 I want to turn to Alexander McCuris in London and to John Kerry up on Washington they've been patiently sitting there. Alexander, you're a legal analyst. I want to ask you the legal consequences of this revelation from Piat-Marz reporting that a key witness in the superseding indictment was lying and the magistrate Vanessa Baratza completely bought it and completely repeated it in her judgment. What are the implications to the case against the Sange? How does this undermine the case? What do you think happens, Alexander? I think it is profoundly important. I think it undermines the case in fundamental ways. Now, it's important to remember that this is a political case. And when I say that, that is admitted by all parties. The argument that has been made is that though it is a political case and though the tradition in Britain is not to extradite people who are the subject of political prosecutions, there is an exception in this case because the act of parliament doesn't prevent extradition of people on political charges to the United States. So this is a political case. And what we have now found is that one of the key witnesses in that case is coming forward and is corroborating in effect what the Minister of Interior of Iceland, Mr. Ogmundo has said, which is that the government that is seeking the extradition of this person in that political case sought to fabricate part of the case against that person. Do you extradite a person to a country whose government seeks to fabricate part of a case against that person in a political case? No, you do not. At least you should not. So I think this is fundamental and I think it goes beyond the second superseding indictment, that part of the second superseding indictment in which Thoridson himself gave the evidence. I think it contaminates the entire case entirely because it goes directly to the question of good faith, to the question of whether you can rely upon a fair trial for Julian Assange if he's sent to the United States, in fact, to the entire way in which the whole case against him was constructed. And just to make a few further points, I think the question of whether or not he was a reliable witness, of course he wasn't a reliable witness. It's astonishing that a second superseding indictment was in part based upon the evidence of this individual. And it is incredible that Baritza accepted that that indictment on that basis could be used as part of the case upon which Julian Assange could be extradited. Well, she did and it's now blown up in their faces and we'll see what they're going to do about it. Now, there are problems because of course in an appeal process, it's sometimes very difficult to get into the appeal process. Evidence which has come to light after the actual trial. But I would have thought in this case, this is so fundamental that it would be unusual. It would be surprising. I would be surprised if the High Court did not take it into account in some form. That's my view. So you completely dismissed that the FBI was an innocent victim of a liar. Well, that is not just what Thorodson is saying. And bear in mind, it was the FBI that decided to rely on Thorodson. They put an indictment together on the basis that this man is not a liar. So they relied on him and now they all start with him because he's turning around and saying, well, actually I am a liar. I lied to you. So, you know, they're trapped with this but it's also important to remember that what Thorodson is now saying indirectly corroborates what others have been saying, including the former minister of interior of Iceland whose words should never have been doubted in the first place. So I think that it's going to be very difficult to argue around this one. I think this is a major problem now for the extradition and that's putting it mildly. I think in most cases, if this revelation were to come up in this form, there would be serious doubts about whether an extradition could now occur. And again, I'm being very measured in my words, but we will see what happens. This is an extraordinary case and extraordinary things have happened and they may continue to happen for all we know. I haven't worked at the Royal Courts of Justice. Give us your insights. It's the thinking of the High Court and granting this application for appeal to the United States. I think it's first of all important to say that Kirsten's observation that this is only permission to appeal is absolutely right. It doesn't mean that the appeal is going to be allowed. The threshold for doing this is relatively speaking quite low. Now, I always assumed that because it was the United States that was appealing, the likelihood is that there would be an appeal that they would permit an appeal. The fact that they took six months to do it is again, exactly as Kirsten said, completely outrageous and unbelievable violation of Julian Assange's human rights. But it also suggests that the High Court found itself in a very difficult position for themselves. They saw this as something of a hot potato. They didn't quite know what grounds of appeal should be permitted to take it forward and that they struggled to make this decision. I was expecting a decision to be made within about a month, not six months. So that may be a good sign. I mean, one can't be certain, but it may be a good sign. Now, as for these grounds of appeal that we now hear about, I have to say that it seems to me that they face a fundamental objection. Obviously, as John said, these promises the US is making are unenforceable. And as we've seen in the past, they're not to be relied upon anyway. But all of these promises, all of these assurances could have been made to Baritza at the trial and they weren't. Now, the Americans are saying, the US government is saying, well, this was because we were taken by surprise. We didn't expect all these issues to be brought up in this way. Now, of course, I don't take that seriously. I can't believe anybody would take that seriously. But if that were true, they had the option then of applying for a postponement. They say, well, you know, we need time to absorb all of this and come up with our responses and say what we want to say. Well, they didn't do that. On the contrary, they opposed every application through a postponement that the defense made. So I don't really see how this is going to hold together at the final appeal hearing. I think that they're going to have serious problems with this particular appeal. Now, this is a, to say, an unusual case is an understatement, but desperate was how you describe these grounds of appeal at the beginning. At least I think that's what you said. That's how they look to me. I think this is going to be extremely difficult come November. And if the High Court decides to allow the appeal and green light the extradition on the basis of these grounds of appeal, well, firstly, that would be disturbing and hopefully subjected to a further appeal to the Supreme Court. But it would also be an extraordinary attempt to push the envelope, to try to help the United States out of what is frankly, a very difficult position legally. So I don't think we should put too much in the fact that they've been granted permission to appeal. And on the face of it, these grounds of appeal don't look at all strong. Alexander, I want to read you something that Craig Murray, the former British ambassador and blogger wrote back on January 6th, two days after Pyrates's decision, which in hindsight is extremely fascinating now that we know what we know. He wrote, quote, I am not sure that at this stage, the High Court would accept a new guarantee from the USA that Assange would not be kept in isolation or in a super max prison. That would be contrary to the affidavit from Assistant US Attorney Gordon Krumberg. And thus would probably be ruled to amount to new evidence. So my understanding, Craig, from wrong, is that in an appeal, you cannot put forth new evidence. It only goes in the truck. So is this new evidence to this offer not to put him in super max prison, what Craig was suggesting back in January? It is new evidence. And that actually begs many questions about what the grounds of appeal that have been allowed actually are because of course it is new evidence. I can't really see how you can come along and say, well, actually, this is what we're going to do. I wonder whether the real thing that's being looked at here, the sort of thin point that they're allowed to say is, well, Baritza was wrong to go ahead and consider all this evidence about the prison conditions when we weren't given the opportunity to state our case. And if we had been given that opportunity, we would have been able to say all of these things and all these problems that have been raised could have been allayed. As I said, that comes up with a fundamental problem, though, that they could have sought a postponement and they didn't. And by, I would add, making all these points about the prison conditions, well, actually, we're not going to put him in a sands that's never been our plan. We might send him to Australia. We're prepared to do all of these things. Well, in a kind of a way, they're actually accepting that Baritza's decision on the evidence put to her about the prison conditions that she was told he might be sent to was correct. If it was correct, if it was that bad, then of course she was right and you can't appeal her because an appeal is when a judge gets it wrong, not when a judge gets it right. I hope I've explained it clearly, but it's because appeal is a bit of a strange creature, but it doesn't look at all strong to me. And I wonder whether this isn't, as I said, more an attempt to give, as Kristen said, the Americans their day in court in order to get this thing out of the way. I mean, I hope so. If not, then as I said, it would be a very disturbing thing.