 I'm delighted to be joining you for this Belmarsh Tribunal in Australia and I'm very sorry that I can't be there at home with you in person. A huge thank you to Progressive International for their work around the world including for this work raising awareness about the persecution of Julian Assange. As Julian's council I've been asked to address three points for you today. The first about the US indictment and the threat it poses to free speech. The second the extradition case and where we are with Julian's appeal and finally the abusive process that we've seen in this case. On the indictment Julian faces 175 years in prison for committing acts of journalism and for the very same publications for which he's won awards the world over including the Walkley Award for most outstanding contribution to journalism and the Sydney Peace Prize medal. The indictment includes 17 separate counts under the Espionage Act for receipt possession and publication of information. As the Washington Post and the New York Times have made clear this indictment criminalizes public interest journalism. The freedom of the press foundation has described it as the most terrifying threat to free speech in the 21st century and they're right because it is. When it comes to the extradition case in short we're playing a waiting game. Julian won his case in early January 2021. The evidence before the court then was that if he was extradited to the United States he would be placed under prison conditions known as special administrative measures or SAMS which have been described as the darkest black hole of the US prison system. The magistrate ruled that Julian's extradition would be oppressive because medical evidence shows that if he is extradited and placed in those prison conditions he would suicide and on that basis she stopped his extradition. But the Trump administration appealed and in its last days sought to get around the court decision and shift the goal post by offering a conditional assurance that he would not be placed under SAMS. But as Amnesty International has said these US assurances aren't worth paper that they're written on. But in Julian's case it's worse than that because the US assurance was conditional. The US only promised not to place him under SAMS unless they decide that he later deserves it and who decides this? The CIA and he would have no right to appeal that decision. As many of you will remember we learned through important investigative journalism that the CIA had planned to kidnap and kill Julian and this is the very same intelligence agency which will have the power and law to place Julian once extradited to the United States under prison conditions that doctors say will cause his suicide. Nevertheless the British courts accepted this US assurance without Julian having the opportunity to contest that assurance with evidence at trial and in June last year the Home Secretary ordered his extradition to the United States. An appeal was filed in August last year but we are yet to hear from the High Court on whether he will be granted permission to appeal and we have no idea when that decision will come. It could be tomorrow and it could be in months. All the while Julian languishes in Belmarsh prison having already served longer in prison than the US prosecutors claim he will serve if he's ever extradited to the United States. It is an absurd case and an absurd position for him to be in. Finally I want to address the issue of abusive process. The organizers have asked me to address why due process isn't working and why the case should never have been started in the first place. So let me take those points in inverse order. The case should never have been started. Since 2010 I've been saying like a broken record that the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange will set a dangerous precedent that will be used to criminalize the rest of the media. It was the Obama administration that opened the investigation but ultimately chose not to prosecute because of the quote unquote New York Times problem. The exact problem that we've been warning about because you cannot distinguish between what Julian does and what the New York Times does. So criminalizing him will be used to criminalize everyone else but Trump had no such plans and it became clear that he would use the precedent against the rest of the media which he called the enemy of the people. We now have a Biden administration who is continuing this prosecution despite it being in violation of its own policy or not prosecuting the media and despite the raft of politicization and due process concerns that arose under the Trump administration and with this prosecution in the first place. But before I get on to that it's clear that there are principled free speech reasons why this case should never have been pursued and should be ended immediately. But it gets worse. Even if we leave aside these free speech concerns the due process violation should stop this case in its tracks. The abusive process in Julian's case is far worse than anything we saw in the prosecution of the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Dan Ellsberg under the Nixon administration. In Dan's case the prosecution was thrown out and with prejudice which meant it could never be brought again because government officials broke into his psychiatrist's office. In Julian's case he's been spied on, his medical appointments have been spied on, his meetings with the arses lawyers have been spied on, I have personally been spied on and legally privileged material has been seized. As Dan himself said in evidence in Julian's expedition challenge what Julian has faced is far worse than the abusive process he faced under the Nixon administration. In my opinion we should all be asking ourselves the question if the abuse that took place under the Nixon administration was enough to have the prosecution of Dan Ellsberg thrown out in the 1970s then what does it say about our democracy in 2023 if the prosecution of Julian Assange continues. To conclude and finally I want to recognise and pay tribute to Dan Ellsberg while I have the opportunity a deeply principled whistleblower and anti-war campaigner who risked everything to ensure the public had information that they needed about the Vietnam War and helped to bring that hopeless war to an end. With his moral authority Dan has been one of the most important advocates for Julian and I cannot thank him enough for his work. He's just been told that he's been given six months to live and has shared that news with characteristic courage and dignity. He continues to inspire me and he will leave this life a hero. As Dan himself said in Julian's expedition proceedings history will reflect on this case. Dan explained that he was vilified after leaking the Pentagon papers and that it was only many years later and today that he's recognised as a hero. He believes Julian has been vilified too just as he was and that history will remember Julian as a hero just as they remember Dan as a hero. But how will history reflect on the fact that Julian has now spent almost 13 years under restrictions on his liberty? I think the answer is that it won't reflect well. So let's do all we can to ensure his freedom. Thank you for what you're all doing and thank you for being here today.