavior and hopefully to reduce abuse, governments, corporations, and of course people are involved in corporations and in governments. So it's to effectuate change through exposure. So to reduce the amount of hypocrisy, abuse, lies, and hopefully by exposing powerful people in the digital world now through the digital means that would effectuate change. Social change. Social change. Right. And that was called WikiLeaks. Yeah, that is called WikiLeaks. So it was a publishing sort of company? Yeah, but completely online, so they don't issue, unlike Penguin or, you know, Simon and Schuster they're not publishing books or newspapers. This is, you know, digital access. Okay. Yeah. And what they often did was they would get, sometimes by anonymous sources or through tips, they would get large hordes of information and essentially just put it out there to the digital world for mass consumption. Basically anyone who has a cell phone or a computer or has access to internet would be able to learn about what was essential. In prior times, that would have been the function of newspapers, correct? Correct. Like somebody would give all this in, right. Media. Absolutely. You're right. 100%. Absolutely. And it was never considered a crime for a newspaper or another media to publish it, correct? Well, depends on where you're talking about. That's what I mean, but I'm talking strictly under the law. Well, look, I mean, you know, could the New York Times publish if they got an inkling in 1941 or two, forgive me if I get the date wrong, of what was going to happen at D-Day if they got, you know, I don't think that would have been allowed in advance of June 6th, you know, that year, but, you know, but for the most part, certain types of information was protected under the First Amendment of the United States. Okay. So, and if you wanted to challenge that, that newspaper did something wrong, you'd have to go to court about it and allege something or other, and that might be a violation of the First Amendment is what you're saying. Perhaps, yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right, so. There are exceptions, you know. Yeah. One of the charges against Mr. Assange is a violation of the 1917 law, the Espionage Act. Okay. What is the Espionage Act? The Espionage Act. Because it's still in effect. 1917, I imagine it had something to do with World War I. Right. Correct? Okay. What? Yeah, absolutely. So, 1917, the United States was about to gear up to get involved itself into the actual ground, you know, fighting of the First World War. Correct. Right. And there was an anti-war movement in the United States. Big one. Yeah. I mean, some of the notable characters, Eugene Debs. Eugene Debs, right. Right. Also, a person who was convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917. So the Espionage Act, the purpose of it was to foster an environment to prosecute World War I on the part of the United States. Critics. Critics? Of the world? Yeah, well, foster an environment by, you know, placing a gag order, essentially, on critics, like you said. So anything that could be perceived as an attempt to impact recruitment of military personnel to thwart military operations, and it's a very vague and broad definition of what's considered thwarting a military operation. And of course, you know, aiding and abetting perceived enemies of the United States during a time of war, specifically. Okay. So during the time of war, that's interesting, too. Well, but that's one factor. That's not, you know. Yeah, but it is a factor. Yeah. If you hit any of those that I mentioned, and there were a couple more, you know, you're basically considered, you know, having violated that act. So would... The Supreme Court, there was a case, of course, because one can argue, you know, we have the Bill of Rights in this country, enshrined in the Constitution, the First Amendment provides us, you know, freedom of press, freedom of speech. So one would think, well, I mean, that doesn't sound like very, you know, First Amendment-D. So there was a case at the time that went to the Supreme Court. It was called Schenck v. the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States at the time decided that the Espionage Act of 1917 did not violate the First Amendment. And it stands today. And it stands today. Okay. And Mr. Assange is in a 2019 indictment that was unsealed by the United States government. Unsealed recently? Yeah. 2019. Okay. It was unsealed. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That he is accused of having violated the Espionage Act of 1917. Okay. How... What is the U.S. position about how he did that? By publishing through WikiLeaks. So let's talk about a couple of examples of what he published. Right. Yeah. So in 2010... Under the administration of who? Obama or... At that time, President Obama was the president of the United States. Okay. Yeah. In 2010, WikiLeaks published a controversial video showing the United States military... Helicopters. Yeah. Helicopters. Soldiers on helicopters shooting at and killing 18 Iraqi civilians, a few of whom were journalists. From Reuters. From Reuters. Right. Right. Right. No less. Yeah. And Reuters is English. Reuters... Yeah. It's a British company. Yeah. So at the time, the military and our government was claiming that this event did not happen. It was being exaggerated by detractors and opponents of the war and by the enemy. WikiLeaks was able to secure an actual video of the event. WikiLeaks also published in the same year war logs from the Iraq war as well as the war that was being prosecuted in Afghanistan to eliminate the Taliban. But the U.S., remember, was not at war with either of those countries. It was involved in, I guess, I don't know, special operations or something, but we had not declared war anywhere at that point. In 2010. No. I mean, in fact, the last time the United States legally declared war was 1941 in the Second World War. So that's one key difference, right? Sure. Okay. So go ahead. So these were some of the things that were published, right? The war logs during the Afghanistan fight as well as the Iraq invasion. And it often provided a lot of information that contradicted what was being released to the public of the United States. Like what? In terms of how well the prosecution of the war was going. In terms of how well allies were performing in the prosecution of those wars. Simple example in the case of Iraq, well, in Afghanistan, there was information about how surrounding countries were adding to the insurgencies in those two countries, insurgencies against the United States armed forces. In the case of Iraq, there were disclosures about the involvement of Iran and under, you know, girding, supporting the insurgency on the streets of Baghdad. And in the case of Afghanistan, there were allegations of support from Iran also and Pakistan with respect to supporting and propping up the Taliban and providing sharing intelligence. This was not released to the public, but these were often cables and confidential correspondence. How did he get them? So, interesting. How did Mr. Asajj get them? Yes, exactly. So there was a United States military analyst by the name of Chelsea Manning. It wasn't his name then. Now goes by Chelsea Manning. It was Bradley at the time, right? She released this information through large exposures and large extractions from military cables that she had access to. And what was her position? She was a military analyst in the intelligence services. She was in intelligence, correct? Yes, correct. And was she located in the United States at the time? I don't know. I don't think she was actually. I don't know where she was physically located. She did serve in the Iraq war, so there was a possibility that she was on the ground somewhere in the Middle East. Exactly, right, right. I think she was. But anyway. Yeah. But she was an American. She was an American citizen. Yeah. And it was a leak. Correct. And a lot of journalists receive leaks, correct? Right. They had their confidential sources. Exactly. Sometimes they're anonymous. Sure. A lot of times they're anonymous. A lot of times they're anonymous. Yeah. Whenever the story is done. To protect that leaker. Of course. Of course. Okay. So she then transferred that material to Julian Assange. And WikiLeaks. Right. WikiLeaks. Right. And he then published it. He published it. Without comment or with comment? My understanding is without comment. Okay. So what then happened to him? Well. And where was he at the time? Do you know? In Sweden. Right. Right. Okay. Go on. So for, you know. Maybe it's just bad luck. But maybe it's ironic. But the same, within the same time frame of publishing the Iraq and Afghan war logs as well as the video of the 18 Iraqi civilians being shot from a helicopter. Mr. Assange was accused of rape in Sweden. And there was an arrest warrant that was issued for an investigation about two possible rapes or sexual molestations that he was involved with. He was placed on bail. He. Was he ever formally charged? Did you know? I don't recall if he was formally charged. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think the women dropped it. It was an investigation. Yeah. Yeah. It was an investigation that was going on. So perhaps he wasn't formally charged. I don't think he ever was charged. In 2017 the charges were dismissed in Sweden. Right. Right. But in 2010 he skipped bail. He was placed on bail. He skipped bail and went to England and sought refuge. I interrupt you. Yeah. Why? Was he suspecting something was going to happen to him in Sweden that he was trying to avoid? That's tough to tell. I mean if, you know, you take one side and if he was indeed responsible or involved in, you know, these assaults on women, perhaps he was just trying to escape, the other side of the argument, you know, is that maybe he thought that this was a falsified charge and an attempt to essentially target him and prosecute him. Mike, I remember reading somewhere, and again this is an allegation, that the reason he did that was he suspected that Sweden would extradite him to the United States. So anyway, there's two sides to that, right? There are two sides. And one thing going back to the discussion of the Espionage Act is that it, in terms of one of its punishments, it carries the death penalty. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. They just don't have death penalties. They don't have the death penalty. Right. Exactly. Side note, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted and executed in the 1950s for having violated the Espionage Act of 1917. Right. By giving some kind of nuclear information to the Soviet Union, allowing them to develop the atom bomb. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. So then, so he skips bail in Sweden and leaves and goes to the UK, the United Kingdom. And what happens there? Well, he immediately gains access to the Ecuadorian Embassy to Great Britain. Exactly. Now, why? Why did he go there? What's the whole deal with embassies? Because there was one attacked recently. Right. Well, embassies are considered foreign soil and they are not supposed to be violated by the government in which they reside. Right. Right. So he went to the, and I think the Ecuador, the country of Ecuador was under some kind of a favorable government itself that he felt would be favorable to him. Right. And he, the government's asylum laws, classified of Ecuador, I'm sorry, of Ecuador, classified his claim of political persecution as a valid exercise of asylum and they provided him asylum. And they even extended Ecuadorian citizenship. They did? To him. So is he an Ecuadorian citizen? No, not he is. Yeah. That might have been revoked by the current government. Yeah. So Assange was living in the embassy for eight years. Without going outside. Without going outside. If he went outside, he would have been arrested by English police and he would have been a prosecutor for violating the bail act of Britain since he skipped bail. Right. In Britain, but what else would have happened to him? Well, then of course, you know, the question is whether or not he would have been extradited to the United States. To the US, where he would face a crime for which there is a death penalty? There is a death penalty. There is, and if the charges against him under the Espionage Act as well as computer intrusion and hacking, if they were lined up, you're talking about, consecutively, it's about a 170 year prison sentence that would be leveled against him. So what happened then? He was in the Ecuadorian embassy until 2019 and then what happens to him? So in 2019, Ecuador, change in leadership, change in views. Unfavorable. Yeah. Government favorable to the United States. Right. And the United States, again, was putting a tremendous amount of pressure on all of these countries involved to have him extradited. To the States. To the United States. Yeah. And Ecuador rescinded their asylum case, our offer of asylum, and British police were able to go inside the Ecuadorian embassy to Great Britain with Ecuador's permission. Yeah, right. And they arrested Mr. Assange for violating the bail act and they incarcerated him. In the Belmarsh prison. Yes, that's where he has been. Where he has been since? 2019. Now the interesting thing is the United States immediately commenced extradition proceedings in British courts. So right now, as you've mentioned a couple of times, he's in Belmarsh prison. Even though his service in violation of the bail act, the prison sentence that comes along with it has already been exceeded by a substantial amount of time. But he's going to sit there. He's still in jail for a crime for which he would be released if this extradition case was not being pursued. All right, so it is because then of the United States charges that he is in prison in London. Right, the High Court of Great Britain has judged that he is a significant flight risk because he's demonstrated the capacity and the ability to flee as he did from Sweden to the UK that he needs to be incarcerated until such time as that this extradition case is completed. Completed. Yeah, a lower court in Great Britain held in Mr. Assange's favor in 2021 and then it was appealed. So they found him unextraditable in 2021, but the United States appealed it to a higher court and that's where it is right now. So he was found in 2022 to be extraditable to the United States in 2022, so he's appealed it and the latest right now is what the High Court of Great Britain, what they're asking for from the United States is assurances that he would not be executed and that he would be provided first amendment protection in any court that has jurisdiction in this case in the United States even though he's a non-citizen and that he would be provided US constitutional equal protection under the law. Why doesn't he take it? Why doesn't who take it? Why doesn't, in other words, why then doesn't he get extradited? The United States has been unable to provide credible assurances that that would be extended to him. So right now- In other words, the English don't believe it. The English don't believe it. Yeah. Yeah. At this moment. At this moment, on May 20th of this year, about six weeks or so, five weeks, the United States attorneys are going to be demonstrating in front of the court. Which court? The UK High Court that they will be providing assurances. Wow. The last set of assurances that were provided, Mr. Assange appealed claiming that they were not credible because they provided an excerpt of a Yahoo news story that was reported during which high-level CIA officers going all the way up to Mike Pompeo during the Trump administration, talking and discussing about assassinating Mr. Assange. I wouldn't doubt it. But that's my humble opinion. Right. So his Assange's attorneys- That was a good move on his part. Yeah. Assange's attorneys introduced that material. The UK High Court has claimed that a Yahoo news article is not dispositive, but it allowed him the grounds to appeal the extradition order of 2022. So now the United States, next up, next month, will be making a claim that they will indeed honor the British court, but the assurance of not executing him if he were convicted of all crimes. Is there any- There are loopholes in a lot of the language that's been provided in these assurances and that's what the UK High Court has issues with. And that's why the matter is still on appeal. But they're going to give the US lawyers a second bite of the apple and allow them to refine the language of the assurances. What do you think? I know that's your opinion, but it's a very learned opinion. So what's going to happen to Mr. Assange? I think- I think he's going to be extradited. I think Mr. Assange is going to be extradited. I do too. I think between solar eclipses and US elections, I think the focus is going to be on other things. I think Mr. Assange got a lot of press in the US media cycle a number of years ago. With the election coming up in this country, in the United States, I don't think that this case is going to get a lot of press, and I think there's a fairly strong chance that he will be extradited. There's a very strong alliance between the UK and the US. Of course. Of course. And so I believe that the UK will probably do what the US wants. But that's my opinion. I hope that they don't. I hope they do right by Mr. Assange. But my opinion is that that alliance is too strong. One of the comments that Mr. Assange has made over the years is the incredible amount of pressure the United States is able to put on its Western European allies in every way. In every matter. Right. Exactly. In one case, when there was an allegation that Mr. Assange was on a plane with, at that time, a Bolivian president, Abraham Morales. Oh yeah. Was Assange on that plane too? Or was it Snowden? Snowden. I'm sorry. It was Snowden. It was another dissenter. The United States was able to ask, they grounded a plane of a sitting president in Austria by closing off the airspace in Italy, in Spain. And they all conceded and closed off their airspace so the plane had no place to go. For Mr. Snowden. And Mr, well, he wasn't on the plane. Right. Mr. Morales, the sitting president of Bolivia. It was. Yes, exactly. So we have a couple minutes left. So in your opinion, in the end, you believe that he will be extradited? I think he'll be extradited. Do you believe he'll face the death penalty? I don't believe he'll face the death penalty. However, he will face how many years in jail for this non-crime? In my opinion, it's a non-crime. I think there's a strong chance that Mr. Assange will not see the light of day outside of a jail. He's already suffered a stroke. Has he? Yeah, and during a court proceeding. During a court proceeding? During a court proceeding before the UK High Court, and he's on anti-stroke medication. He's for a waiting period for an extradition case after he's already served his time for violating the bail act in Europe. He spends 23 out of 24 hours in a maximum security prison. He gets one hour of exercise. Does he ever see anybody? He must have. He's got kids. Yeah. I think that they were fathered when he was in the Ecuadorian embassy, though. Yeah. His attorney is his spouse, and he has two children, two kids with her. Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Kurt. I hope that I wish Mr. Assange well, and I hope you're well, too. So we'll see you in about a month. Thank you for watching.