 Let's start off with probably the most painful topic. Yeah. Mutual friend, Julian Assange. You managed somehow to spend some hours with him. Yes, I visited him last week at the Belmarsh High Security Prison. Together with his wonderful dad, John Shifton. We did get two hours and John was so nice. He allowed me to use up that to our slot to have a very long conversation with Julian. Look, two words. Gratuitous cruelty. That characterizes his treatment in that prison. He should not be in prison at all. I mean, he's not been, he's not, he's not been in charge of anything really. That... Well, it's time to be treasoned against a country of which he is not a citizen with allegations that took place outside that country. Well, at the moment, he's not being held in the United States. He's held in the United Kingdom. This is an extradition hearing that he should be bailed. And even if he is not bailed, there's no excuse for having him in a high security prison where he's locked up for a minimum of 22, sometimes 23 hours a day that you do to somebody that you're trying slowly to murder. And it's completely disanalogous out of proportion with what is going on, which is a hearing for extradition. Is it inevitable, in your view, that he will be extradited? No, I don't believe in inevitability. It's possible. It keeps me up at night. But I would like to imagine that at the upper echelons of the British justice system, there are high court judges or Supreme Court judges that will assert their independence because the case is very clear. Three questions. Firstly. Is this a political offence or is this a criminal offence? Because if it is a political offence, the United Kingdom does not extradite to the United States according to the treaty, even for political offences. Secondly, should he get a fair trial? Is there any chance that he will get a fair trial in the United States? It's clear that there is zero probability of that. We know how the system works there when treason is on the table. And thirdly, would you survive prison there, the supermax prison system? There's no doubt you wouldn't. Already, his health has deteriorated massively. Already, the UN reporter on torture and 165 doctors have ruled that. So I haven't seen him since the Ecuadorian Embassy years ago now. And even then, I feared for him. And he's been out of the lie. He's been out of the sunlight, not the spotlight for so long. Yeah. And what is quite astonishing is that basic rights that all sorts of prisoners have, the worst murderers on on earth, he has been denied. He has been applying now for eight months to be given the opportunity to exercise in the gym with other prisoners. He's been denied that. He's been regularly denied the only opportunity he has for walking, which is he 30 minutes a day in a very confined yard where you can he can barely see the gray skies you know, around the Belmarsh prison through the the walls. And that even that, for instance, the day when I visited him because he got to ours with me, he was denied that 30 minutes of walking around. If you look at the way in which he's being treated inside the courthouse, so he's behind a glass container, looking like head of Eichmann. Yeah, not allowed to confer with his lawyers. And this is an extradition treaty. It is quite astonishing. Is he surviving mentally? He's in a very dark place. He told me and he asked me to convey this to you and to others. That there have been moments when he felt he lost his mind. When I asked him whether he agrees entirely with the legal strategy of his lawyers, he confessed that he's not 100 percent sure that he can pass judgment on them given the state of his mind, at which point, of course, I said, or indeed, given the same access to them. Indeed. And also the next day when the court case the next day after I saw him when he turned back from court with notes he had taken during the case, his notes were confiscated. You know, he he he yes, they were confiscated. So he has no he's not he's he's denied the opportunity to be part of his own defence. And, you know, one wonders what signal are the British authorities trying to send? Costa Costa Gavras made a film which I greatly admired many, many years ago. The Confession, which was a show trial about a Czech politician. Even he wasn't treated as harshly, it seems, as as Julian is now. Well, let me mention another person that you know and love. And I'm sure you've interviewed in the past, Dan Ellsberg. Dan did not have to suffer this. He was tried. The Nixon administration attempted to somehow imprison him for a very long time. He was given his day in court. He had the opportunity to defend himself together with his lawyers. And he beat them. Julian is being denied every such recourse to a proper justice system. But going back to your point about optimism, I do believe that there are judges further up, maybe not at this level of the court case, but when we appeal whatever decision is, well, the negative decision that I predict at this level. I would like to believe that there are high court judges that want to declare their independence, both from the British deeper state and from the United States. Of course, the woman who's currently sitting in judgment on on Julian should recuse herself. She's got a link. Well, her husband is linked to Wiki to WikiLeaks. What happened is it works for a company that was involved in defence procurement, which was exposed by WikiLeaks. If there is a case of a conflict of interest leading to somebody, a judge accusing herself or himself, that's it. And this is remarkable that she's not doing it. And nobody is forcing her to do it. Do you sense a sense of humor, surviving on Julian? I may see him an odd question, but... Yes, I do. I do. There is this twinkling in his eye. He's the way in which he was looking at his jailers, the way in which he was assessing what was going on in the room when we were together and pointing out possible locations of microphones. Of course, we were being eavesdropped. He did this all in good humor. But since we are on the subject, if you may allow me to mention another great Australian that you had on this program in association with Julian, somebody I truly admire and who is an icon, Jermaine Greer. I mean, you had her on the program some time ago, and I remember intensely listening to her when she dismissed his fears, Julian's fears, that the whole Swedish affair was intended for him to be in the end extradited. And she said, ah, he's never going to be. This is not it. His lawyers are misleading him into thinking that there is any possibility of him being extradited to the United States for their own purposes. Now, I mentioned Jermaine because she's such a wonderful person and such a powerful intellectual and such a force for good. As if you want symbolic of many, many good people who have issues with Julian, I have issues with Julian. I mean, I often fight with Julian when he came out in favor of Brexit that broke my heart and we had a big fight. I would like people like Jermaine Greer to turn around now and say, look, I don't like you, mate, but I was wrong. The whole thing was about putting you in a black hole, somewhere deeply in the supermax prison of the United States and losing the key. There's quite a lot of people have reconsidered and seeing the abyss into which Julian may well be shoved are now sharing our concerns. Indeed. And for what? For doing journalism. That's why they are trying to destroy his soul and his body. That's what really irks them. The last time you and I talked about this, we had hopes that Jeremy Corbyn might do a little bit better at the election. And of course, Corbyn was somewhat inclined to intervene. There's no doubt that Jeremy wanted to intervene, but you've got to remember that Jeremy was hamstrung by a Labour Party on almost every issue that was trying to undermine him. And the result, of course, was the general election result. But I have to say that Jeremy made an intervention at Prime Minister's Question Time very recently, the last two weeks, in which he laid down the merits of Julian's case. And to my great surprise, and I have to say gratification, Boris Johnson responded in a humane and very unboris-like way. He didn't mention anything about national security. He didn't say anything about treason or espionage. He responded on the merits of the civil liberties issue in a way that, well, maybe it was just, you know, a momentary lapse into decency. But if that continues, maybe, maybe there is another glimmer of hope, not just from high court judges, but also from this prime minister. As you know, I have your asio file on the desk in front of me and riffling through the pages. I see that in some ways Boris Johnson's a bit of a fan of yours. Well, I have been cursed by being cited by a number of Tories and Brexiteers over the last four years as somebody to be listened to, you know, carefully. He made through clenched ears. Michael Go, for instance, wrote a brilliant review of one of my books, focusing on my criticism of the European Union and ignoring, of course, the fact that they campaigned against Brexite. So there has been this really very funny and somehow disturbing acceptance of my word from several Tories. But, you know, what can you do? You can't choose your enemies or your friends for a matter. Now, the extradition hearing is due to resume on the 18th of May. Yes. When both sides will present evidence to back up their cases. Indeed. Our good friend John's case is going to be there. I will be going. Many friends of Julian's will be there. We need to fight this case because, you know, if there is a civil rights case in Europe today, it's this. I keep getting whispers that this or that federal politician or that side of Australian politics is thinking seriously about doing something, but one doubts it. They've had plenty of time. It's a fantastic opportunity for Liberals in parliament to demonstrate their concern for Australian sovereignty. This is an Australian citizen that is being simultaneously, on the one hand, persecuted for treason against a country which is not his on the basis of false accusations, of course. And secondly, simultaneously being denied his first amendment rights.