 Good evening. I'm your clerk of court. Please make sure that all your cameras are switched off and that you're muted. You can find these buttons at the bottom left hand corner of your screen. WikiLeaks on trial was written in May 2020 and was first performed in July as part of the Galway online summer festival. John Farrell plays prosecution and Jenny Bassett the defense. WikiLeaks on trial has a running time of one hour 30 minutes. During this time you will hear the case for the US prosecution followed by the case for the defense. After this there will be a poll that will appear on your screen for you to submit with your responses. Once these are returned the court will adjourn and you'll be invited to unmute and turn on your cameras. At this point there will be time for you the people's jury to discuss the case and come to your verdict. There will be facilitators in attendance to answer any further questions that you may have. And then after this you'll get the opportunity to confirm your verdict by a poll. These will be read by myself the clerk of court. Should you have any technical issues then please use the chat and I will respond to assist. Well now it is time to say let the proceedings begin. I give you WikiLeaks on trial the US prosecution versus the defense Julian Paul Assange. The jury you will hear the case of the US state prosecution followed by the case put forward by the defense counsel. For Mr. Assange who faces extradition to the US under the extradition treaty between the US and the UK. Mr. Assange is charged with 17 counts under the Spanish Act of 1917. Count 1 conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. Count 2 conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Count 3 to 8 obtaining national defense information. Count 9 to 17 disclosure of national defense information. The publications Mr. Assange is being charged with are the Iraq war logs collateral murder. The Afghan war diaries and the US diplomatic cables. If extradited to the US Mr. Assange faces up to 175 years in a US prison. These are indeed serious charges and I urge you to listen carefully to the case presented. After the defense has present the case for Mr. Assange the virtual court will adjourn the breakout rooms where members of the jury. You will have the opportunity to discuss reflect and came to your verdict. May the proceedings begin the case for the prosecution. Thank you your honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I am here today to put before you the reason why you must cast aside any preconceived ideas you may have and listen to what is presented. Listen to why you must say yes. Mr. Assange must be extradited to the US to face charges. Mr. Assange through his operation WikiLeaks were hell bent. Utterly determined to undermine our very rules of democracy. Our values are very fabric of society and all we hold precious. Why? Because WikiLeaks is a hostile non state intelligence operation. An organization whose methods of operation include the act of theft to obtain highly secretive classified state information from the US government. Let's go back to Mr. Assange's childhood to really understand what what motivates a person to put the world at risk in the way that he has born in Australia. His world was turned upside down. At the age of nine years old, his mother took up with a third man, Leif Hamilton, who was part of a cult, the family. Objection your honor. This has nothing to do with the extradition case. My defendant cannot be held responsible for decisions made by a parent. Your honor, do you have an opinion? I shall continue then. Thank you your honor. Now, while the inner circle of the family saw themselves as, and I quote, the reincarnation of the apostles of Jesus. All members were instructed to dye their hair white. And they were a middle class, fairly affluent medics and professionals. This was a cult that practiced a myriad of different religions and indoctrinated, not only these members, but especially targeted the children to whom the psychedelic drug LSD was given. Oh, objection your honor. What relevance does the history of this group have on the bearing of this case? Your honor, I am but on the precipice of my point. Your honor, this experience would have had an effect on any individual. And I put it to you had a very profound effect on a young and vulnerable Julian Assange. We see this most notably in the outer appearance of the defendant having white hair. Objection your honor, I failed to see how my client's hair, natural hair color has any bearing on this case. Your honor, I am merely stating that the outer appearance, his hair color being white is one of the rules of being in this very cult. Your honor, addressing the effect this cult had on Mr. Assange and the traumatic experience of being on the run from cult member Mr. Hamilton. Well, I am asserting that this shaped the defendant and that from this experience, he learned certain skills from an early age. Consider this, I miss the joy. While other children aged nine were playing bows and arrows, this defendant with his mother and brother were fleeing for their lives from a group that was able to track them through social security codes. Is it any wonder that seven years on that same young man aged just 16 years old, living in Melbourne, Australia had turned to hacking under the name Mendax. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Mendax is Latin for liar. This because the defendant's new name it became liar and members of the jury. That is precisely what Mr. Assange is a liar and a formidable hacker. It was in Melbourne that the defendant formed a hacking group, the international subversives. I took it upon myself to look up the definition of subversive and I will share this with you. Subversive, according to the Cambridge dictionary is defined as trying to destroy or damage something, especially an established political system. And this members of the jury is precisely what Julian Assange has been intent on doing since 1989. The person going by the name of tracks and another one with the name prime suspect. This group, the international subversives, well they were highly skilled operatives. And in 1989, the same year that the very first internet service provider was available. This group, the international subversives first came to the attention of the US authorities to the hacking of the US state agency NASA. In an operation they named WANK, worms against nuclear killers. Posting quote, you talk of times of peace for all and then prepare for war. Oh objection your honor, my defendant did not face any charges in connection with this hack. While the state had no evidence to bring about legal action against the international subversives. It is widely known that Mr. Assange and his team were responsible. Objection your honor, my learned friend is leading the jury. Your honor, it was not long before the international subversives and Julian Assange did face charges for hacking. September 1991 to be precise. When Julian Assange as the ringleader of the international subversives was discovered hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of Nortel, a Canadian multinational telecommunications corporation. He was charged in 1994 with 31 counts of hacking and related crimes. And let's not pretend Julian Assange was a bystander. The prosecution at the time described Assange as the most active and most skillful of the hacking group. In November 1996, he pleaded guilty to 24 of the charges and he was ordered to pay reparations of $22,100 Australian dollars. And he was released on good behavior bond. His defense cited members of the jury disrupted childhood to justify the lenient penalty. We are beginning to see a pattern are we not. Why did this lenient penalty bring us? It led to the rise of a cyber terrorist Mr Julian Assange. Objection your honor, my learned friend is leading the jury again. This time with slanderous language in a vain attempt to discredit my client. So your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The case before us today is a very simple one to determine whether the United States of America's numerous indictments against Mr Assange are of sufficient cause to require his extradition to the United States to answer them. The defense counsel all day would no doubt like to turn this into a dress rehearsal for that trial to confuse you into considering evidence and and weighing judgments far beyond the actual scope of this proceeding. You are not being asked to determine his journalistic bona fides, or if some higher morality exempts him from culpability. You are not being asked to determine whether there is sufficient cause for him to face trial in the United States. This is not that trial. Mr Assange faces. Well, they are serious ones, breaking and entering classified computer databases, assisting and encouraging others in the commission of similar crimes, which have placed sources and methods at risk. The very lives of our agents in the field. Agents, I must remind you that protected the freedoms that are two countries in joy. That concludes the case for the prosecution. Thank you, your honor. And we continue with the case for defense. Thank you, your honor. The start wars truth ends them. Julian Assange members of the jury. I'm putting forward the case for the defense that my client Mr Assange has suffered sustained persecution by the Trump administration as a result of him releasing documents in the public domain on a need to know basis. These documents were released with the intention of holding the US government to account the gross cover ups, wrongdoings, miscarriages of justice and war crimes. First of all, I wish to address the issue of total absence of due process that has taken place. Despite the gravity of these charges, Mr Assange's legal right to access his lawyers have been completely severed in the last five months by the authorities at Belmarsh high security prison. It is only in the last two weeks that the legal team has had access to Julian Assange by 10 minute phone calls. This is a clear abuse of due process. This failure to access his legal team and not see his family and friends has created great mental and physical difficulties for Mr Assange. Despite having never been convicted of any of these crimes, Mr Assange has been locked away in solitary confinement in a small cell for 23 hours a day for the past 14 months. Members of the jury he requested a computer to write notes on to his legal team. The request was not responded to until a couple of weeks ago when he received a computer. With the keys glued down, medical reports from mid August confirmed that Mr Assange's health is precarious and his various respiratory ailments are rapidly worsening. This can start to Covid 19. March 2020, 60 doctors signed a letter to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson demanding that Julian Assange be released from Belmarsh prison on health grounds and put under house arrest. While a vice was ignored, Niles Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture with two medical experts examined Julian Assange and reported, what we saw was that Mr Assange was showing all the symptoms a person normally displays when subjected to mental torture over a long period of time. 10 members of the jury has been ignored by the British authorities as have all communications from his legal team to transfer Mr Assange from Belmarsh prison to house arrest as recommended. Furthermore, Mr Assange at the last court hearing was strict searched twice, handcuffed 11 times, had his legal papers taken away from him and was not allowed to sit with his legal team, but remain at the back of court, out of sight, placed in a position that severed any confidentiality with his legal team. Client lawyer confidentiality was also breached prior to Mr Assange's imprisonment that further emphasises that the defense's case has been extremely compromised. In fear of being extradited to the US, Mr Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy, as was his right. For seven long years, he remained confined to the sunless first floor of the embassy. We now discover that while in the embassy, his privacy was nonetheless being violated. By CCTV security cameras installed by the Spanish security company GI Global providing direct feed to the CIA. To put this in the starkest terms, members of the jury, this is the Trump Administration CIA bribing a foreign company to spy on a foreign national in a foreign embassy in a yet foreign country. As if this extraordinarily global overreach were not travelling enough, we have learnt that the CIA had also taken visitors phones, tampered with those and were even weighing plans to kidnap and poison Mr Assange. During his political asylum, Mr Assange received a visit from a messenger of the Trump Administration. Offering him a deal. If Mr Assange agreed to make public that it was not the Russian government that submitted the Cablegate documents, that's the US diplomatic cables, two WikiLeaks, the extradition case against him would be dropped. Members of the jury, Mr Assange did not cut that deal. In a matter of hours, the British police had stormed the embassy, forcibly evicting Mr Assange from the embassy straight to a 15 minute court hearing to face extradition charges against him and then taken to Belmarsh prison. This is an outrageous aberration of the treaty between the UK and Ecuador. And why? To face trumped up charges that will not bear up under any scrutiny. Oh, objection! Your honour, will counsel please be advised to stick to the matter at hand? Assange. Your honour, members of the jury, I was addressing the important matter of due process that has not taken place with this extradition hearing. The whole history that I have set out provides the clearest evidence that this extradition request is an abuse of process by reason of bad faith and abuse of power. I will now deal with the terms and conditions of extradition between the US and the UK. And I'll make my case that on political grounds Mr Assange should not be extradited. Members of the jury, this extradition treaty was drawn up and ratified on the 31st of March 2003 as a response to the 911 terrorists. But it was also to apply to murderers and pedophiles. The treaty draws a line between acts of terrorism that result in the murder of innocent people and political acts that relate to publications and don't result in death. The prosecution members of the jury has conceded under oath that there has been no deaths caused as a result of any publication by Julian Assange and by extension WikiLeaks. And therefore, members of the jury, this confirms that these charges that Mr Assange faces were political acts and not acts of terrorism. I will further illustrate this point to make reference to when this treaty was being scrutinized at the Committee of Foreign Relations at the US Senate. Now, at the time, there were concerns over the lack of protective language for free speech as appeared in the previous 1986 treaty that stated that one could not be extradited to, and I quote, to try to punish on account of race, religion, nationality or political views. More specifically, many Irish-American groups were concerned with how this extradition treaty might impact individuals taking an anti-British stand with regard to involvement in or occupation of Northern Ireland. Mr John Meehan Jr., the National President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an organization broadly regarded as conservative with the capital C, expressed the view that if this new treaty were to be ratified, and I quote, an American citizen who opposes British policy, for example, an investigative journalist who wrote of current and past police abuses in the North of Ireland for an American newspaper, could face arrest and extradition. This is the very situation before us now, members of the jury, and with this attempted extradition of Mr Assange. Objection, Your Honor, Mr Assange is not a journalist. Your Honor, I intend to address WikiLeaks and my client's role in that organization very shortly. Members of the jury today, we have Julian Assange facing extradition from the UK for publishing documents that exposed US war crimes. That presents itself in much the same situation as the scenario given by John Meehan Jr. at the US committee scrutinizing the treaty when he feared that a journalist in the US publishing an article that exposed British policy in the North of Ireland could face extradition. I quote Madeline Morris of Duke University Law School that stated, Nothing in the proposed treaty threatens or impinges on the peaceful exercise of those civil and political rights. To the contrary, the treaty provides explicit protection of those rights in the context of extradition. And, members of the jury, the protection of civil and political rights is laid down in Article 4 of the treaty. That states, Extradition shall not be granted if the offence for which extradition is requested is a political offence. By doing that, the treaty prohibits extradition for political crimes such as treason, or sedation, again crimes constituted by their political content. Members of the jury, it is for this reason that Julian Assange's extradition should be dismissed. This is a political case and should be thrown out of court. Objection, your honour. This case is not political. Julian Assange was operating as a hostile non-state intelligence service, hacking into computer systems and stealing information. Your honour, that is a highly subjective and politicised description. One that the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has recently taken to trotting out before the press in an attempt to discredit Mr Assange and WikiLeaks. And ironically, members of the jury merely confirms the political nature of this case. This case is inherently political. Mr Assange has been targeted because of the political position imputed to him by the Trump administration. As an enemy, America must bring down. Mr Pompeo's characterisation of Mr Assange and WikiLeaks as a non-state, hostile intelligence agency makes it clear that the extradition request has been made because of the defendant's political opinion. Does Mr Assange have political opinions? Well, like the rest of us. Of course he does, but that's no crime. And those opinions can be stated as follows. He's a leading proponent of an open society and a freedom of expression. He's anti-war and anti-imperialist. He's a well-renowned champion of political transparency and of the public's right to access information on issues of importance, issues of political corruption, war crimes and torture. He has exposed surveillance by Russia and published documents of Mr Assange in Syria. And it is said that WikiLeaks revelations about the corruption in Tunisia and torture in Egypt were the catalyst for the Arab Spring itself. Oh, objection, your honour. Council, you have been advised. Yes, your honour. But given Mr Assange and WikiLeaks clearly stated objectives, it was inevitable that they will be brought into contact with powerful states such as the U.S. for purely political reasons. This explains why he has been denounced as a terrorist and why President Trump has called for the death penalty. Members of the jury following the publication in 2010 of the Iraq war logs and the collateral murder video. The Obama administration fought six and a half long years to use this same espionage act against Mr Assange. May I remind you that the Obama administration had more convictions under the Espionage Act than all previous U.S. administrations put together. However, members of the jury, they were unable to produce a single indictment against Julian Assange. Quote Matt Miller, the official spokesman for the Obama Department of Justice, who said, We didn't bring this espionage act case for a couple of reasons. First, we thought it was a dangerous precedent to prosecute Assange for something that reporters do all of the time. We didn't believe Assange was a journalist, but the Espionage Act doesn't make any distinction between journalists and others. So if you can apply it to Assange, there's no real reason that you can't apply it to the New York Times. Second, and it's related, it's not clear that charting someone with the publication of classified information could survive court scrutiny. Members of the jury, it is clear, is it not, that Mr Assange is protecting his sources as a duty of care carried out by investigative journalists every day. This prosecution seeks to criminalize that work and the ability to protect their sources and this members of the jury sets a very dangerous precedent. I could quote scores of media organizations that have publicly stated their grave concern for such an unprecedented use of the Espionage Act to extradite Mr Assange. But I have chosen one from the National Union of Journalism in the UK. The legal devices being deployed to try and take him to the US are unprecedented and terrifying for anyone whose journalism touches on state security, defence or espionage. If Assange is sent from here to start a prison sentence that could be as long as 175 years, then no journalist is safe. Under this application of the Espionage Act or media organizations will be placed under threat of litigation. Members of the jury, the consequences violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press and freedom of expression. I object Your Honor, on the grounds that First Amendment rights are not applicable to an Australian citizen. Your Honor members of the jury, let's be clear. This is an attempt to extradite an Australian citizen from the US protections otherwise afforded to US citizens. In short, this indictment seeks to apply the Espionage Act territorially, leaving him to face proceeding stripped of all rights afforded to the press in the US Constitution. Members of the jury, it was for these very reasons that the Obama administration dropped the case. Themselves pointing to the dangerous president that this would set where in any journalist or publisher anywhere in the world deemed a threat could be extradited to the US and stripped of all rights to face a lifetime in prison. This prosecution is seeking to make an example of Julian Assange sending a message to deter anyone from publishing uncomfortable truths. The prosecution is seeking to crush the very idea of free speech. Objection, Your Honor. The prosecution has no intention of stifling legitimate vehicles for the expression of free speech. The prosecution refers to Mr Assange and as I quote, a cyber terrorist and to WikiLeaks as a hostile non-state intelligence agency and maintains that Mr Assange is neither a journalist or a publisher. Yet Mr Assange has been a member of the Australian Journalist Union since 2007, along with membership of the NUJ and the European Federation of Journalists. Indeed, the UK Court have described Mr Assange as a journalist and WikiLeaks as a media organization. In addition, there are hundreds of articles and investigative reports that accompany raw data that he has published on WikiLeaks and in the New York Times National and the Council of Europe. He has won numerous media awards, including the Martha Gellhorn Prize and Australia's highest journalism award. In short, members of the jury, he has championed the cause of transparency and freedom of information throughout the world. Indeed, Mr Assange has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for no less than six consecutive years, including this year and last year. Yet, the prosecution maintain that Mr Assange is not a journalist or a publisher. Members of the jury, Mr Assange's positive impact as a publisher is undeniable. The hostility it has provoked from the Trump administration is equally undeniable. I will now address WikiLeaks and the multinational media organization founded by Mr Assange in 2006. WikiLeaks specializes in the analysis and the publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying and corruption. It has so far published more than 10 million documents and associated analysis. WikiLeaks is a giant library of the world's most persecuted documents. We give asylum to those documents, we analyze them, we promote them, and we obtain more. Julian Assange to speak or interview. While no organization can hope to have a perfect record all the time, thus far WikiLeaks has a perfect one in its document, authentication, and in its resistance to all censorship attempts. Members of the public. WikiLeaks evolved from Mr Assange's knowledge of computer programming and his driving passion to provide a safe, secure online route for employees be that in the private or in state organizations seeking to make public wrongdoing of their employer. This was achieved by the simple device of a secure dropbox into which documents can be anonymously submitted and downloaded onto the WikiLeaks website. Now, just as the Internet has changed our lives from booking a ticket, a travel ticket to shopping, to the way we communicate with each other to reading the news, WikiLeaks as an online publisher transformed publishing and journalism. And this members of the jury brings us to the issue of receiving information, which is what Mr Assange is charged with under the Espionage Act to be clear. The documents which were, which are downloaded onto WikiLeaks are downloaded anonymously. They are not downloaded by Mr Assange or by anyone else working in WikiLeaks. Having said that, Mr Assange has a duty of care, as do all journalists, to protect their sources. And this also forms part of the Espionage charges. Objection, Your Honor. Mr Assange instructed private Bradley Manning how to hack into the U.S. database and was given assistance by Mr Assange to crack the password. Mr Assange is complicit in the theft of highly classified U.S. state documents. Members of the jury, please be informed that all classified documents included in these charges were submitted by one source. That source, through her own actions, came to be identified as Chelsea Manning. Private Manning served seven years in prison. Her sentence was commuted by the Obama administration and she was released. She was, however, reincarcerated by the Trump administration after refusing to testify at the grand jury hearings, which produced multiple indictments we're considering here today. She was released in March. Thank you, Your Honor. During her court martial hearings in 2013, Private Manning testified under oath that she had authorization to access those documents. She has categorically stated that she and she alone accessed those files. Private Manning was a highly trained computer analyst who was driven by her conscience to expose the abuses of human rights that were taking place in Iraq. The prosecution maintains that Mr Assange and WikiLeaks caused a danger to life. Yet under oath, in the U.S. court martial of Private Manning, the prosecution has had to admit that they were unable to find any evidence that any loss of life resulted. Furthermore, all documents released were at least six months old and had no military value. Trained journalist WikiLeaks redacted and withdrew names of any and all individuals mentioned in all of the documents. Objection, Your Honor. WikiLeaks did not redact names in all the documents. Thank you. Your Honor, I suggest perhaps my learned friend is confusing WikiLeaks with the Guardian newspaper. One of the media partners under contractual terms with WikiLeaks with the release of these papers who accidentally made a password available in a publication. It was only after that that WikiLeaks released the same document in full online. Members of the jury, in addition to the Guardian newspaper, the Spiegel, the German paper and the New York Times, who were also in secured contractual relationships with WikiLeaks to publish those same documents for which Mr Assange is now being charged under the SBNR Act, I ask, will these news organisations also come under the same threat of extradition? Objection, Your Honor. As already stated, the prosecution has no intention of stifling legitimate vehicles for the expression of free speech. But Mr Assange and WikiLeaks posted a wish list of documents to act into. This is not the work of a responsible journalist. Furthermore, in their online chats, Mr Assange encouraged private Bradley Manning to collect more documents. I quote, curious eyes never run dry. The Iraq war logs were the largest leak in military history. Some 3,832 field reports from the US military covering all events in Iraq all the way up until 2009. They were diary of the war of day-to-day accounts from and between units. This is a major national security issue. Your Honor, I would like to thank my learning friend for introducing the subject of the war diaries. Members of the jury, the prosecution describes this pivotal document released with, dare I say, shock and awe. But journalist Chris Woods, working with the Bureau of Investors to give journalists reporting it bag bad at the time, said, it became apparent on reading these documents that journalists have been lied to by the coalition forces. One example being that journalists were continuously told there was no body count when the log recorded 66,081 civilian deaths. Members of the jury, this is a breach of the Geneva Convention and it is in the public interest to know what is being done in their name. This was the headline on the front cover of the Guardian newspaper the day the media partners broke the story. Massive leak reveals serial detainee abuse, 15,000 unknown civilian deaths in war. The article continues, more than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. The US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists, but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities. The numerous reports of detainee abuse often supported by medical evidence describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death. Members of the jury, the scale of this cover-up was immense. The Iraq war logs and the rush of articles that follow change public perception about the Iraq war around the world. The release of those documents had enormous political consequences for the US administration and it is because of those political consequences that they have issued these indictments. Governments need to be held to account. This is what is at stake here, members of the jury. The war logs expose human rights abuses and war crimes. Mr. Assange is not the one with blood on his hands. Members of the jury, you're aware that there are four main categories that the disclosed documents fall into. The Afghanistan war diaries, the Iraq war logs, the US diplomatic papers and the collateral murder video. All of these expose US military cover-ups and lies, testifying to the slaughter of hundreds of innocent men, women and children as well as other war crimes and abuse of detainees, human rights abuses and corruption. I will now focus on just one, the collateral murder tape released by WikiLeaks. The collateral murder is footage taken from a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad in July 2007. It demonstrates further blatant lies told initially to journalists and then to the public, to you and me. Here is the initial report by Dean Yates, who was head of Reuters at the time in Baghdad, dated 12th of July 2007, Baghdad. Reuters has learned that two employees, photographer Namia Noir-Eldin and his driver Saeed Shamar, had been killed. Dean Yates, head of Reuters. And that day, Yates was to say, people were sent to al-Amin, where Namia and Saeed had headed out to. Witnesses told us it was some sort of aerial attack that Iraq police were telling us it was a US helicopter. One of the puzzling things was this mangled van at the scene. What was this doing here? There were shrapnel marks all around, blood on the ground. Namia's camera had been seized, but it was difficult to see what had happened. It wasn't until the following day that the US military statement was issued, it read, Firefight in New Baghdad. US Iraqi forces kill nine insurgents, detain 13. Nine insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight. One insurgent was wounded and two civilians were killed during the firefight. The two civilians were reported as employees for the Reuters news service. There is no question that the coalition forces were clearly in combat operations against a hostile force. On the 15th of July, the cameras were returned to Reuters, but the cameras had clearly been messed with. There was a photograph of a US soldier in a barrack or a tent taken some three hours after Namia's death. But nothing of the clashes with the insurgent government or of the US military clashes as described in the US statement. Ten days later, on the 25th of July, Dean Yates and a Reuters colleague met with two generals that had overseen the investigation into the incident. The meeting was off the record so it couldn't be reported by Reuters. But Dean Yates was told that pilots in an Apache helicopter identified a group of, quote, military aged men. And some of the men were carrying weapons. Yates related, they showed us photographs. One was of Namia peering around the corner of a building looking towards the helicopter. He goes to take what the pilots took to be a weapon. That was his camera. When asked where the firefight was, as described in the US document, Yates and his colleague from Reuters were told, walking on the street is an expression of hostile intent. And therefore the helicopters were given permission to open fire. Walking on the street was an act of hostile intent members of the jury. The reporters were then shown just three minutes of a videotape, the collateral murder tape that was later published in full by Mr Assange. At the time Reuters were denied access to the entire video and were told to apply through the Freedom of Information Act. They were denied time and time and time again. From the footage shown to them by the US military, they were led to believe that Namia, the photographer, was responsible for the killings because he peered around the corner of the building with what looked like an RPG. That's a rocket propelled grenade that can bring down a helicopter. Members of the jury, that was a lie. It was only after the collateral murder video was published did the truth come out. What was the intention of the US generals? Did they choreograph this for me to have the image of him, Namia, looking suspicious, peering around the corner? I didn't realise they were going to fire anyway. That man, Dean Yates, was a competent, compassionate journalist that having seen collateral murder in full released by WikiLeaks, that he hadn't seen before, even though he'd been asked time and time again through the Freedom of Information Act, became guilt-ridden, suicidal and was admitted into a psychiatric unit three times. This cover-up by the US military destroyed that man's life. Reuters didn't call out the lie about the US not being able to find a copy of the tape in the intervening years. Private Manning found it easy enough. When confronted with this evidence, the US said there had been no attempt to cover this up. But this was just another lie. Collateral murder, members of the jury, will be shown to you. Due to time constraints, we have edited this down. This is footage taken from the Apache helicopter in Baghdad. Reference to Crazy Horse 18 and Crazy Horse 19 are both helicopters. We can see a group of men casually walking through Al Amin in Baghdad, and that's a residential area. Initially, we heard a trained US pilot report to base an exaggerated number of 40 individuals. We heard one pilot using inappropriate language that gives the impression of highly charged soldiers. Then two weapons were identified, one of them being Namia's camera. Report to base then went from 40 to 5 to 6 individuals with AK-47s, suggesting that all 5 to 6 individuals were armed. This is Namia, the Reuters photographer. This is Namia just looking around the corner there, and this is the photograph that was shown to Dean Yates and his Reuters colleague. This is the image that lingered in Dean Yates' head. This is the moment that the two generals had said had caused the pilots to open fire this moment. And this is the lie, as we all see now. Witness for yourself. If that had been a sniper with an RPG that's a rocket-propelled grenade that is capable of bringing down the helicopter, that man and others with weapons would surely be in a position to fire on a helicopter when in range. And I want you to look at the next clip and judge for yourself if this group of men are engaged in crossfire, as reported in the US military statement that went, there is no question that coalition forces were clearly in combat operations against a hostile force. Now, he was right in front of the bread about there one o'clock. I haven't seen anything since then. Just fucking, once you get on, just open your eyes. I see your element got about 400 meters out along this air flare. All right, firing. Let me know when you get it. First off, we heard we got a guy shooting. That was a lie. That man was Namir with a camera. There was no crossfire. If any sniper was aiming to shoot from that corner of the building, the group would have repositioned to shoot as the helicopter came around the building. They were not in position. You can clearly see Saeed on the phone. Namir's camera, they took to be a gun, slung over his shoulder. What we heard was, line him up. Fight him all up. Come on, fire. We need to move time now. All right, we just engaged all eight individuals. We got two of them. Six of them, two six, we're moving. Oh, I'm sorry. God damn it, you got him. I hit him, I hit him. Try to find targets again. After that mass shooting and a group of people that were clearly not engaged in crossfire, and there was no reason to be identified as hostile combatants from how they were behaving, pilots shot into a building that was clearly in a residential area. Later, you will see that building to have washing hanging up to dry on the rooftop. Hotel 26, crazy horse, 1-8. Crazy horse, 1-8, this is Hotel 26, over. Roger, currently engaging, approximately eight individuals. Hotel 26, you need to move to that location once Crazy Horse is done, and get the pictures over. We have reported that there were weapons KIAs and AK47s and an RPG. We know that the RPG was a camera. In the investigation that followed, there was no reference to other weapons at the scene. But the point remains, the group on the ground were not involved in crossfire. We heard inappropriate language. Then we heard, nice. Like it was a game on a computer. To that we heard, good shooting. Yeah, the weapons over there. You guys got that guy crawling right now on a curb? Course master 36 element, this is Hotel 27, over. Roger, I'm just trying to make sure that you guys have my turbo over. Roger, we have to move. Come on, buddy. I got you to pick up a weapon. This section has been edited. The US have ceased fire. As the Reuters driver, Saeed, is heavily wounded, as you can see. And he was barely able to crawl along the ground. We heard US soldiers wanting him to pick up a weapon so that they could shoot. Then a good Samaritan. Then a good Samaritan in a van arrives. The soldiers identify the van as picking up the wounded. We hear soldiers asking permission to shoot at the van. That van has had no close inspection as to who is inside. We hear soldiers cries of come on. Let us shoot. They were wanting to shoot to kill an extremely wounded man and two good Samaritans. And a van that looks like. That there were two people hanging out the back of the window close to Saeed. We see this in the next clip as follows. The mission to shoot is given. Soldiers open fire. We can see the van blown to bits. A soldier cries out, I can't shoot for some reason. The vehicle is identified as a vehicle. The vehicle is in the vehicle. The vehicle is in the vehicle. The vehicle is in the vehicle. The vehicle is in the vehicle. The vehicle is in the vehicle. The vehicle is identified as disabled. Another carries on shooting. Then reports back to base that four to five individuals are in the van. After the killing. On the road, we're all being engaged. I want to be advised. This is our six beginning. Pushmaster seven, Hotel 26. Do you want us to move to your location over? Master six, Hotel 26, over. Hotel 26, this is Pushmaster seven. Roger, come to our location. Okay, Roger. We're moving up north on Gatton. And then we will push east to your location. Zone four in route, zone three one one. We'll call the arrival. Grestor two zero, commander eight nine is active for arrival three one one. Roger, that's a negative on on the back of the two. So we can get to Russia. They're going to have my piece of link up over here break. I'll take a month to a local hospital over. If you copy over. We hear soldiers. Proudly talking of hitting targets. Talking likely about driving over a dead body. Soldiers take a wounded girl. Then a second child. That's wounded to be treated. The soldiers response. That's their fault for effing well bringing their kids to a battle. This van was saving lives. This was no battle. In the initial US military statement, there was no reference made to the two children badly wounded. The quote given by major Cummings just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. No innocent civilians were killed on our part delivered deliberately. We took great pains to prevent that I now know to be two children that were hurt. We did everything we could to help them. And finally, I don't know how those two children were hurt lies exposed by collateral murder from start to finish members of the jury lies start wars. Truth ends them. Any review members of the jury of the war logs will show that this was unfortunately common. The same Apache helicopter saw two men. Below them attempting to surrender with their hands up in clear view in clear view of the helicopter just a few months earlier. And this was in February 2007. The pilots asked base command what they should do. The pilots were told that you can't surrender to an aircraft. So the men with their hands in the air were gunned down to innocent men were gunned down surrendering members of the jury. If journalists have covered this story in 2007, if the public had known about this, there would have been an outcry. There would have been an investigation and maybe collateral murder and the countless other incidents that the war logs revealed wouldn't have taken place. It would have saved lives. Does the defense have any final words for the jury? Please be reminded that should Mr. Sange be extradited, he will face solitary confinement in a high security US jail waiting for his case to be heard. My client has already faced eight years in captivity. The last 14 to 15 months has really taken its toll in solitary confinement. And as reports from psychiatrists have shown, he may not survive any further time in solitary confinement. Please note that as his family is not American, they will not be allowed entry into the US to visit him. Members of the jury, the grand jury that drew up this order to extradite Mr. Sange were based in West Virginia. And they were chosen specifically because they were all residents of an area just six kilometers from Washington DC. It is an area with the highest density of government employees in the entire US. Mr. Sange will face a grand jury should he be extradited. All of whom will likely have very strong feelings as to the outcome of this case. In summary then, in cases of extradition, the present health of the defendant should be taken into account. Considering Mr. Sange is currently failing health, any further solitary confinement will prove fatal. Two, this case is clearly political and should be thrown out because of that. Extradition cannot be enforced for political views or actions. As the Obama administration found, this extradition will set a dangerous precedent and pose a real threat to freedom of the press. Where any journalist or publisher anywhere in the world that publishes an article, the US finds offensive could be extradited to the US. It would also criminalize the critical work of investigational journalism and its duty of care to protect sources. The documents published through WikiLeaks enable the public to know what is being done in their name by their governments. This is about holding governments to account. WikiLeaks had the courage to publish the truth, primary source, hard facts and in doing so exposed the lies and the cover-ups of governments. And for that, Mr. Sange has been subject to torture as the UN rapporteur has reported and faces a death sentence if extradited. Under oath, the prosecution in previous hearings has conceded that documents published through WikiLeaks did not result in any loss of life while the US have faced not one charge for any of the war crimes exposed by WikiLeaks. Members of the jury, first they came for Julian Assange and I wasn't him and I did nothing. Then they came for WikiLeaks and I wasn't one of them and I did nothing. Then they came for the publishers and I wasn't a publisher and I did nothing. Then they came for the journalists and I wasn't a journalist and I did nothing. And then they came for the artists and I wasn't an artist and I did nothing. And then they came for the students and I wasn't a student anymore. So I did nothing. Then there was no one left. They came for me. This your honour ends the case for the defence. Members of the jury, you have listened to the prosecution and the case for the defence. The time has now to consider your verdict. Clarke of Court, would you advise? You are now welcome to switch on your cameras and unmute. As Clarke of Court, I am now launching the poll. If you could answer those questions and submit. I would just give you another minute or so as not everyone has submitted their vote. We have most people, we've got 75% of the people have now voted. Okay, I don't think it's going to change the overall outcome. So I'll read through the responses. Should Julian Assange be extradited? I should say at the beginning what we would do is we will have a discussion for in and around 10 minutes. And then as Clarke of Court, I will then issue another poll that will ask a question whether or not you would find Julian Assange, you would agree or not agree to Julian Assange being extradited. But in our first poll, 100% of the people's jury, that's nine out of 12 that we have with us tonight, have said they would not extradite Julian Assange. Before this performance, were you aware of the extradition of Julian Assange from the UK to the US? 89% said they were and one wasn't. Prior to the performance, how much did you know about WikiLeaks? 22% a little said a little. 56% responded I was aware of the website and what was published and 44% had visited the website. Has this performance changed your view about Julian Assange's extradition? 11% said I now think he should be extradited. I now think he should be extradited. Beforehand, I thought he should not. The same amount 11% said I now think he should not be extradited before I had no view. 89% said I now think he should not be extradited. Beforehand, I have the same view. So overwhelmingly, we've got people that came that didn't want him extradited and have the same view beforehand and two others that changed their minds. Do you think the classified documents released by WikiLeaks were in the public interest to know? 100% said yes. Are you concerned about the dangerous precedent on a free press and freedom of speech that this would bring? 100% said yes. Are you concerned about the overreach of the US government? 89% said yes and 11% said not sure. I think at this point it's good to remind people, although you mentioned it at the commencement of the program, that this particular work was actually being devised last spring and premiered this summer, even prior to the start of the extradition hearings. So in fact, the point of this piece was to raise interest and a lot of the performances we've given previously have been with students and people like that. So just being mindful of the fact that that's our origins. So members of our public jury then, you're welcome to unmute yourself and turn on your cameras if you so wish to. You can hear us? I can hear you. Yeah, I can hear you. Yeah. So did you discover, have you been following the extradition hearing? I've been out at protests. I hang out with the guys that go out on protests in support of Julian, going out to Belmarsh and so on. But I only became involved in that just recently. I did know about WikiLeaks before. I understood. I'd kind of seen those video shots before but a long time ago and reminded myself of them again. But like when you're watching that, it's disgusting in the way that human life is, you know, it seemed like a game. And it does come from like these video games that they play. It's simulated on the computer games that they go home and play and even when they're in the bases. So they trigger happy and they're going out and they're killing innocent people because, you know, they think they're doing good for their country. Yeah, it still remains harrowing for me to watch. Yeah, especially with the children. Yeah. And what wasn't mentioned was that this, as far as I'm aware, was the first time that the public has seen military engagement in the way that we witnessed, we saw there. Yeah. And before that, the only videos that we had seen before these were those, you know, the missiles hitting in Iran or Iraq that we saw on BBC News and all around the world, where it was very clinical. So now you're actually seeing real people being, I mean, like it killed in a way with, you know, high velocity bullets to blow up cars, tanks, whatever to shoot through. And just indiscriminately. During the Vietnam War, there was press made available and it was every day in the front pages of the papers and exactly. So this is a this whole case is in some ways a direct result of sequestering and censoring the media and the public was out of sight out of mind. I mean, we also know in Vietnam they had their own soldiers, you know, creating what they propaganda as well, you know, or the good that they're meant to be doing in the country. And we're left with this in a modern age. This case at this trial, you know, for me I've actually been following it as best I can, but I'm always thinking and I'm also a religious person so I know, or I had heard that the Chelsea Manning was betrayed by a chaplain so I feel personally insulted and that the moral fabric of the whole context has been so denigrated deliberately from the very beginning that I've been sickened by the whole thing, but going through this kind of practice trial case it showed me elements of it which was not apparent to me earlier, which was that, although it's quite clear that these Geneva conventions, I have noticed here article eight section to a willful killing and section section to be which is attacking civilians. So while the evidence shows that clearly and we can also make the case that Julian's treatment as he has undergone also illustrates a lot of these conventions and their, you know, just say, you know, abuse. Actually, what I found from observing today and participating today was that the, it became clear that the military was unable to distinguish armed people from unarmed people. So the engagement were completely confounded and they really didn't know what they were doing and I think that is, that was like a nuance and subtlety that was not apparent to me before I came through this today. For me, it's very clear that they knew that they didn't have guns and that they were using that as a means for their superiors to give them operational tactics to shoot and kill. It's almost like a day out. It's as explained it's like a video game. They're pressing buttons. Oh, I know my button doesn't work. I can't shoot. Yeah, and I think the defense attorney had mentioned that there were many other evidences in videos and of other similar situations. Yeah, and there's also the fact that, you know, we're talking about it being political and it's obviously political, everything that's been done, even with Chelsea Manning, so Obama lets her out, and then Trump puts her back in jail. And also Julian and WikiLeaks work. It's not like they were releasing the information to evaluate the integrity of tanks, or how digital electronics work, or some other issue. It's a clearly a public interest case and clearly related. And I was arguing also in the chat that the Iraq war, because they was contested about the evidence that was used to engage in the war in the first place. Exactly. It's inherently political. The whole thing is inherently political because of that, even alone. Yeah, it's, yeah, even the fact that they're trying to say he's not a journalist is an absolutely ridiculous kind of defense, you know what I mean, that they can turn around and say that he wasn't a journalist or he didn't, you know, he had no, what would you say, credentials. The First Amendment divides to public journalism and publishing anyway. The thing that scares me the most is that it's even got this far that he's been locked up for so long in the fact that, you know, he's obviously a journalist, he's obviously, and this is political and, you know, dragging him out of the embassy, and taking him straight to court and throwing him straight in prison, and not even allowing him bail, not allowing him to create a case. It's quite clearly, you know, abuses of law abuses of power. And we're seeing more and more and more of it. And as I keep saying to people that Julian is the symbol of free speech and until he's released. We're not safe. I want to take this opportunity also for, I mean, if there are other clergy members and ordained people ordained clergy. It's time to get solidarity and we've seen the lawyers and the journalists and other professions. Gather and solidarity. And it's really time to come forward and maybe do hunger strikes and something like that until he gets out. And it can also be very positive as, as you know, the positivity and our continued support pushes forwards that, you know, reality. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because we're just circulating the culture of violence and we could also be compassionate for the people who are too ignorant to understand the interdependent nature of the violence and how it's circulating in the society among the soldiers. The suicide of the day was the last statistic I heard and so, yeah. And there's, you know, they also the evil intent with money, where it becomes a selfish act and, you know, people are too consumed by it. And that brings in other things like violence and creates this issue that we have now. I don't know how many of you have nominated this letter, if any other step up. Have anything to comment. No, thank you. Thank you for that input. Kathy Vogan. I will mention at this point, I'd like to give a really big thanks out to consortium news who yesterday. Yeah. Thank you consortium. Yesterday, just yesterday, got in touch with Claire Daley, MEP, who is part of the Assange Island as I am and several many other people are in Ireland. I'll give details about the group at the end of the end of the evening for people here from Ireland. But yes, just thank you consortium for coming on board. I for one was following the daily feedback that was given by consortium. And so at this point, I'm going to hand over to Kathy. Take off my headphones because now I'm monitoring on two machines. And so I was in the courtroom every day in September. I was there in London with consortium news when we were allowed to travel. And yeah, so the way it ended up was was terrible for. So Kathy, can you just vote? Can you just how many journalists were allowed in that that was one of the issues, wasn't it? In the bit there was probably I counted 16 in my group and I think there was about the same in the other group. So I know some of the journalists from the other group as well. That's how we figured out that there were two different groups. So somewhere between 30 and 40 journalists in the whole world. And I think there was about nine people who were live tweeting. I was one of them. So following it very closely. And it was it was absolutely brilliant that Julian appeared to be on the verge of getting released. The judge did say, and now I order his discharge. They were the last words of her judgment. And then, well, then, then they cleared up and the junior prosecutor jumped up and said, well, the US is going to appeal this. Now it was an awful decision in terms of press freedom, because it's the espionage act that just has its bottom line is that you're not allowed to to receive or handle in part. Communicate to publish. You're not allowed to publish classified information at all. This is an old law from 1917. We have, there is a similar law in the, in fact, a source law in the UK called the Official Secrets Act. And what she did was she established equivalence between the espionage act in the United States and the Official Secrets Act. We also, I'm in Australia, and we also have the 1914 Crimes Act, which is common origin. So we have that updated in 2018 as the espionage and foreign interference act, which brings us to into lockstep with the 1917 espionage act. Now this is a really, really terrible thing for press freedom. That's why people were glad that this was a good result for Julian or it appeared to be initially, but it was a terrible, a terrible result. Because there were a number of points that Judge Baratza addressed fairly briefly. But, you know, she, she agreed with just about everything that the US said in terms of what Julian Assange did as being a crime, and they would be a crime in the, in the UK as well. The only reason that she let him go was there was a Mr. Copleman. He was a psychiatrist who gave a fantastic testimony. And he managed, he told a lot of Julian's personal medical history, psychiatric history. We were subjected to that for three days. I was going undergoing extreme depression at the end of those three days. It was somebody's private life, the private life of his family, antecedents of suicide in his family, things that really, you know, were terribly humiliating for Julian. But those were the things that were going to save his life. A former, the former head of extraditions at the Crown Prosecution Service said that that, that defense that he was likely to, with his intelligence and determination and condition, be likely to complete a suicide in the US. So, you know, that would have been a terrific embarrassment. Now, this is the, this is the reason that he was not extradited. The ruling was that he was to be discharged. But, you know, during the appeal, Claire Dobbent, she was the one, wasn't the other senior prosecutor, Peter James Lewis. Claire Dobbent's first words in the appeal were, Madam, your ruling hangs by a single thread, as if, you know, the conditions in US prisons and somebody suiciding because it is just so awful, were as thin as a thread. But, you know, the US has decided to even go after the claim or the belief that the judge was absolutely convinced that he would kill himself. And they want to negate that as well. As well. It's, it's, it's, it's a real good chance. And I can only hope that with the Trump administration gone now that the Biden administration will revert to the state of, I suppose it was a state of limbo that the Julian's case was in. But, but, but in 2016 or 17, I'm not quite sure. We read in the Washington Post that the Obama administration had run into the New York Times problem. And that, that meant exactly Jenny as, as, as was said, in, in, in our theatrical presentation of the trial that, you know, that that was, sorry, that was, I am very, very tired. And one came up and no, I should just leave it there. If can I ask you what can I ask you just a very brief question. If they prosecuted Julian, they would have to prosecute the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, El Pace, and, and there were plenty of other news outlets that printed the same material as WikiLeaks. My personal opinion is that WikiLeaks were targeted because they were a small organization, they were a soft target. And Julian was chosen, as you said, as an example. And a revolutionary publishing company, they changed everything by the drop down box and enabling people to disclose information. It was easy, you know, a lot easier. And, and then Julian having those partnerships, you know, with, with Der Spiegel with, with the Guardian with the New York Times meant that that information and the risk that people were taking that that information that she did get out there. But I'm aware that you're tired but just a quick question while you're with us in terms of what you were saying in terms of the Espionage Act, I know that Daniel Ellsberg also testified. And so what was that really, was that referred to at all with buried stuff. And secondly, on from that, you know, isn't. Testified and he was magnificent. And he argued against the senior prosecutor James Lewis. Extremely wild. There was also Trevor Tim. You know, First Amendment expert James Lewis didn't know that he had legal qualifications, but he was a member of the New York bar, which he said he was a member of the New York bar, which is quite difficult to get into I've heard. So that that threw the prosecutor off a little bit, because he his job was to just discredit the testimony of every expert witness, but I will tell you something. There was a forensic examiner examiner that that worked at Fort Mate, and he was a supervisor of many other forensic examiners, and he totally refuted of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion totally refuted it. And yet, that was that was totally ignored. And in the race is really. She brought up things that were in the second superseding indictment for which she gave no time to the defense when that suddenly popped up a year late. They requested time to actually prepare a defense against all these new indictable fences that had been mentioned. And yet she mentioned those things which were intended to establish some kind of pattern of encouraging people to hack. She she she cited those. She even cited him helping Edward Snowden escape. So, yeah, it was a very, very terrible day, but let's hope that it doesn't last too long. Our legal expert Alexander Mercos, he has said that this, you know, refusal to extradite on medical grounds is a very, very hard one to overturn and he knew of no case where it was successful. So I think we can have some hope that. Well, you know, you never know. It's very hard to tell with Julian. It's been a, I've been following this case for 10 years and it's been an absolute helter skelter of hope and then despair. You know, you want the guy to go free. And it's more about, you know, it would be great if if we got those kinds of revelations still that we were getting in 2010 and 2011. It would be truly great. WikiLeaks have brought out some fantastic things since the both seven releases in 2017, which was about the CIA's cyber arsenal that that left the building. For which Josh, you're short. The alleged whistleblower has been held. We just heard today and appalling conditions with rats in his cell. Well, that that is for people who don't know much about WikiLeaks. That one is really worth reading. That was very embarrassing and that was all to hack our Samsung televisions, our phones and every every platform. These these exploits instead of giving this knowledge of the vulnerabilities to the tech companies like Apple and exploits for everything to population. This is anyone that allegedly overseas, but there was the capability to to do it domestically. And where is this man being held, Kathy? Yeah, it was a thank you. Thank you. Please look into that and support Josh was short. He's been there two years. And yet his case is not coming. That's been convicted. And there's no plumbing. There's no electricity, heating, I should say, no air conditioning is shivering. There was a list of all the clothes that he's wearing to try and keep warm. Somewhat like Julian was in Belmarsh when they turned the heating off when it failed apparently. But it's it's it's appalling. It's he has described it shorter has described it as a fate worse than death. So this is very comparable to to Chelsea Manning's conditions and torture. But I would assume that there are other prisoners in the Metropolitan Correctional Centre that are undergoing the same conditions and this place really has to be cleaned up a bit. Just to make this to be made sense to be made sense. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you. I'm just going to read a couple of responses, if I may, that have come through. So someone here was put put in do you do you really think that Julian could get the Nobel Prize this person is asking. We all know that there is arrangements and corruption for the nomination. That was something that just came in that just came in from from from someone. I'm not I'm not going to give a name to anyone. You're just very free to to ask any questions at all. And. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it really is about action at the moment really and the concerns that, you know, this doesn't linger on for too long, you know, because I, I think it was a couple of maybe last week being in lockdown the time seems to merge in slightly but I think it was last week. Stella Morris had issued a tweet about Julian's cell condition still. And then there's the issue of COVID-19 in that wing as well at Belmarsh. So, you know, speed is of the essence there. And so, talking of speed what I will do now is I'm just going to relaunch our final poll. There's two questions there should Julian Assange be extradited. Yes or no. Oh, I apologize. This is. This is showing the same poll. Apologize. Well, we had 100%. So, I would presume that we, we remain that Julian shouldn't be extradited. And if there's anyone here from Ireland that would like to get involved with the free Assange Island campaign, and then I will put my. I will put the email address in the chat and please feel free to ask a question to or make a comment or a suggestion. I have a suggestion and a bit of a comment. We're all worried about the future and Julian's freedom is part of that and freedom of speech and it's all been taken from us. And we've all seen people protesting both violently over in places like Holland over the last few days. And in London peacefully. I think we should be moving forward peacefully. But there's also the fact that we need to come together and unite and in the groups that we have here that are all on the same wavelength. There's an idea that I came up with and I'm trying to kind of promote and put across. And Saint Patrick's Day being Irish. I know it's celebrated all over the world in every country all over the world, all over the world. And it could be a very good time to try and unite people coming out into the parks. So you just go to your local park and go out and meet your neighbors in your community to discuss our futures together. There's no common goal with a common goal of change so that our futures at the moment have been taken from us. Our rights being eroded. Pretty Patel in the UK is changing. Making laws that will be now illegal to protest against government against police and mainstream media. The signs are here where tyranny is coming around us and groups like ourselves trying to spread the good word. But I think Saint Patrick's Day for 2021 is a great time for us to maybe try and unite humanity in a common goal of change. And that's part of the free speech where they're taking away from our protesting. Processing isn't really working. They're breaking people up all over, whether it's with force or warning them to go home with fines. I've got two of these fines already. And I think it's time that we start to unite in our kind of thoughts and feelings for our freedoms together. That's really it. Thank you. Yeah, Saint Patrick's Day is actually cancelled here in Ireland for the second year. Oh yeah, I can imagine but I'm definitely going to celebrate it. Yeah. Any other thoughts? Yeah, I'd like to follow up and actually I try every day to spend quite a bit of time in meditation every day and I try to send Julian my warm spirit even though it's not maybe scientifically proven yet. I do know from like Nelson Mandela's autobiography and other like Terry Waits and other political prisoners going back to Frederick Douglass that them knowing that people outside were thinking of them all day long. And I hope also Stella, I mean he's probably, I feel like it would be offensive to say anything about meditation but they use those technologies that are available to help the mind in the isolated case while he's in isolation. And then also I had the idea that in, especially like in North America where it's supposed election a lot of people still have their yard signs from their favorite candidate that they put in their front yard when they were in the presidential campaign and if they put in support for Julian, then I think it would show the bipartisan support and it doesn't depend on people gathering in public but people driving. They will see this and if you're in the city you could put it in your window and somehow give some show your solidarity because this is very bipartisan. I think it's good to people from all over and diverse locations and they're all very worried about Julian and they feel that he's represented their wishes to know the public interest that he published. And talking of publishing, writing to Julian Assange and it is a lovely quote that I'm going to give any message from outside is a light in the darkness. And the bigger the post bag, the better the prisoner is treated. And maybe you can post how we send if there's an address maybe you can put it in the chat window or. Yeah, I, if that person could supply the address. I didn't go out of this page for to crash the whole thing. And I haven't got it to hand at the moment. Yeah, I think it's going to come back quite soon. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just coming through. Yeah. One of the things that we've been speaking about hot potato has been to do almost a verbatim style theater piece and to do to to include the to include, you know, the by verbatim. It's not really meaning to do it from the transcripts of the court case. We've had, we've been getting quite good audiences. The issue that we've been facing in the last couple of months has been that Facebook have been censoring us. This began with a trailer that featured a clip of collateral murder. And from there on, it's then extended to Facebook posts and events, I cannot boost them. So that obviously has as you know, huge implications there. Okay, so I'm just looking at. I did. Yeah, he's you. So it's Mr. Julian Assange ideas for the date of birth, the third of July 1971. And then let me just. And hopefully consortium news will share they will see that our attempts to show solidarity and support for the family and the kids. Mom and Dad and now. Yeah, so the ID number is a 93 79 a Y. And that is Belmarsh prison. Can you repeat that? Yeah, sure. If you go into chat, you'd see it. Yeah, go into chat and it's there. Yeah. Someone else. If you go into chat now, you'll get a direct link to write Julian.com. So all the information will be there. Yeah. But certainly in Ireland, our group has gone from strength to strength. We've got 24 TDS that have signed our statement. And we're asking people now to lobby their local TDS and approach our Foreign Minister Simon Coveney to grant political asylum to Julian Assange. And this is just, we've got two or three TDS, we've got two TDS that are going to be approaching. The issue there is calls that with COVID-19 everything is sort of is changed and come to a little bit of a standstill. But things are, you know, the momentum is really growing, I feel, in terms of the, you know, the global organizations that are happening and the internet that links us all together. So that, that is, that is our hope that by that solidarity and, you know, we keep the pressure up. We have to keep the pressure up. Yeah. Okay, so, yeah, there's also a French group as well. And it looks as though we've got people from France here. We've got the states. We've got Ireland. We've got someone from England. And so thank you very much, everyone for joining. And, and thank you Kathy again. What time is it with you Kathy over there. It's 17 in the morning. Oh, wow. Sorry for having a. Oh, thanks there. Thank you very much. There's one last thing I'd like to say. And that is that the whole thing about UC global spying on behalf of the American friends that case is still active in Spain. And because it was still active. Just pushed it aside, even though two witnesses that in common between the assault case and the Spanish case actually testified that anonymous witnesses that case is going to conclude. We should keep an eye on that, because once that does conclude, this is really going to feed into Julian's case and produce an enormous scandal. The other thing that was a very, very significant fact, and this was something that the rates have took into account. The expert witness more in bed, who former prison officer who was responsible for special administrative measures, this is terrible solitary confinement for the rest of your life. So, you know, she, she was re questioned by the defense and asked if the intelligence agencies had to say on whether a prisoner gets Sam's. And she said yes. They have a strong say. And she was asked specifically the CIA. And she said yes. So you have the CIA spying and the CIA, who are able to actually give the advice that he gets put away, locked away, never speak to anybody again. So this is this is very, very corrupt, end to end corruption. And, yeah, you could put two and two together and think that that vault said seven release in 2017 that embarrassed the CIA triggered a terrible act of revenge. And with that kind of power, you know, over so many countries, we even heard in the in the in the hearing that Italy and Germany had been bullied. And they wanted to have CIA people extradited, and they will they will just warned against it just drop it. So this is a terrible thing. But we need to keep our eye on that you see global case. On that point to it. It's interesting to wonder if they're using that data that they have captured from their video surveillance for any kind of experimentation, like running game theory algorithm test and that kind of thing because if that was true. There would also be another Geneva Convention violation against scientific experiments on person. And then also his abuse of privacy and demoralization is also covered in that. Sorry, I was going to say the CIA came out many years ago, testing from Yahoo webcams, thousands and thousands of hours of people testing their facial recognition. But what brought it out in the news was the fact that they most people were using it for adult use. So they were doing very private things at the time. So when you're speaking about the Geneva Convention that like it did this is already known probably eight, 10 years ago that they basically hacked into Yahoo and collected all of that for their facial recognition. And the voice recognition that we use on our phones, all of that can be taken and is being used as metadata. And it will, I feel it's being collected for a reason. Just to answer your question, the US case for the prosecution assured the crown, the judge that any data that was taken from the surveillance, the UC global surveillance would not be used in the case against Julian Assange and the UK was supposed to naively believe that. That's a Cromberg statement. Well, I will let us affirm also nonviolent nature of the activism by so many of us and that we're following in like Muhammad Gandhi's footsteps and miss Patel and she call on her Indian roots if she has any there. And think back to, you know, the legacy and that the longer this case just drags on the longer the record of the court for the human history that this gets put out. And so I even think I heard the chorus also say that, you know, the High Court is is appalled at this whole thing, you know, so far is what he's guessing. Yeah, I mean, I didn't hear him say he's quoting anybody but he was. Yeah, and I think that our children our grandchildren our future generations will look back at this as an atrocity and that it's just making it worse prolonging it and let we need to move the healing. And this is a good opportunity for the Biden to try to get off. I know there's a lot of, you know, issues that can be symbolized, but, you know, to try to get on the right foot, set up on the right foot, especially because this is a bipartisan support for this. In this case, I mean for Julian and others like him and the political prisoners that have come up along the war. So, yeah, and so for us to continue with the nonviolent activism, including hunger strikes of course when the war whether gets warmer, you can do tents like in India they do they set out tents and they sometimes give somebody a IV drip. So you could do 24 webcams and buy people in their apartment or room and doing, you could do tag team hunger strikes actions too. So that's a popular method of nonviolent activism used in India in Nepal. But word recently, that this is from somebody who was involved with the grand jury who wrote the he wrote the indictment of former prosecutors resigned now. But the word is that the Biden administration may not want to dedicate the resources. So the figure was tossed around a COVID relief package of $1.7 trillion. And I thought at first, well, America doesn't have the resources. But when that kind of money is going into the COVID relief package, I can understand now that the US has got better things to do. It's money. And that's to heal a very, very sick nation. That is good news Kathy. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that glimmer of hope there. Thank you. Okay. I think we will end there unless there's any anything else that anybody wants to add. Just one thing before we go. And now we're saying that we have is a Chucky our law, which means our day will come. So everybody stay positive. Don't forget the power of praying and positive thought and that the universe we're all connected. And if we have that positive thought and go forward that way. And we shall have one day. Yeah, we'll say it will say it case. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and thank you. Thanks for organizing everyone and consortium Joe and Elizabeth thanks and Kathy everybody's work hard work persisted in the journalist team as everybody. I'll see you tomorrow.