 Thanks everyone and thanks to those of you joining us online. I'd like to speak about three things tonight one is the acceptance and reliability of the US Assurances, another is the developments in Julian Assange's health and finally a few words about the upcoming hearing. In Julian's extradition case, Judge Vanessa Barreza determined that he would not survive imprisonment in a US supermax facility that is very likely to commit suicide. The final or penultimate witness was an American lawyer whose client Abu Hamza was held in ADX Colorado where Julian is likely to be sent. Abu Hamza has no hands. He was extradited from the UK following assurances by the US that the prison system would be able to deal with the special requirements of such a prisoner. His lawyer testified that despite the US assurances that he would not be placed in isolation he was indeed held under special administrative measures and remains in isolation in fact to this day nine years later. The US also failed to deliver on other undertakings to protect his human rights. He didn't have a toilet in his cell that was usable by someone with no hands contrary to the guarantee and so he was stripped of all dignity. Spain successfully pursued the return of their citizen who was extradited to the US following assurances that the US reneged on and the process of retrieving their citizen took many years. The assurances provided by the US in their appeal in the lower courts decision in Julian's case were not tested in court. The high court judges hearing the appeal automatically accepted them expressing the view that assurances by the US government can be relied on and differentiating between assurances offered by a state and those offered by a diplomat. I can't understand how a diplomat could give a court a guarantee without clearing it with the boss. However the judge made this distinction so the person whose signature appears on this document is critical. It made the difference for him. Significantly though the assurances were also conditional. They could be revoked at any time so not worth the paper. They were written on and it didn't matter whose signature was at the bottom. Since then though the Supreme Court has delivered a landmark ruling in a case where the UK government had accepted assurances provided by a foreign government, Rwanda, that they cannot automatically be accepted. That there is a requirement and I quote for meaningful independent evidence based judicial review focusing on the protection of human rights on the ground in that country. In Julian's case the human rights of national security prisoners in the United States, their treatment and the conditions in which they're kept. The UN considers solitary confinement beyond two weeks to be torture. Special rapporteurs have been arguing this for decades and rapporteur Juan Mendes in condemning the treatment of Chelsea Manning said prolonged solitary confinement raises special concerns because the risk of grave and irreparable harm to the detained person increases with the length of isolation and the uncertainty regarding its duration. I've defined prolonged solitary confinement as any period in excess of 15 days. This definition reflects the fact he said that most of the scientific literature shows that after 15 days certain changes in the brain functions occur and the harmful psychological effects of isolation can become irreversible. Abu Hamza has been in solitary for nine years. His lawyers stated walking was too painful because his toenails were so long and his pleas for them to be cut were ignored. I'd now like to speak a bit about Julian's health. The automatic acceptance and reliability of the assurances were not the only problem at the time. A serious problem that arose during that hearing was its failure to note or take into account in any way the change in Julian's medical condition. It's a critical failure because the decision delivered was based on assurances the US prison could mitigate against his known risk factors importantly the risk that he would commit suicide but he had developed another serious physical risk factor. At the start of the US appeal there was a brief pre-hearing chat between Julian's lawyer and the judge. Julian's lawyer said words to the effect that Julian had elected not to attend due to an increase in medication. It was extraordinary and inconceivable that he would choose not to observe the hearing via video link and indeed I was later informed that he did want to appear but the prison didn't allow it. Both his absence and the explanation flagged a problem. He's never missed a hearing. He has always struggled to engage with the drama in the courtroom despite enormous challenges such as not being able to talk to his lawyer in court or even attract his lawyer's attention and despite medication and despite deteriorating health which has been so thoroughly documented by UN reporter Nils Melzer. And secondly, why was he so heavily medicated so as not to be able to sit in the video link room in Belmarsh? What had necessitated the increase in medication? This is directly pertinent to the decision the court had to make but I had no question from the judge about it and the hearing proceeded. Then remarkably, some time into the hearing, Julian appears. We journalists observing could see him in the thumbnail on our screen. He would have been able to see the judge and people in the courtroom would have been able to also see him on a monitor. He looked mighty unwell, not only drugged. He had to use his arm to prop up his head but one side of his face was drooping and one eye was shut. During these hearings we were given very occasional glimpses of the defendant and very brief glimpses. So I asked the video host if he could please give us a longer look at the defendant because he seemed unwell and other journalists also asked and the host obliged and we were shown Julian more often and for longer than in any other previous hearing. So after the bizarre news that Julian was not going to attend his own hearing the second thing that was inconceivable is that given his condition when he did appear there were no questions, there was no adjournment. No one was perturbed by his state. Julian persisted in his attempt to focus and was clearly having great difficulty. He eventually gave up, stood up and moved away from the monitor camera. The public learned some nine weeks later and days after the judgement came down clearing the way for his extradition that he in fact had had a transient ischemic attack, a minor stroke, often a precursor to a major catastrophic one and when prompt access to an MRI machine would be vital if his life were to be saved should he have a second stroke. I don't know whether it's known when exactly Julian had the stroke. Was it before the hearing? Was it during the hearing? Why was he so heavily medicated? One thing is clear though. He's had a stroke so his condition has changed. The assurances accepted no account of this though the court's decision was handed down long after he had the stroke and around the same time that it was finally diagnosed and made public. One final remark about that hearing. One of the two justices, Judge Ian Duncan Burnett, was the Chief Justice of the High Court at the time. The decision he had made in the case of Laurie Love was considered a precedent where the extradition of a UK citizen to the US was prevented on the basis of his medical condition. This engendered of course a little hope that this judge may not reverse the district court's decision in Julian's case. But as Law Professor Nils Melza remarked, you don't need the Chief Justice on a case where he's already said a precedent that can be followed but you do need him if his precedent is to be overturned. Throughout the hearing the love decision learned large in our minds and Laurie was present in court but we realised this path was a dead end when it was finally raised by Julian's lawyers. The Chief Justice was quite dismissive. Oh but that was an entirely different case. He had eczema. The realisation struck us that the difference between being extradited or not was eczema and there'd be no joy for Julian in this court despite the marked deterioration in his physical and psychological health. Julian sought leave to appeal the decision of the High Court to accept the US Assurances in the Supreme Court but that court's determination was that there were no arguable points of law. Now I'd like to say a few words about the upcoming hearing. In three weeks a panel of two High Court judges will decide whether Julian can appeal the decision to extradite him. The purpose of this hearing is to rule on whether Julian can appeal both the Secretary of State's decision to extradite him and Judge Barathe's decision on the basis of all the grounds he argued which she didn't accept. The reliability and adequacy of the Assurances that have not been tested in court and now the medical condition for which they were furnished has changed and in the meantime there's been a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in another case regarding the necessity of a judicial review of foreign Assurances. The letter to the Home Secretary from across party group of our parliamentarians is an important and timely one and I know David Shubridge is going to be talking about that too shortly. Julian has made an application to attend this hearing personally in person rather so that he is able to communicate with his lawyers. We don't know whether the judges will make an immediate decision at the conclusion of the two-day hearing or reserve their judgement. If Julian wins this case then a date will be set for a full hearing. If he's denied the right to appeal then that exhausts further appeal avenues at the domestic level. He can then apply to the European Court of Human Rights which has the power to order a stay on his extradition. This is referred to as a rule 39 instruction which is given only in exceptional circumstances. It may by then however be erased to lodge this appeal before he's bundled off on a plane to the United States. And in closing I just want to say that if Julian is extradited and the US is successful in prosecuting him though he will not receive a fair trial there and unlikely to receive constitutional protection that protection that's offered to US citizens it will have redefined investigative journalism as espionage and demonstrated that US law, US domestic laws but not protections apply internationally to non-US citizens and it will have cost to be in his freedom and quite likely his life. Thank you.